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Outlook: Tarantulas, Gandalf and my dying brother's bucket list

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Collage of photos of Royd taking on his bucket list, including dressing as Gandalf, holding a tarantula and bungee jumping

09/08/2021 GMT

Tarantulas, Gandalf and my dying brother's bucket list

BBC World Service - Outlook, Tarantulas, Gandalf and my dying brother's bucket list

Royd Tolkien’s brother Mike left him a daring list of tasks to complete after he died

When Royd Tolkien’s brother Mike died of Motor Neurone Disease, he left a bucket list of 50 incredible tasks for him to complete. Carrying them out gave Royd a reason to go on.

Royd Tolkien is the great-grandson of JRR Tolkien - writer of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Growing up, Royd and his younger brother Mike were very close, but also very different - Mike was the adrenaline junkie who loved skydiving and bungee jumping, whereas Royd liked nothing better than a cup of tea in the garden. But that would all change after Mike died of Motor Neurone Disease in 2015. He left a bucket list of 50 daring tasks for Royd to complete after his death, and completing them gave Royd a reason to carry on. Royd has written a book about his experience called There's a Hole in my Bucket: A Journey of Two Brothers. He's also made a documentary, There's a Hole in my Bucket, which will be released later this year.  

In the Zongo valley in Bolivia, there live creatures that don't exist anywhere else on earth, and we know about some of them because of Trond Larsen and his 'ecological swat team'. Trond is part of Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program which sends small teams of scientists out to remote locations to check on the biodiversity of a place if there's a plan for a new road, say, or a new park. And in Zongo in 2017, Trond and the team discovered 20 previously unknown species. Our reporter Jane Chambers spoke to him about his lifelong fascination with the natural world.  

The BBC Inspirations Awards have been running for a few years now where we celebrate unsung heroes. One of our first winners - in 2016 - was Kees Veldboer from the Netherlands who dedicated his life to granting the wishes of people who were dying. When we heard that Kees had passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 62, we thought it would be fitting to hear again from this extraordinary man who made a lot of people very happy. He first spoke to Outlook in 2015 when he told Matthew Bannister how the idea for the Ambulance Wish Foundation came to him in 2006 when he was working as an ambulance driver. 

Picture: Royd Tolkien taking on his bucket list
Credit: Royd Tolkien Productions

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