Monkey business

AS LUCINDA dived into the murky piranha-infested waters of the Amazon river she wondered if she would manage to surface.

She might never be seen again.

Munched by hoards of the tiny fish with razor sharp gnashers.

With only her swimsuit left behind, washed up on the shore.

"It was really dangerous and I was scared. But you do those things when you're young and foolish," laughs Lucinda, from Winchester.

"The water was so cloudy you couldn't tell what was below the surface when you went swimming.

"We went fishing for piranhas and hunted for alligators at night. I kept on thinking that if a big alligator tipped the boat I would never be heard of again."

The South American trip was to turn Lucinda's life on its head - both personally and professionally.

Not only did she discover a love of anthropology which made her ditch her job as a BBC assistant.

But she also met her future husband, Magnus Axelsson, 33, with whom she has a two-year-old son called Felix.

"I met him in a bar in Rio. Seven years later we were married. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gone on that trip. It totally changed everything - you never know where things are going to lead.

"It just opened my eyes to the world out there. I found the differences in cultures I saw on my travels fascinating."

As soon as Lucinda returned home to Hampshire, she started studying for the A' Levels which led to her securing a university place to read archaeology and anthropology.

Then she not only broke into her dream profession of producing documentaries - but she ended up swinging into action on Meridian's ape series Monkey Business, a fly on the wall programme about Monkeyworld, in Wareham, near Bournemouth.

The sanctuary provides a tranquil home for 151 primates from all over the world, many of which have suffered emotional and physical abuse at the hands of their previous owners.

Filming the series saw Lucinda travel the globe.

She accompanied Monkeyworld bosses on a visit to the Pintung rescue centre for endangered wild animals in Taiwan.

There the 36-year-old saw orang-utans which had been adopted by Taiwanese families as family pets, not realising the bundles of fluff they took home would transform themselves into whopping full-grown specimens, complete with the strength of ten men and a nasty temper.

The group returned to Britain with eight gibbons - one of the world's most endangered species - and a orang-utan called Roro, who has become one of the series' main stars.

Filming also took Lucinda to Cyprus, where she met LuLu, a chimp from a Russian circus which had had a badly beaten arm amputated.

After eight years she had outgrown the Cypriot family which rescued her and nursed her back to health.

"We went to the family and filmed her being taken away, which was quite emotional for them. There were a few tears.

"But now she's very happy and living in the nursery at Monkeyworld with three young chimps."

The shoot took 12 months in all.

"The monkeys are wonderful - they are the stars of the show. They have so much personality and wouldn't do anything they didn't want to.

"I've worked with cats and dogs on Pet Rescue, but primates have minds of their own."

Monkeyworld discourages its keepers from forming relationships with the apes in their care.

But this proves hard when many of the animals are traumatised and emotionally scarred.

Some of the chimps used to belong to Spanish beach photographers.

They were given valium jabs to keep them docile and were soon addicted to the powerful tranquiliser.

Among their number is Charlie - one of the best-loved characters at the sanctuary - who also had his teeth pulled out, so he could not bite any of the holidaymakers he was snapped with.

"These are animals with a high intelligence. Charlie was so depressed he literally refused to look at the camera. I have lots of lovely shots of the back of his head."

But the most dramatic scenes were captured when Sage the siamang gibbon developed labour complications.

It was soon obvious the mother was going to need a caesarian - an operation rarely carried out on primates.

At one hour's notice, there was no time to order a film crew.

So Lucinda and her assistant Claudia Riccio had to grab a camera and do the job themselves while the vet performed the first caesarian of his career.

"It was very dramatic. When the little one was born, even the vet thought it was dead. Then, by some miracle, it came to life."

n Monkey Business can be seen on Meridian on Sunday nights.