THERE'S not much that scares bubbly TV presenter, producer and natural history buff Philippa Forrester. Since the former Tomorrow's World host and her family moved to the wilds of Wyoming six years ago, she has encountered grizzly bears on the school run, been charged by moose and eyed up by wolves. But she doesn't scare easily.
There was one incident when she was outside her vehicle in Yellowstone National Park, unaware that a bear was on the other side of the car.
"But that was just a black bear," she explains nonchalantly, "very unlikely to attack you. He wasn't in attack mode, he was in foraging mode."
She was slightly less calm with a charging moose, she admits.
"If you're in the woods, it's hard to see them," she explains. "Moose can be really dangerous and want to see that you are running away. If you can't actually get away fast you can hide behind a tree, which is what I did. They're not very good at working out where you are."
And wolves? "They are not going to attack you," she says confidently. "The incidence of human attacks is so small. They'll look at you. They are not going to run away straight away."
Today we meet via Zoom, with Forrester at home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she is, like the rest of us, in lockdown but in good spirits.
Being an outdoorsy type, former Robot Wars presenter Forrester (51) is in an ideal spot with plenty of open space for exercise, she observes.
"We are so lucky because I have the town square three blocks away on one side and the mountain one block away on the other. We can walk and still have way beyond safe distances."
The move to the US was initially sparked by her fascination with wolves, which led her to take on a National Geographic assignment, relocating with her family to Wyoming for a year while on the trail of these wild creatures in Yellowstone National Park.
During that time she not only witnessed wolves, but also met larger-than-life characters who spoke both for and against these much maligned creatures, including rangers, conservationists, trophy-hunters and ranch owners to find out why people love them and hate them. Her latest book, On The Trail Of Wolves, charts her adventures.
She and her family – she's married to wildlife photographer Charlie Hamilton James and they have three sons – initially lived in in a remote log cabin. There were only 13 other kids in her children's school and the nearest pint of milk was an hour and 25 minutes' drive away.
"My only issue was missing my friends, particularly at school. I had three kids in the same school in England. I knew everyone from practically every year. But the rest of it? I loved every minute of it," she says.
But how did her three children, Fred, Arthur and Gus – then 13, 10 and seven – cope with the move away from their pals?
"Well, because I brought a suitcase of Lego it was an easy transition," she says, laughing. "I have travelled the world with Lego."
The biggest change from life in the UK has been the weather.
"It's snow not rain. Every time you have a rain shower, we have a snow shower. In summer it's hot. And we have lakes. It's so beautiful and you can really get out hiking when the snow's gone."
It's been well documented how in 2016, her son Fred, then 15, was diagnosed with a brain tumour after he started struggling to concentrate at school and suffering severe exhaustion and blinding headaches.
When his condition deteriorated and their eye doctor recommended an MRI scan, they made the three-hour drive from their isolated rural home to the hospital, after which the tumour was discovered. The teenager was flown to a children's hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he underwent a four-hour operation to remove it.
"He's doing great now. He has to return to hospital every year for tests," she says.
It was an extremely traumatic experience, but she says now: "You feel really blessed, which is an odd thing to say when your son's had a brain tumour. But we saw what other people were going through with their children and we got to walk out of the hospital with our boy. There's something really humbling about that."
She's now working on a novel centred on wolves and hopes to teach presenting skills on a variety of platforms. Would she ever be tempted to return to the UK?
"I'm always open to it, but it's not something I've really thought about," Forrester reflects. "It would be tough and we often talk about it as a family, and I think we all suspect we'll end up back in the UK, but when I don't know."
:: On The Trail Of Wolves by Philippa Forrester is published by Bloomsbury on May 14, priced £16.99.
