Unsavory Origins: Allan Savory’s Memoir, Holistic Management & A Life Without Blame

A life on the edge can sharpen your senses. That’s the unmistakable feeling of hearing Allan Savory recount the untold stories in and around Unsavory, his new memoir spanning childhood, wildlife, war, political exile, and the birth of Holistic Management - the extraordinary global movement regenerating the world’s grasslands, and by extension, everything else. 

Allan shares why he resisted writing a memoir and what changed, largely thanks to Jody Butterfield, former journalist wife of over 40 years, and co-founder of the Savory Institute and the Africa Centre for Holistic Management; and Bobby Gill, SI’s Director of Development and Communications, and self-described ‘reformed biomedical engineer turned systems thinker’, prompted by his time as lead scientific reviewer for the US FDA.

The conversation weaves personal turning points with systemic insights: exile in the Caymans and a home emptied; the unlikely, letter-born partnership with Jody; field intuition that saved lives; and the hard-won habit of swallowing bitter pills early to hasten a path to wisdom. 

This story isn’t a promise of a silver bullet, but a way to proceed. We also talk about what it would take for one government to model a statesmanlike pivot that others can follow. There’s levity too - army pranks, 'the red dress', cricket framing life, and death - and we close with a moving reading of Kipling’s If. 

Now the book is out in the world, I asked Allan, Jody and Bobby, if they would gather with me to talk about it – Allan and Jody from Zimbabwe, and Bobby from Spain.

If this conversation moved you, share it with someone who influences land, policy, or capital. Follow for more and leave a review so others can find it.

Allan in one of this pod's most popular eps.

Allan’s TED talk with 9 million views. 

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 23 February 2026.

Music:

Call Me Voodoo, by Mooveka (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Transcript

Welcome, Book Launch, And Catch‑ups

AJ 0:10

G'day there, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration with the stories that are changing the story towards the holistic management of life on this planet. Brought to you by listeners like you. Please subscribe if you can, join a ripping little community, and help keep the show on the road. Allan Savory's memoir has just been released. It's called Unsavory: African Stories of Wildlife, War, and the Birth of Holistic Management, a way to celebrate turning 90. It's billed as the untold stories behind holistic management, the extraordinary global movement for generating the world's grasslands, and by extension, everything else. I first met Allan on this podcast in late 2020 for what became, unsurprisingly, one of the most popular episodes and a personal fave. Partly because we went beyond the stories so many know so well, which is also why I loved reading Ellen's memoir. It's a fascinating, instructive, and enormously entertaining account of his first 50 years. Ellen's global influence is hard to overstate. He's the co-founder with former journalist wife of over 40 years, Jodie Butterfield, of the Sabre Institute and the Africa Centre for Holistic Management back home in Zimbabwe. His TED talk had been viewed over 7 million times when we first spoke five years ago. Now it's at 9 million. And it bears reminding that his most valued award was Australia's esteemed International Bank Seer Award for the person doing the most for the environment on a global scale. Since our first chat, we've kept in touch and wonderfully for me, met in person alongside Jody and the Saver Institute team for a snowy Denver dinner in late 2024. At that time, the memoir was nearing completion, and the stories I was hearing from Alan Jody and SI's Director of Development and Communications, Bobby Gill. Bobby, by the way, used to be a former elite ultramarathon runner who came to food and health that way and refers to himself as a reformed biomedical engineer turned systems thinker, prompted by his time as lead scientific reviewer for the US Food and Drug Administration. So, now the book is out in the world. Alan and Jody from Dimbangombe in Zimbabwe. And Bobby from his new home in Valencia, Spain. Hello, Jodie. Yeah, hello. Nice to see you. Yes, nice to see you. G'day, Alan.

Jody 2:47

Hi, good day.

AJ 2:49

How are you? Well, thank you. Hey Bobby. Hi, Bobby.

Bobby 2:53

Hi guys. Sorry I'm a few minutes late. Just run running back from dropping the baby off of daycare.

AJ 2:58

No worries. It gave us a chance to sort some sand out and say hi. How are you? Good, good. How's everyone? We're good. Yeah. How's the new home?

Bobby 3:07

Uh it's good. I mean, here in the city center of Valencia, and yesterday was the kickoff of the holiday season called Fias, which is basically where Valencia just goes absolutely insane with fireworks for about a month straight. So it's uh it started yesterday around 7 a.m. with a giant parade of everyone throwing firecrackers in the road, and then a giant like earthquake rattling uh fireworks display that's like 200 yards that way. Um, and then that happened twice throughout the day, and then marching bands going by all day long. So I'm glad that we're recording today and not yesterday.

AJ 3:53

Mind you, I do quite like the sound of the ambience. It would have added a little something. You thought Americans liked fireworks, huh?

Bobby 4:01

Oh my god, yeah. The Valencianos, they are insane. I mean, there's like little children that just have firecrackers that they're just throwing in all day long.

AJ 4:10

And that culture has translated to Latin America too, eh? Like I remember getting burned on my legs with kids throwing fireworks off the ground and ow.

Bobby 4:17

Yeah, I'm very grateful that our dog is not freaked out by fireworks because we have had dogs in the past that were just absolutely terrified. And thankfully, he'll be able to navigate over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, no problem.

Place, Ambience, And Life At Dimbangombe

AJ 4:34

Well, you guys, let's start with translating a bit of the feel. I mean, I guess Bobby, you've already done it, but some of the feel of perhaps where you guys are, Alan and Jody, knowing you're in Dimmangombi now, how is it feeling in the moment? Bring us in as if we were sitting around the table with you.

Allan 4:51

Um as I was sitting here trying to listen to you, the birds are chirping outside. And I don't know if you can hear them, but with my hearing aids, they were almost deafening. But it's lovely to be back amongst the animals and the birds as we sat by the campfire here just now having breakfast. It was so deafening I couldn't hear Jodie across the campfire talking to me. It's just the bird noises. Yeah, it's it's lovely to live amongst so much life.

AJ 5:22

I wish we could hear that more. That might be some of the platform's uh noise cancelling, which can otherwise be a friend, but in this moment, yeah, I can't.

Allan 5:30

Well, if we we'd been having this about two hours ago, that we couldn't have. The noise would have been like Bobby's fireworks he was talking about.

AJ 5:38

Magnificent. And Jody, how about Joe? I mean, this must be like a home for you too now, huh?

Jody 5:43

Oh, yes. I mean, it's 43 years, you know, we've been married, and so yes, we've been coming, spending half the year here. So yes, it does. But I think the big difference this time is that book's finished. And so every weekend, every spare hour, we're not working on that book. Um I can only imagine. That's and I said to Alan, look, isn't this amazing? We can take the weekend off. We can there's so many things we can do now that this is out there.

AJ 6:11

A new life.

Jody 6:12

So we did. So it's yeah, new life.

AJ 6:14

It's indeed where it started, huh? Well, you obviously had the you had the thought at some stage, and then you've got a few friends around the campfire, as I understand, is where it started about eight years ago at Din Bangombi.

How The Memoir Was Recorded And Shaped

Jody 6:26

We we we were afraid, I was especially afraid, Alan was never gonna write this book because he didn't want to write this book. He felt it was I don't know, it it it didn't feel right. It was a little uh he doesn't like to put himself out there personally, did and so it was it was awkward for him. And I said, well, look, let's at least just let's record the stories, because they're the stories were so incredible. And I said, people are gonna have no idea about this, so I want to get this recorded. And so Saber Institute actually helped us cover the cost to have our our good friend Gretel Ehrlich come out and her husband, who is he was very well known here, is on our national public radio. He had his own program and and um was very well known and and an excellent interviewer. And so they both came out and we spent hours around that campfire, Alan telling stories, and they and both of them would ask him questions and say, okay, well, what about this? And what did that lead to, or whatever? And so we at least had everything recorded, and then Neil, the Neil Conan, the her husband, he got it all transcribed for us. So we had everything. And so I said, Okay, Alan, look, we've got all this. And he said, Well, how do I I I don't even know where to begin. There are too many things all mixed together. We'll never uh how do you make sense of it? So he just said, Well, talk about your army days, talk about your game department days, and and then flashback. Flashback to so you can type, you know, all I mean, I had all kinds of great ideas, easier said than done. And but that's what he did. And he went through and wrote this whole thing out, probably three times the size it is now, but it it got there, and then we had a a good friend. I I don't I'm not sure at what point Bobby read this. And uh, but I think it was a little bit later than that because we thought, oh, everybody he he would go nuts if he if he saw this. And so we we had um a good friend of ours who we've collaborated with on our other book, Sam Bingham, said, Look, how do we make this flow? How does it go together? And and he helped us work on that and and again challenged Alan on things or said, Why did you ever do this? How do you explain? You were in the army and you were doing all the things you do in an army in a war, and and yet you're also fighting against the people who are on your side in the war. So, and and he said, and he was really good because he reminded Alan of, and we we mentioned it in the in the acknowledgments, he reminded Alan that, hey, you remember what von Clauswitz said? He's a German war leader, but also a philosopher, and he talks a lot about the philosophy of war. Why do people go to war? And Alan had, of course, read all of his stuff, and and Sam went back and translated it in his he's he speaks German fluently, and he translated some things in his own way that really made sense, and that's what we used in the book. And uh it was really good um to have that input for him. He was just amazing because he he understands Alan, knows him very well, and really helped us finally get a kind of narrative flow, but it was still enormous, it is, and and not and not readable, not really readable yet, because it needed to be chunked down. People don't read big long chapters of 30, 30 pages or whatever, they need to have it in smaller bytes and think about it. So then we worked with another editor, her name is Jamie Cross, and she was very good at trying to. I said, look, this has got to be reader-friendly, and I'm too close to it now. And so she helped us do that, and that's that's what took the last two years doing getting that back and forth.

AJ 10:31

Oh, so well done because it was extremely readable. I mean, I hate reading off screens, and I was reading off a galley digital copy, obviously, in this occasion just for time, and I raced through it. So mission accomplished. Ellen, what made you acquiesce and do it after all?

Allan 10:49

Uh as Jodi's explained, I I think uh memories and diaries and things like get a bit egotistical, and uh it's not where I want to go. Um, so I resisted. Uh but they persuaded me really, Jodi and the others, the friends, because uh I could see a purpose. And if the and the purpose I hope is what succeeds in getting out, is how that jumbled life in dying empire, dying colonialism, uh, one person engaged in so many facets of life, war, ecology, uh, how uh and exile, how out of that came the ability that we now have, if we turn our minds to it, to solve uh the greatest problem facing humanity. And I could see, okay, there's a purpose, and then I got enthusiastic about it. And I just hope uh that somehow we people get that purpose. Uh I've been a little sad sometimes that people who've reviewed uh have said, oh, we want more of the military years, or because that's their interest. Or if they politically political history, oh we want more of the politics of what was going on. Uh, you know, what their interest is, is what they tended to see in the book. They didn't see the connection to uh it leading to the ability for us as humans to now unite without blaming. To unite in harmony and to begin to solve the the unarguable biggest problem facing mankind.

AJ 12:41

Yeah.

Allan 12:42

I hope that purpose gets over, and I'm also glad for the delay of many years, because some of the things, uh a couple of things I've had to talk about in the in the book, if they had come from me, would have been totally unbelievable. But fortunately, with the long delay, Ian Smith, uh the Prime Minister, had written his memoir, The Great Betrayal. And um Ken Flowers, the head of intelligence for five governments, had written his memoir. And when you look at those two memoirs, thank goodness they confirm what I say, which would have coming from me being unbelievable. So I'm I'm glad for the delay for that reason. But anyway, overall just glad it's out and uh hope it does some good.

AJ 13:35

Well, Alan, back on your original point about taking points of inspiration rather than the the connective tissue out of which the holistic management framework came. It's funny because for me that's what I was tapping. But I came out of it also with this appreci I mean, it almost felt like a love letter to Zimbabwe in a way, as well. I mean, that it's that first half of your life, right? It's so I mean it's there and it's so dedicated, but in a way that you just put words to, to live in a way without blame, I think is what you said. It felt like a love letter to Zimbabwe and all its people and all its life. So for me, it really showed the root of everything you've done just at that level of everything you did, tried to get behind not only the root causes, but well, I guess part of the root causes, the animosities the tribal, literal and metaphorical that we can get embroiled in all those sorts of things, and that never waned despite being so up against it so often. Why is that, Alan? What how did you maintain a faith and and a focus in the face of all that?

Allan 14:54

I think I've or I've tried to convey it in the book, there are a couple of things. I mentioned a schoolboy incident uh with cricket, uh, which really, for the rest of my life, uh caused me to realize that if I ever let my ego uh influence my thinking or whatever I did, I would do myself damage. And most of us are driven by our egos. And so from a schoolboy days, my ego took second place to team, country, nation. Uh the team is what matters, not you, not me. And so that was part of the upbringing in the remnant dying days of the British Empire and the small school I described. Uh, that was a part of it. And there was another incident that I mentioned where um I was sitting on my own, and in those days grown men didn't cry. Um, and I just sobbed and cried because the river was coming down in flood, um Zingwani River, with the usual debris floating by, and that was the future of my country. Throughout history, that's destroyed more civilizations than war. And I said to myself, just sitting there crying, why am I in the army? Why am I killing people? Why am I doing this for politics I don't believe in, people I don't believe in, policies I don't believe in. What am I prepared to do about this? And at that point I said, I'm prepared to give my life. I'm prepared to die rather than give in. So that carried on for the rest of my life. And I, up to my dying breath, will be fighting for sanity.

AJ 16:46

Yeah, I'll never forget that story you told. I noted it was funny, Ellen, because I was I was watching the Cricket World Cup that's running as we speak, when Zimbabwe beat Australia and turfed us out of the tournament, and Zimbabwe progresses, and still in it playing tonight, no less. I thought about you, but that's before I even knew you were a cricket fan. And then I'm reading your book, and it's like you're likening your whole life to a cricket innings. So that was that was quite wonderful. Have you been watching the cricket?

Allan 17:17

Are you following the you know, living in the States it's hard, but getting back here, we had friends around the fire the other day, and they were telling us about Zimbabwe beating Australia, uh, other countries. We watched one game last night. Yeah, it's a it's amazing for the small country. Um it just still there's an unbeatable spirit here alive, but in one of the most corrupt, badly governed countries in the world today. Because I've failed in what I was trying to do in the political days. But there's still that spirit here amongst the people.

Why Tell The Story: Purpose Over Ego

AJ 17:55

I did note that, Alan. I really felt that that sense of, well, your greatest regret, I think you called it in in your book. And I I really felt that. The spirit in the people, though. You know, I felt that where I've spent time in Guatemala, in Central America as well. And you could describe it in similar terms, but I felt on just the recent visit, sort of was just after we we met in in Denver a year and a bit ago, felt the same thing and often put it in those very terms too. I want to take a sidestep for a moment. I want to come back to some of these threads in the book, but I want to bring up the dedication that you made at the outset, which was to various mentors, and they get due coverage through the book. The other person you dedicated the book to, of course, was Jody, who only gets the epilogue because that's where it that's where it leads off. We might talk about part two later. I'll see how much appetite there is for that. But in this moment, the dedication to Jodie Allen, I mean, I know a little bit about how pivotal she's been in not just the production of this memoir, but the text, the Savour Institute itself. But I'm gonna ask you, you could put words to it, what was the feeling behind the dedication to Jodie?

Allan 19:06

Well, without Jodie, this memoir would not have appeared. Period. I you know, often when you go to uh the doctor or whatever, they ask you to fill a form. Do you have any allergies? And I always fill in two. I've got an allergy to atropine. And I put that, and then I put the second one, allergy to bureaucracy. And sometimes you see the nurse r starting to write it down, and then she gets the point. I have an absolute allergy to bureaucracy, and when you look at all the tedious stuff you've got to go through to get it published, to get yeah, to get I just haven't got the patience for that. And I would have just said, ah, to hell with it. I'll I'll keep just trying to teach people or help people. Uh Jodie had the patience, and she put an incredible amount of work into getting it into book form publishable. We're still battling with some of that to get it cheaply to people, because it's difficult to get it to people over most of the world in the print book form because of the cost. And we're trying definitely to get that done. But Jody's doing that, not me. So we we owe the book to Jody rather than to me. Even though the content and everything is my stuff.

AJ 20:26

Yeah. I'm conscious too, like another part of the book, Alan, that I wanted to I guess honour in a way. You know, it can be said in a few words and then just pass by in time. But when you talked about I really imagined into when you'd been exiled, so you're on the island, you're alone at this point, and can't go home. You talked you briefly mentioned the the loneliness, but I can only imagine the depth of that in that moment. And it was soon after, though, that you met Jody. Talk to us about that.

Allan 21:02

Well, I had come back to the island. Um after one of I was working into both Americas. Um I'd come back to the island and uh I'd found my home empty. Only a tiny pair of shoes left to remind me I'd had my uh daughter and wife there. Um I I couldn't blame my ex-wife. She couldn't live with a a nobody who was happy to be barefoot on an island fishing with local fishermen. Um and uh I'd lost my country. The government had taken almost everything I had. Uh I uh you have plenty of friends when you're popular and when you're in the country and your character. When you uh are down and everybody's down on you and you're exiled, suddenly you only have three or four friends. Um so you know I was very, very lonely, yes. And um that was depressing and frankly I I just lay on a couch and listened to classical music for four days. I hardly ate. I I couldn't get any lower. You know, you say talk about sinking in life, I couldn't sink any lower, and then I said, Well, no, I've just got to get up and get on with life.

AJ 22:28

And then I gathered then your training of people took you to New Mexico where you found Jody.

Love Letter To Zimbabwe And Resilience

Allan 22:39

The British hadn't given me a right to live in England. Uh, the Americans I battled to get a a visa to even go into America. Um I so I I virtually was stateless. And I could have lived in the Channel Islands or the Cayman Islands, you know, places like that. But I chose the Cayman Islands after looking at the Virgin Island um in the Channel Islands near France, and I decided on the Cayman Islands because it was nearer to the Americas, uh, which was Britain isn't Germany uh desertifying. If we wiped the whole of the UK off the map, it would make almost no difference to uh the climate change desertification issue. All of that is only the size of an island off Africa, Madagascar. So I needed to work into the Americas, and the Caymans was closer. So so when I decided to get on with life and just accepted that I was on my own, etc., it was about that time that Jody interviewed me. And following the interview, uh, we kept in touch by correspondence because she uh was the first person who'd ever interviewed me about my scientific work who had actually studied the subject before interviewing me. All others asked stupid questions, ignorant questions, just blind questions. She asked very pointed questions because she'd studied the stuff. And when I saw, and she even s uh referred me to some uh studies I hadn't known about, uh, when I saw that, we kept corresponding. Um and just by correspondence, uh that's how our relationship developed. And uh to some extent I described that.

AJ 24:34

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Jody, because you weren't writing the book and and you've told me a bit more about the way you met and came together. I don't expect you'll say all of it in public, but but for you, how were Especially the juicy parts. But what was it like for you and indeed that process of correspondence?

Jody 24:58

Oh, yeah, no, I mean I had interviewed um two of the the ranchers that had Alan's first clients and the ones who ultimately got him a visa to come over. And um, and they were in Arizona, and I had interviewed them, and I was so excited by what I saw on their place. I mean, it'd only been at it maybe a year, and you could just see the difference on their land. I mean, this is like desert country, and this was like January, and it was just there were parts of that that were so lush, I didn't even know it could be like that. Yeah, right. And um, and I said, What are you doing? And um, and so then they explained it and they said, We're not doing it very well, but you need to talk to Alan Savory. And I said, Well, I'll never have a chance to do that, but but tell me as much as you can. So they tried. And then when I when I after I left and I had uh actually done the article, um Alan was passing through again to visit them as clients, and uh they said, Oh, you need to talk to her. Um, she came and talked to us, and she's doing something because there's nobody knew about this. Um, that was very early days, and so uh he he um he he put he got my number and he put it in his pocket, and then he remembered when he was coming back through again, oh, um I should call her and um before she gets this article out. And so he did, and I met him for lunch in Albuquerque, and it just was the story just got better and better. I mean, I had no idea about all the other backstory, and um I was so excited. I was just I said people need to know about this, and I'm gonna do my best to make sure they know. So I I wrote many articles after that, but I said I want to keep in touch because this this is gonna go somewhere. I I had never seen anything like that. You cannot believe the difference. I had spent years looking at people improving their land by poisoning everything in sight, digging up stuff. I mean, the places that looked like they'd been nuked, and and this was really great management and and restoration. And I said, this looks sick. It just it didn't make sense to me. And and so when I saw that, I just I just knew something was something was there. So I did stay in touch with him and then and and then got to know him, you know. And then when you think you're never gonna see someone again, you you'll write things, you'll write be more personal than you might otherwise. Because, you know, like the person you meet on the on the train or whatever, and you know, anyway.

AJ 27:38

Tell me as a podcaster, this is my this is my life. People think they'll never meet me.

Jody 27:44

Oops, yeah, no, maybe we won't. But but that so that's that's how it that's how it all started.

AJ 27:51

Yeah. And what what about the connection to the to the person though then? You obviously obviously went on to fall in love. How when? What struck you?

Jody 28:01

It kind of grew. But I um see, I thought he was still married because his wife hadn't left him at that point. And um, or maybe she had, but he didn't know if it was over. I I don't know. But you know, he talked as if he was married, so I mean I didn't I didn't think that way. Um he was very interesting, intriguing, and and pretty handsome as well. But I also had a boyfriend I was very serious about and living with, and so I I wasn't thinking that way. I was thinking more of this is the story of the rest of my life. This is the story. And so that's that's really and and and and then he was he became more forthcoming in his letters as well, and and uh then then that's that's just how it all happened.

AJ 28:50

And the rest is history.

Jody 28:51

In the letters.

AJ 28:52

Yeah.

Jody 28:53

And six months later we got together and then we that was it. Beautiful.

Allan 28:58

We knew it. If I could just add there, yeah, um, we both realized uh after six months or whatever of correspondence that something deeper was happening. I think we both recognized that without saying it. And then I was going back into North America, um, and I on my plane I had to go through Dallas, and she was also doing work up in Washington or somewhere, and would be coming back to New Mexico, and we could coincide in Dallas. So we actually met in the Dallas airport, so that was our first meeting after it. And uh we just realized, oh my god, something's happened here. And so from there we uh we went and stayed at a place and the next day walked back to the Dallas Airport all day because I was in a hurry, and we try to walk back and found you can't walk into Dallas Airport. And we just from there on it uh it just happened. Yeah.

AJ 30:05

Never mind a book. There's a movie in that. Bobby, Bobby, now you met it Alan about a decade ago when you started with the Saver Institute, is that right?

Bobby 30:15

That sounds about right. Yeah, it's been about a decade now.

AJ 30:17

And do you what do you remember of that?

Exile, Loneliness, And Meeting Jody

Bobby 30:21

Oh my god. Um, going back, well, you know, I I guess not uh in the same way Alan has, but I also had somewhat of a winding career in that, you know, I used to be a biomedical engineer before I came to this world of holistic management and really, you know, found what it was that I wanted to put my weight behind. And so I think there's a piece of uh resonating with Alan's story in being able to gather life experiences and like make some meaning out of it. And so there's a piece of me that really relates to that. Um, but yeah, it's just been an absolute honor to work by Alan and Jody's side over the past decade, um, you know, to help take these not just ways of thinking, which I think is what often people uh assume holistic management is, like a way of thinking, but it's much more than just thinking. It's actually the doing, the management framework, how you make sense of all the complexity ahead of you. Um, to be able to put that to form and to create the strategies and programs that allow us to disseminate it around the globe and through the different cultures and geographies in which it's being applied has been, you know, an incredibly rewarding experience. But then, you know, as time has gone on, being away, being able to peel away those layers of the onion and and get deeper into the origins of all of this, you know, uh part of the discovery process um in putting the memoir together was, you know, Alan and I spent a few days going through his personal archives of all of his old 35 millimeter film, uh, all of all of the old slides, and just thousands and thousands of slides that had been buried in a closet to see where's the good stuff? Like where are the memories that have been forgotten, or um the stories that need to be pulled out and brought into the book, or even the the pictures that we're gonna use as um, you know, the front page of each chapter. Um, and so that was really a special experience to go through that and to get a peek behind the curtain. Um, you know, I think we get the stories in the memoir of of all of that, but to to actually see it and to go through that with Alan to say, like, what is this that I'm looking at? was really incredible. Although I will say, so many of those slides were really just photos of ground, um, just landscapes and grass and soil, and you know, from my perspective, I'm like, okay, here's another ranch. Okay, here's that looks like another ranch. You know, no idea what it was I was looking at. But you hand a slide to Alan, and he has this photographic memory, uh, the ability to look at this and say, oh, this was so-and-so's ranch back in 72. I remember why I took this photo because I was looking at the pedestaling that I was seeing, like just an uncanny, uncanny ability to recall what was in every single one of those slides. Um, and so yeah, that was quite fun to to go through that together.

AJ 33:37

Magnificent. Yeah, that I'm so grateful for that too, Ellen, that that this is true, that you still had that recall.

Allan 33:43

Well, uh uh Anthony, I wanted to say uh the title of the book, Unsavory, that came from Bobby when we were searching for what the hell do we call this thing, and he came up with the title Unsavory, and after going round and round in circles of many titles, we came back to that. And uh I I think it was the perfect title, and that's thanks to Bobby.

Jody 34:10

But we didn't think that initially, and we fought Bobby on it because when we ran it by like family members or really close friends, said, Oh no, you can't do that, it's so negative, and he's done such great things and blah, blah, blah. So don't, no, no, no. And so we said, no, Bobby, uh, you know, that's just not gonna work. And Daniela just, oh no, you can't call it that. And um and now it's so funny because we've had so many people say, that's the perfect title.

AJ 34:43

This is this is this is why you all had to be here for this. So how did this resolve though?

Bobby 34:50

Oh God, I I think you just came around to it as as time went on. I mean, I I was certainly worried when proposing the title because I saw what it could be. Um, but I I could also see the interpretation that people would have of like, oh, this has such a negative connotation. But what I saw out of it was an ability to kind of uh confront some of the critics head on, because Alan has dealt with critics, uh people misunderstanding him his entire life and has remained steadfast, knowing that what he sees and what he's trying to accomplish is what is right for the land and for the people and for Rhodesia and everything that he's been fighting for his whole life. But because of his steadfastness, he has had this connotation at times of being an unsavory individual, you know, the ability to rub people the wrong way at times because he's unwilling to budge. Um and there was something about calling that out before the critics could do so that I thought was really important because it just kind of deflates any argument that people might throw in that direction. And when you're going into the territory that this memoir goes into, you know, getting into the politics of Rhodesia, who was in a civil war and the racial tensions, and then getting into what Alan was advocating for in the game department and the issues with the elephant culling, and you know, just everything that has come about. It's easy for people to look at things at surface level and, you know, um kind of claim one thing. But I think by titling the memoir unsavory, it's kind of you know, addressing it head on and saying, yeah, you think I'm an unsavory individual? Sure. Why don't you actually read the backstory of where all of this came from and actually understand it a little bit more? And so that's kind of what it means for me.

Jody 37:06

And that's what that's finally what swayed us. Yeah, I'm sure it it was. And also our editor came down on his side strongly.

AJ 37:14

Nice one copy. Yeah, there's uh the healthy doses of Mia Kulpa where you felt it, Alan, I think also make it powerful.

From Reporting To Partnership: Jody’s View

Allan 37:23

Yes, it I I hope it comes out in the memoir. If if you as you read it, you'll find, particularly on the scientific side, but but also on the military side, but on the scientific side of my work, from the very first day that I knew I had a breakthrough, uh after thousands of years, I had this breakthrough that we could never save civilization, as it were, without livestock. Uh, when we looked at the global picture and the demise of civilizations, etc. And when I realized that and discovered how to do it, um the very first person I called on was Oliver West, Dr. West, our chief uh scientist, to say, please, Oliver, this is what I've discovered. This is monumental for the world. I don't have the resources as an independent scientist. Please take over my work. And I talk about that. And when I came to America, I tried to get the American government to take over my work because it was vital. As American officials who did work with me said, uh, they considered the development of the holistic framework vital for the future of the United States. But training was banned. You know, so I was I was battling to understand that sort of thing. Yeah. And uh I hope that's come out in the memoir. And it took me a long time to understand why it's not just me that was unsavory, it's every single individual in the history of the world who discovered something that the world's experts and institutions knew wasn't a new new discovery. It was wrong. Copernicus, Galileo, Semmelweiss, you name them. And never in history has such have such discoveries been accepted within the life of the discoverers. And so far my life's almost at an end. I mean 91st year now. It's gonna happen again. But at least I can st understand now why it happened. And it will keep happening in history. Uh that there are two types of discovery. So I hope that's come out some way in the book.

AJ 39:48

It has, I think, all the more value for it, too, in fact. That well it might go past your lifetime, but there the stories are there. I'd love to have a general sweep of things that really stood out, might have even been um challenging to re-engage with Alan, but but also for you guys as I mean, Jody, you as a partner too, and and Bobby as a collaborator in this, what might have really stood out as harrowing or just surprising, amazing that you didn't know. But I want to lead off with something, Alan. I feel like I want to introduce this before we go too much further, because it was a real moment for me where it was reminiscent of where we left off last time, in fact, which goes back five years. Because we talked at that point. I think I asked you something like what the place of intuition had, uh the part intuition had played in your life, and you said, Well, it certainly saved me more than once, and there might have been a bit of detail around that. But you can imagine how I felt then when I read about let me see how you pronounce this, the manquala? Is that how you say it? Manquala. Manquala?

Allan 40:52

Mm-hmm.

AJ 40:52

Manquala. When you wrote about that, that was an extraordinary experience. I think just the the first instance of it, the the hippopotamus. I think that's worth landing here. And would you do that for us? Would you talk about how you came to that and and then the dream with the hippopotamus?

Allan 41:12

No, I I have no explanation for that. Um I'm sure many people throughout history have had these cases where you dream something, and then something some days later remarkably similar happens. And I I have no explanation, I etcetera. But that happened in two instances there. Once where I just dreamt, and then uh the next day everything unfolded amazingly close to that dream. Um, and you know, I can't explain it. And I don't know anybody who can. And then the other instance I mentioned was where I was walking from the campfire of my men back to where I was sleeping, and I I just turned back to them and and just something made me feel there would be danger from a lion, I thought the next day, but it was actually two days later, and yes, totally unexpectedly, uh, we walked into the middle of some lions and and had trouble. Uh I I can't explain that. I've also had other odd, weird occasions where uh a couple of times in my life I've shook hands with somebody saying goodbye. And as I've walked away from them, I've just no something's gonna happen. And they've died before I've seen them again. And I have no explanation. I don't mention that one because that that that stuff mystifies me. And so maybe one day humans will understand it. Yeah, yeah.

AJ 42:50

Well, I mean I I've got another question for you in a moment, so it might come to that. But those instances you related to this particular object that sort of said to hold that sort of a power, and you still have this object. What sense did you make of that?

Allan 43:04

I didn't believe in the monkwala. I was just using it. I knew that all the people around me, all of them, believed in that stuff. And so as I had my monquala, I just and then I gave the example of the money missing. I had no idea who'd taken the money, but I just knew damn well that if I looked them in the eye and said I'd talk to my monquala and then said I'm going to lunch, and I won't shame the person, but when I come back from lunch, if the m money isn't on my desk, you will be dead tonight. And now that was total bullshit on my part. But when I came back from lunch, the money was on my desk, and I didn't pursue it further.

AJ 43:52

For good reason, from what I could tell, that they would have returned it straight away too. So my question for you is Alan, albeit not understanding it. What does it tell us? And yeah, it's not rare. This is experienced by people. We experience this. What does it tell us about the power we can access that we often don't, that maybe we should?

Allan 44:15

Well, Anthony, I don't go there because I'm trying to focus on what matters, the you know, biggest problem facing us, uh, that is literally threatening civilization now globally. So I'm trying to focus on that, so I don't go there. But but there's there's so many examples of what you believe is virtually what happens to you, the pygmy effect, the research, endless things. Uh the religions and so on. So if people's beliefs are very deep, those things tend to happen. Um look at us scientists. We don't uh believe what we see. As scientists, because we're humans, we don't do that. We see what we believe, and that comes out with the livestock. For thousands of years, humans believed that if land is deteriorating and the livestock on it, there are too many animals. That belief became scientific fact. There has never been any science behind it, but thousands of PhDs, papers written on that, on that belief. And that's what I exposed and why I became unsavory in the 1960s. That was nothing but a belief. And I had that belief. So it was extremely hard for me, and finally it came about that I realized, oh my God, we are interpreting research and everything on what we believe. We're not able to look at the data and just have a neutral mind and see what the data is telling us. Because we're scientists and we're human. So that was an example of it. So I don't understand these things. I can only observe them and the effect on us. Yes.

Bobby’s Arrival And Building The Archive

AJ 46:10

It makes me wonder by extension, I mean, if it's if it saved your life with the lions, let's say, is it a I don't know, is it a level of belief then that will have the next generation actually have these experiences, this holistic management and all it achieves become accepted, be adopted by the institution. Is there something that instructs us in your micro experience of those instances to the big change that we'd like to see?

Allan 46:45

I I would say no. Really? I wouldn't even go there. Don't waste your time on that. We we've got a very simple situation, really. We've got a very simple situation. I brought it out in the COP26 talk where I had to condense my life's work into twelve minutes, and I explained it very simply. Right? So now we either we can do the best we can. We now know what is causing biodiversity loss, which is in free fall around the world. Uh we know that a symptom of that is desertification, not in Costa Rica, not in the UK, not in France, and where all mostly universities are, but in the arid and semi-arid and seasonal rainfall environments of the world. I put that out in a TED talk to nine million people. By the way, the TED Talk still has a disclaimer because they were so criticized by prominent university academics for even allowing me to talk.

AJ 47:50

I noticed. Bobby's does too, I noticed.

Allan 47:53

So, so um when we discovered how we could address that, all right, we know how to do that now. And it doesn't need theorizing, and it doesn't need people to say, oh, I've got to have these beliefs, and I've got to do this, and I've got to do it. God damn it, it's a simple military planning procedure. We don't know how to make it fail. We only have thousands of people who fail to do it and say it doesn't work. So it's simple stuff that we've got to deal with. And then when it comes to all of us trying to manage our lives holistically as is ideal, all right, when it comes to that, even I can't do it. With all I know, I cannot do it. I can only do the best I can. And why is that? And I've explained that in podcasts. It's because if I try to manage my life with Jody, our lives, the first thing we have to do is to finance ourselves. Every family has, every institution has, every church has, every political party, every corporation, the first thing they have to do is finance themselves. And only then can I manage some aspect of nature to produce music, art, food, smartphones, bombs, architecture, whatever, everything that makes civilization possible comes from nature, goes back to nature. Now, in that those three things I have to manage, or a government has to manage, or an environmental organization has to manage. That middle piece, the economy, I, you, everybody in the world is operating within the local economy of their nation. And you've got global finance driving environmental destruction. So there's not a single family in the world that can manage holistically until we manage at scale. Now, when we manage at scale, that means at government sovereign laws, regulations, when we can get people at that level to do what I suggested at COP26, then we have a very good. I am so hopeful that that will start a domino effect. Because as we are talking, I guarantee you, not a single world leader knows what to do. They're coming under criticism endlessly. I sympathize with them. Because if you look at all the conferences on biodiversity, desertification, uh, Davos, it doesn't matter which one you look at. Look at what's happening. You have a mass of conflicting opinions and chaos. Now, if you were a world leader, what the hell would you do? So I'm trying to show there is a way forward. And it offers us great hope because it's simple logic. Address the cause of a problem, or you won't solve it. Everybody in the world knows that. Why won't we do it then?

AJ 51:08

I'd like to turn to you, Bobby and Jody. Going on.

Naming “Unsavory” And Owning Critique

Bobby 51:10

Yeah, there's an interesting thread that I'm noticing right here. Um, because Anthony, I think you were trying to get at uh Alan's perspective for the future. And you know, Alan, you know, is is coming back to management and like, no, we have the solution, let's just do it. And what I'm noticing is the thread in the book where in Alan's political days, when he was leading the opposition party to Ian Smith's racist white government, and there were four parties at play. And there were the two tribal factions as well, and there was the guerrilla warfare, and they were backed by Russia and China, and you know, incredibly complex dynamics at play. Allen had was demonstrating at that time, and I think continues to this day to demonstrate an uncanny ability to see patterns where people otherwise aren't seeing them and to look into the future and see a path forward that is necessary. And Allen was sounding the alarm back then that if you allow Mugabe to get into office, if that is the outcome of this civil war, it will be at the detriment of Zimbabwe and everything, the economy will be totally destroyed. And that's what happened. Allen had the foresight of that, and he called it at the time. And he was trying to sound the alarm and lead the path forward so that didn't happen for Zimbabwe. And so what I see is Zimbabwe was that cautionary tale that Alan was trying to sound the alarm on way back then. And then what we have now is a slightly different context. We're looking at land management, we're looking at how we manage our natural resources and our living systems and the same uncanny ability to recognize patterns and see a path forward. And he's saying, no, no, no, no, you guys are getting it wrong. This is the path forward. This is what we have to do. And they didn't listen to Alan back then, and he was right. And now we are faced with massive desertification and all of the interconnected global crises that we're seeing. And Alan again is pointing forward and saying, hey, here is a hopeful path. You guys, we can't F this up again. We need to manage holistically. We need to do this right. And so um, you know, I guess I'm hopeful that when people read the backstory of what was happening during Rhodesia's Civil War, they'll see that there is this correlation between what happened then and kind of what we're experiencing now. And I think that could be a cautionary tale to those as they look at um not just the geopolitics that we find ourselves in, but looking at land management as a whole and kind of how we're, you know, um managing our resources and hopefully see that, hey, maybe there is something to what this unsavory individual is asking us to look at.

AJ 54:27

Yeah. Thanks, Bobby.

Allan 54:29

If I could add to what Bobby says, um first thing, uh Bobby, uh I'd be careful because I never say the solution. There isn't a the solution. Uh and it's easy to misunderstand. And so I understand why he's saying that. What I do say is there is a way to solve the problem. That's an important point. I'm only saying there is a way. If we unite and put humanity and humanities' needs first, before institutional needs, we will solve this problem. In different ways in different countries, but we will solve it. There's a way to do so. But having said that, um what Bobby said about seeing through things, let me give an example that hopefully everybody can relate to now. I uh if you think back on it, you you've got two issues that are critical. Uh, the the one is desertification of the world, um the environments where it's seasonal rainfall, that's two-thirds of the world's land. And we we need to focus on that. We've got the other critical issue of um the fossil fuels, all this, the climate change. Now, on the desertification aspect, we humans have not been in denial for thousands of years. There's been no denial that we were causing it, but we were blaming livestock. You can read that in ancient texts, etc. No denial, but blaming livestock. Now, when it comes to climate change, you know, um, well, some of you don't, but 60, 70 years ago we weren't using that word. All right. Um now, when we started, that word started to come into general use, we had endless conflict amongst scientists, some saying uh we were causing it, and some saying no, it's natural, etc. And that goes on. But about within the last, I don't know, five, six years, whatever, uh, the majority of sane scientists in the world have acknowledged that humans are causing climate change. Now, to Bobby's point, why is it then that the world Nobel Prize laureates, physicists, politicians, media universities aren't seeing that, hey, if we're scientists and science is logical, and we're going to use science, you cannot have two causes of a problem. You can have many things influencing a problem, but only one cause. So if humans are causing climate change, then it means fossil fuels aren't causing it. It means livestock are not causing it. Now, why can I see that and the world can't? I don't know. Because frankly, the moment you accept, as scientists do, and acknowledge that humans are causing it, then automatically it becomes how humans are managing fossil fuels. It's not the fuels themselves that are causing the problem. That is how humans are managing livestock. It's not livestock that are causing the problem. So that's what the book is about. How we discovered a way for us to resolve this amicably, peacefully, without all the blame and the conflict. I hope we just achieve the purpose of world leaders seeing that that's what the book's about.

AJ 58:15

Jody, can I come to you with the question I was sort of flagging earlier? What was the most surprising aspect or or what or story out of this whole process for you?

Jody 58:26

Um the thing that hit me the most was having it in an order. We had to do a lot of um checking on dates because I'd heard these stories over and over again over the last 45 years, and I was so surprised that oh, this actually happened then, not then. Um it made it it made things start making more sense uh when I realized, oh, he didn't even know that at this point. Yeah. Um and and so that was, I guess, the biggest surprise for me throughout the whole thing. Uh and it it it was a lot. I mean, so many yeah, many, many things. I had all in the wrong order, and it made a big difference. It it enriched my own understanding.

AJ 59:18

I I felt that too, either from obviously a step removed, but I felt the same thing with some of the stuff I'd learned and we'd talked about. Yeah, I think it has that effect generally, and to hear it had it on you too is fascinating. There are so many other stories in there that really stood out to me too, that that really um, I guess the way that you changed, Alan, frankly. And you know, you talked openly about how many shocks or hits you needed to come to your insights. And I wonder if that's part of the answer of why we continue to be where we are, that it it does take many hits for us to come to our insights. What would you say?

Breakthroughs, Rejection, And Institutions

Allan 59:59

Anthony, I don't know the answer to that, but I I have throughout the book credited every single person from whom I learned. We we are always standing on the shoulders of other people. Even their failures are our learning. And I do mention in the book how a small group of us used to get together as university students. So we're 17, 18-year-old kids, and we got a habit of coming to my room and smoking a pipe and passing it around and philosophizing as young people do. And uh and one of the discussions was how much society valued wisdom and old people, etc. And as I listened to that, I thought, oh my God, if that's true, I'm gonna be a fool for most of my life until I gain that wisdom. I don't want to go there, I don't want to live a life like that. So at that point, and I said it to the group, I said, you guys, I'm not gonna be a fool half my life before I've got this wisdom you talk about. I'm gonna start learning from other people. So I've tried to credit every other person. Going back to von Humboldt virtually that you know, I've learned from. And uh and then in that, uh again, I don't know how to answer your question, other than to say when you put your ego aside and uh you are determined to try to find a solution, rather than pushing a point of view, but to try to find a solution to this bigger thing, it it opens things for you. And um and it did for me. And almost every significant thing I heard learnt, I never learnt from doing something right. I learned it from my mistakes. So I've realized very early if your mistakes are like a small bitter pill that you've got to swallow in public, but that pill is gonna get double in size every day, it's bloody good advice to swallow it now. So every time I've screwed up, which is many times, I've learned from it, and I've swallowed the bitter pill immediately and said I screwed up. And I talk in the book about how fellow professional officers wouldn't even we we keep ground to a halt on one report, because the two authors, myself and another fellow uh with a PhD and blah, blah, blah, um I admitted ignorance publicly. And he would not put his signature to something as a professional person that admitted lack of knowledge, ignorance. Well, I don't have a problem with that. But many people do. So that that helped.

AJ 1:02:56

Yeah. Yeah, that's really instructive. Uh I was one of the stories I was really moved by, actually, was one of the people who who did the same as you, who swallowed the pill, and that was Bob Vaughan Evans, I think his name is, no? Yeah, Rob. Yeah, yeah. Where he had a moment, it was actually a really moving moment, too, in your in your book, where he even confessed to feeling humiliated by by you in that moment, but he saw it. But then came the horror, which you experienced with the elephants too, and other things. The horror of what have I been doing? In his instance, telling people to cut trees for better grass growth. But he changed, he could change.

Allan 1:03:34

Yeah, he he could change because of trust. Okay, we'd been schoolboys together, we'd boxed each other, we'd played cricket in the same team, rugby in the same team. We were the closest of friends. He was my best friend at at school. So when our lives parted after university, and then he taught the stuff he was trained to teach, the usual university stuff, etc. And then he was preaching to the ranchers and farmers and telling them what they had to do. They had to kill the trees because they're killing the grass and so on and so forth. All the stuff you hear in, it's published in thousands of rain science magazines and journals, peer-reviewed papers. He was teaching that stuff. Now, when I talked at a farmer's meeting in his area, where he'd worked for eight years as a senior extension person and got them to accept that. Um, and when I talked and blew his world apart, it was terribly offensive to him. That would have hurt Bob's ego, everything. And when he uh walked me back to my car, I describe it. I could see he was terribly upset, and I'd never had my best friend that upset with me. And I said, Bob, what's wrong? And he said, Alan, why are you doing this? You've just destroyed everything. And he said, I'm told you you're angry with government. I told you you're trying to make money. He said, But I know you, and you're not like that. Why are you doing it? And I said, Bob, I can't argue with you and discuss in a in a car park if you couldn't hear in an afternoon's talk. Why don't we just get together? And the next weekend he came down and stayed with me in Bullowo, 150 miles away. And rather than talk about it, I just walked on the land with him and sat under trees and walked and said, Now, what were you taught? What are you teaching ranches? Okay, I've never attended a lecture on that stuff in my life. But this is what I see as an ecologist. And he would ask questions, but because he trusted me, he was prepared to sit and listen, talk about it without getting angry, without getting hurt, and then finally he just literally, it was very moving. He just said, Oh my God, how have so many of us gone? So wrong for so long. Thousands of years. We had. Now nobody's to blame. Just move on.

AJ 1:06:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Allan 1:06:10

But we can't because of our institutions, our egos, and all these things of being human.

AJ 1:06:17

Well, these are instructive stories, aren't they? Just for those reasons. So almost a little levity as we come towards our close. I couldn't help but notice that Gretel in her forward said, practical joker, Ellen. I'm expecting then this is something that Bobby and Jodie can talk to. But there have been instances. And Alan, I'm curious in turn, what's made you laugh?

Intuition, Lions, And The Manquala

Allan 1:06:46

Well, I I laughed because actually I only had breakfast this morning being saying to Jodie, you know, it's a pity we had to cut out so many stories to keep the book priced well and get the flow we needed. So we cut out a long stories. And uh one I mentioned uh I said, you know, I can't imagine it's happening in Britain or America with the big uh population, etc. But I said, we had such tremendous fun between the army, the territorial force or national guard, as it would be in in America, and the regular officers and the police. And I can remember the endless pranks. We territorial officers thought that the regular armor officers were stupid. And we would play tricks on them, and they'd play tricks on us, and we'd win. But you never threw your toys out of the cart. You you took it in a spirit and made us sharper. And I can remember us with the police uh once uh I was in in the army and in one of in our school of infantry doing a course, and we we decided to have a prank on the police. And uh we phoned them and said there'd been a terrible accident. And the police came roaring out, two of them on a motorbike, and there was a crashed car off the road into the ditch, door was open, broken glass, there was a fellow hanging out of the door, his eye was out of his face, uh, out of his socket on his face, there was blood all over his chest. And uh the uh we were standing there as territorial army officers, uh, having called the police to this accident. The police arrived on the motorbike, two of them got off the motorbike and puked. And we laughed like hell because it was a sheep's eye, and we'd poured the blood over the guy's chest, etc. We thought that was bloody funny, and so did they. And we'd do these tricks on the regular army, and they caught us beautifully one day. We were doing an ambush drill, and the regular army, you know, teaching us and so on. And uh, so these men in the dark walk into this ambush and we open fire, but it's all blank rounds. Um you're you're it's just making a bang, except for the machine gun. The machine gun can't reload if it's not a bullet. So the machine gun had wooden bullets, but at the front of the muzzle there's a piece of metal that as the wooden bullet goes out, it shatters. So nobody gets hurt, but the machine gun will function. Um and so one guy's firing with a machine gun, and uh restless firing, and then the firing dies down, and the screaming and crying, and a fellow rolling on the ground, one of the uh uh African uh Legion of African Rifles uh guys, and uh we rush forward, what the hell's gone wrong? And a regular army officer flashing a flashlight and making damn sure it doesn't stay on anything uh too long, and we call the ambulance and put the guy in the ambulance. And I'm thinking to myself, there's something wrong here, but I didn't connect. That the the blood on his chest wasn't fresh enough. But it I observed it, but I didn't internalize it. Anyway, we rushed to the hospital with this guy and put him on the uh take him in for surgery. There's this uh blood all over his chest, etc. And uh the surgeon comes in, looks at him, and just slaps him and says, Get off the desk, you lazy bugger, get out. And the guy jumps up laughing and runs out. So they caught us completely that nobody threw their toys out of the cot, we just laughed, but it made us sharper. And I can't imagine the National Guard doing that to the police in America or in Britain or anything. We could do that in a small population.

AJ 1:10:40

Yeah, in a particular time part of learning. Yeah, why not?

Allan 1:10:43

Yeah. So those stories had to be cut out. Yeah, I was always at the forefront of those damned keeping people sharp.

AJ 1:10:52

Oh, it's the pity they cut out. Um I I guess the Savory Institute's been a different context, Bobby. You wouldn't have had so many guns involved in the and blood and eyes, eyeballs.

Bobby 1:11:02

No, not quite, no. We we don't really see that. And I guess the only thing that uh You know, I'm thinking uh in terms of Alan's practical jokernness, is there's a particular photo of a red dress, but I think that one will remain in the archives for now.

Allan 1:11:20

Oh, I remember that one. I've got a new arms breast and I've got a wig on.

AJ 1:11:25

Oh man, how did that not make the cut?

Bobby 1:11:29

I wasn't even gonna explain the picture further, Alan, but you went there, okay.

AJ 1:11:35

You know what I'm left wondering too, speaking of uh uh the prospect of a second volume, uh the Mexican and Australi and Australian stories. I'd love to hear more about. I mean, in all seriousness, it's the last thing you want to think about, but but it would there be a prospect potentially of of the stories that followed at some stage?

Allan 1:11:53

Um you know, I've recently retired from SI to live the remaining years of my life trying to focus on what matters most for me anyway, and I think for the world. Um and so I'm thinking about that a lot. Uh with the textbook, it's third edition, it's 10 years old. Textbooks are out of date the day they published. This is 10 years out of date. So I'm trying to think, now, how do I, when I'm running out of energy and steam at my age, how do I rewrite that? Or who rewrites that? So I'm trying to think that out. But also there's this problem of governance. And I I put a blog out years ago on good governance, and and I credit uh um George Washington because the he came to the idea that I did, and I didn't know about it, but centuries before me, that as long as you've got political parties, you'll never make democracy function. And so um I need to write about that and and how there is a way forward that is constructive for us. So I've got all these things to to worry about, and uh uh uh writing more funny stories or extensions of the memoir, I I don't think would be a priority for me in the time I've got left. You know, when I go and buy a battery or anything for a and they tell me it's got a five-year guarantee, I think, thank you. That's a lifetime guarantee for me. Uh so I've got to be very realistic about how I spend my remaining time. Um I I love a statement Rhodes, Cecil Rhodes made apparently on his deathbed, uh, when he said, So much to do, so little done.

AJ 1:13:41

Right. Do you still have, I remember you telling me about this in Denver, Alan, a wish to see one government shift before your life is done?

Allan 1:13:51

Well, if one government will do what I'm suggesting and be somebody take a statesman like lead, there's downside is zero, the upside you can't put a value to. Uh so why not try it when the world's in so much chaos? If that's done, I believe it'll um those people in whatever country that is, or whatever issue we take, we could take the national parks in this part of the world, anything like that. And if that's publicly observed, and people around the world observe how easy it is to solve these problems in this way, then it'll start a domino effect. And that I think offers the world great hope. Now, right now, that I put that suggestion out, what, four years ago, COP26. Um, I've it's the only thing I've put out in public where amazingly I've not had one word of comp uh criticism. I've never done that before in my life, but I've had no support. That's strange to understand. Now I do have I do have support. There are uh a group of concerned mothers from ten countries, and they're working with me. And so uh I won't say more on that now, but they're working with me to see if we can't get one authority with convening power to act as a statesman and show let us see if we can show there is a way forward. And I want to focus on that.

AJ 1:15:36

I wonder, Jody, as as the person who felt the instinct for these stories to be in the world in the way they are now, what's your instinct for the rest of the stories? You know, the the 45 years since where this one ends up.

Belief, Bias, And Seeing What We Believe

Jody 1:15:52

I don't know. You know, I I don't I don't know if I would want to write it. It it would be there are so many ups and downs, and um and it's such a job. And I haven't taken as I don't have the the good thing about writing this memoir is we had so much um backup. We had letters, we had newspaper cuttings, we had so much we could draw on, and memories are so faulty. And I have like at one point we had another organization before Saviour Institute, and I lost access to all the papers, lost to everything, no access to any of it, to 20 years of work. And so I don't even have that to fall back on for me. And uh so it would all be it would be truly a memoir, my memories. And and those are notoriously faulty. Is that right?

AJ 1:16:43

There we go. Yeah, well, it's a huge achievement to get this out. Uh it's just hats off. Yeah. Um, Alan, I feel like there's another question I have for you. It almost comes back to well, where you ended the book in a way, but also where we started talking about cricket. We you talked about your life as a cricket innings. You've had a long one. It's been a tough one in many instances, yet yet one of coming through and being an incredible gift to many people as well, to be able to witness and experience together. How how does the innings how do you leave the pitch when you're given out in a graceful way? And I I guess I partly asked that, knowing that you've been through a life that's witnessed family tragedy, death on the battlefield, and and so forth, wild game hunting and so forth. How do we face the prospect of the innings ending?

Allan 1:17:36

Uh I think you get many examples of people all over the world who, when they know their life is ending because they've got a terminal disease or something, face it with incredible courage. Um, so many people do that. You you got it's inevitable. Uh people often uh talk about if I die, there's no if about it, you are going to die. So face it. And for me, I face that. So uh all I want to do is I I use the cricket analogy because you know, your innings when you're batting, you can be out in several ways, caught, stumped, run out, etc. And I said, one of these will happen to me. I don't mean now if that's disease or accident or what it'll be, but till my last strike, I will be doing the best I can for my team. That's all I can do, and that's all I've tried to do.

AJ 1:18:33

Beautiful. I'm also curious, Alan, what was the classical music you were listening to when you arrived at the island?

Allan 1:18:40

Well, um, I'm not uh I don't come from a musical family. My father actually hated music, so we never played music in the family. And I can't name the the things that I can't recognize notes and everything, but I know what I love. And jazz is like scraping your nails on a blackboard for me. And yet my best friend in many ways loved jazz. So I had to listen to the damn stuff. But um I do love classical music, I love opera. I just I cannot tell you who's singing, what's playing, but I just love it. And I can listen to it hour after hour, etc. I can listen to blapes, etc. I can listen to some good cowboy music, etc. I know that I love that.

AJ 1:19:30

Just as well, given you work with ranches, otherwise life would have been even tough.

Allan 1:19:35

Yeah. And uh I love moving music that's motivational to a group of people. Now, tragically, some of that can be regimental songs that are very motivational to the men in that regiment. But it's involves war, but it's still it is there, and the men in that regiment, it resonates. And when I once a year I I play some YouTube stuff of farewell to arms in religion, I see the farewell parades of regiments I fought with. Uh and it's it brings tears to my eyes because although the war was wrong and I was fighting that, there was still the comrade between us, soldier to soldier, on both sides.

AJ 1:20:26

Yeah.

Allan 1:20:26

And at one point we trained Game Scouts here, and unknown to the black politicians, we would get the minister to come and sit and see the passing out parade, and he didn't recognize the extremely moving songs they were singing as they marched. Those moving songs were from their arch enemy regiment. They didn't know that. But it was extremely moving. So I I have liked moving stuff that emotionally uh moves us. But more than anything, at uh certainly in my darkest days in the bush and unable to carry much equipment or anything, I uh couldn't carry music. We didn't have tapecoders and all these things people got today. So I just listened to birds and elephants and hippo and things, and and then I couldn't carry books either. But I did carry one piece of paper, and it was a poem. And that was like my Bible. I would read that day after day, almost like a religious person would read a Bible. That poem virtually moulded my life, and I could carry that piece of paper.

AJ 1:21:40

What poem was it? If I thought so.

Allan 1:21:47

That man's wisdom and understanding of humans was unbelievable. Of course, it's very male-oriented because of the time.

AJ 1:21:57

Yes, well, Jody, Q U. I'm gonna take us out with said poem.

Simple Logic For Complex Crises

Jody 1:22:03

Okay, I uh I just have to say it was one of the first things he showed me in in one of his letters, he said, you know there's this poem that means something to me. And when he says it shaped his life, it definitely you can see that. But to me is how much of his later life after long after the game department, this became true. I mean, it not only shaped it, it reflected it. So I'll read it. So Roger Kipling wrote it in 1895. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too, if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise, if you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same, if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken, twisted by knaves, to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up again with worn-out tools, if you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, and lose and start again at your beginnings, and never breathe a word about your loss, if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them, Hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much, if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and which is more, you'll be a man, my son.

AJ 1:24:20

Thanks, Jodie. Ellen, it's been an absolute privilege to speak with you again and and to be joined by you, Bobby and Jodie. I really appreciate doing this together, and well done.

Allan 1:24:31

Well, thank thank you, and thank you for giving me a chance to publicly acknowledge Jodie and Bobby and their role.

AJ 1:24:40

That was Ellen Savory, Jody Butterfield, and Bobby Gill from D imbangombe in Zimbabwe and Valencia, Spain, respectively, on the release of Allan's memoir, Unsavory. Available now, links in the show notes. Great thanks as always to you generous supporting listeners for making this episode possible, including the wonderful Sadie Chrestman, part of the family and team that makes Fat Pig Farm and the Grounded Festival here in Australia work. Thanks for your seven years of support now. What can I say to that? Huge gratitude. I know for many it's tough right now, too, so just if you can, please consider supporting in any way you can to help keep the show on the road. There's a discount to that upcoming Grounded Festival available right now, too, for paid subscribers. I hope to see you there. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening. From Dimbangombe in Zimbabwe and Valencia, Spain, respectively. On the release of Allan's mem on the re On the release of Ellen's m I'm breathing. It's not you, mate, it's me. Are you quiet? Stay quiet. On the release of Ellen's m I can't say memoir. Memoir. Ellen's memoir. Ellen's memoir. Alright, quiet. Spain. On the release of Ellen's mem freaking On the release of Ellen's ma'am on