Role models and true stories of delight

From 16Guidelines

Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall has taken delight in the natural world ever since she was born. At the age of eighteen months, her mother Vanne remembered gently dissuading her daughter from taking some worms to bed. A few years later, she frightened the adults by disappearing for hours under some hay in the henhouse to wait for a chicken to lay an egg. ‘It was Jane’s first animal research programme’ her mother commented later.

When the renowned anthropologist and palaeontologist Dr. Louis Leakey met Jane in 1957, he was drawn to her natural capacity for enthusiasm and delight. He had been looking for someone to carry out a study of chimpanzees, and believed that a mind uncluttered by academia would yield a fresh perspective. It was the breakthrough that Jane had been waiting for. Later on, she would say: ‘Chimpanzees have given me so much. The long hours spent with them in the forest have enriched my life beyond measure.’

Dr Goodall has been criticised for giving names rather than numbers to the chimpanzees that she studied at Gombe in Tanzania. However her capacity for joy and empathy has been an essential aspect of her research methodology. The first chimpanzee to lose his fear of Jane during her time at Gombe was the male she had named David Greybeard. She was sitting near him one day when she noticed a palm nut lying on the ground. She held it out for him on the palm of her hand. At first he looked away, but then turned to look into her eyes. He took the nut, dropped it on the ground, and gently squeezed her hand. She has described this simple moment as the most significant experience in her many years of working with chimpanzees.

Believing that "we have the choice to use our lives to make the world a better place," Jane gave up her own research to become a social and environmental campaigner. The goal of the Jane Goodall Institute is "to advance the power of individuals to take informed and compassionate action to improve the environment of all living things". She has also set up an international youth initiative called Roots and Shoots. She says "my greatest source of hope for the future is the energy, commitment and often the courage of young people when they know the problems and are empowered to act. They are changing the world".

Joshua Bell

In January 2007 a scruffy man in jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap emerged from the subway in Washington DC, USA and lifted a priceless Stradivarius violin to his chin. It was the height of the morning rush hour, and 1097 people passed by during the 43 minutes that he played six of the most sensational pieces in the violin repertoire. Called Pearls before Breakfast, this was an experiment organised by the Washington Post to see whether Joshua Bell, one of the most accomplished musicians in the world, was capable of distracting people from their headlong rush to work. The answer was pretty much no. It took 6 minutes before anyone stopped, and all he collected was small change. Every time a child walked past they were visibly drawn to the music, but then dragged away by the adult who accompanied them.

Gene Weigarten, ‘Pearls Before Breakfast’, The Washington Post, 8th April 2007 (c) 2007, The Washington Post Writers Group.