12 Dec 2001, The Daily Telegraph

The first cuckoos changed my life

Today sees the launch of The Daily Telegraph BASF 2002 Science Writer Awards, offering young people cash prizes, a chance to see their name in print and trips to America. Here a previous winner, Sanjida O'Connell, describes how it also helped her to build a career in journalism.

By Sanjida O'Connell

FOR some reason in 1991 I had a burning desire to tell the world about 'the extraordinary life of the cuckoo'. Many people know that cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds' nests; the diminutive adoptive parents rear these great brutes of birds without seeming to realise that they are not their own.

It is less well known that there are different races of cuckoo, which lay eggs specifically designed to mimic those of other birds: brown and spotted to fool meadow pipits, for instance, or plain blue for redstarts.

My piece on cuckoo parasitism was given a science writer Award. I didn't win first prize, but even so, being highly commended has led to a career as a journalist and a producer/director of science documentaries. It also led to a series of coincidences and helped forge friendships I hold dear 10 years on.

After receiving the prize, I went back to Roger Highfield, science editor of The Telegraph, with an idea for a second article, which he commissioned, on the loss of wildlife and wetland habitats threatened by a proposed tidal barrage across the River Severn. The assistant features editor phoned me and asked if I had any pictures. Fortunately I did; unfortunately, they were at home and he needed them immediately. We agreed that I'd go back to the flat and he'd send a courier. However, at the age of 21, I had no real idea of how a courier actually operated. The helmeted dispatch rider assured me he would deliver the photos directly to the assistant features editor. I, in my naivety, took him at his word. As a result the pictures never made it; the assistant editor was furious, as was the owner of the photos, which never reappeared. I was a little disappointed to see my first piece illustrated with a line drawing of a duck.

Still, I had gained enough confidence to approach other newspapers. Having had a couple of pieces published in a national newspaper (bad poetry in the student newspaper doesn't count apparently), I was taken more seriously than I might have been.

The overall winner in 1991 was Francesca Happe, who studies people with autism. A brilliant scientist and gifted writer, her piece was clear, informative and emotive: "Imagine yourself alone in a foreign land. As you step off the bus, the local people crowd towards you, gesticulating and shouting. Their words sound like animal cries. Their gestures mean nothing to you."

At the time I was embarking on a PhD in theory of mind in chimpanzees - asking whether these apes have the very human skill of knowing that another person has thoughts and beliefs. People with autism do not have this skill. Almost by chance I came across Francesca, who helped me carry out the tests I'd designed for the chimps on people with autism. The idea was that if I was really testing theory of mind, people with autism should not be able to do it.

Franky and I had a worrying moment when one man managed to find the bean we'd hidden. Knowing where the bean was depended on him understanding that Franky knew where it was and that I did not. Since people with autism lack this kind of mental understanding, he should not have been able to find it.

When we eventually asked him how he knew, he said he listened very carefully and he could hear the bean being dropped into its hiding place.

Journalism helped me supplement my paltry PhD grant, though I was lucky to get one in the first place. It also helped me get my first job in television. I applied to work on Tomorrow's World. A science degree was a requisite, but so was media experience. I had practically none in television, but my articles in the newspapers must have swung it. (I don't think it was the short films I'd made on the sex life of baboons in Namibia or the flora and fauna of Lundy Island set to rock music). This break enabled me to start in television as an assistant producer without having to go through the usual steps of fetching coffee for rude directors or being underpaid and overworked as a researcher, a journey that normally takes years.

Sitting opposite me in the Tomorrow's World office was Simon Singh, a physicist who'd been working on the programme for a couple of years. He gently steered me through the minefield of live television and, then as now, kept me entertained with obscure stories and unfathomable puzzles.

A few years later, after I'd had my first novel published and was working on a non-fiction book based on my research, Simon began making a documentary for Horizon called Fermat's Last Theorem. He became passionately involved in the story of a mathematician who struggled to solve one of the oldest riddles in maths and, as many directors discover, found he had done far more research than he could fit into a 50-minute programme.

I suggested to Simon that he write a book, and gave him my agent's number. The rest is history. Simon wrote a best-selling book on Fermat, followed by the equally excellent Code Book and has since presented television and radio programmes.

Simon organised a debate on science and the media for the Belfast Festival a couple of months ago and invited his friend Raj Persaud, the psychiatrist, writer and television presenter, and me to go and heckle him, which brings me to my final point.

Being one of the winners of the Science Writer Awards was a vital step for me personally, but the Award itself is also vital, as it promotes awareness in scientists of the media. Above all, it's a brilliant way of promoting science writing and encouraging new people to communicate science ideas.

Science is a hugely important part of our daily lives, yet it is frequently misrepresented, misreported and misunderstood. I believe scientists have a duty to share their knowledge in the spirit of public service, enthusiasm for their subject and because they're largely paid by us, the taxpayers.

Journalists, in turn, have a duty to report on their research entertainingly and accurately. That can, of course, create tensions, but events such as The Daily Telegraph BASF Science Writer Awards encourage people to express ideas and new concepts to a wider audience, in as bold, beautiful and truthful a way as possible.