Mike Tomkies

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Mike Tomkies The Wilderness Man (born May 25, 1928), is a British nature writer.

He worked as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s.

After serving in the Coldstream Guards (where he was an army athlete), including active service in Palestine. He worked as a newspaper reporter and was a successful amateur cycle racer.

An attempt to sail around the world in 1952 ended with him being shipwrecked and having to walk 400 miles from Lisbon to Madrid.

Working in Fleet Street, he interviewed stars including Ava Gardner (just after her divorce from Frank Sinatra); Mario Lanza, Elvis Presley, Sophia Loren, Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, Clark Gable, Dean Martin, Rock Hudson, Jayne Mansfield, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Joan Collins, Peter O'Toole and Sean Connery.

At 38 he decideed to start a new life in Canada.

Later, Tomkies found Eilean Shona, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland. There he rebuilt a wooden crofthouse which had been used as a shelter for sheep and began observing and writing about nature.

He had a cottage at Gaskan on the shore of Loch Shiel, which he named "Wildernesse", and where he wrote several of his books.

For eight years, his only companion was his german shepherd dog, Moobli

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