Day 1: Mike Meets the Snakes
Zeron: I was the last one to arrive in the dining room for a very early breakfast. Everybody was eating and chatting. I had an enormous day ahead of me and already was feeling the pressure. I couldn't even focus to order breakfast. I was trying to get the crew to tell me what they had planned. Producer Steve ordered my breakfast and told me to relax.

The crew upped and left as they had to get to West Midland Safari Park to meet with Dr Peter Naish, the OU psychologist, and Mark O'Shea, our snake expert. I have a lot of respect for Mark and what he does - I've seen many of his programmes, but often only through my fingers. Back in my room, I paced up and down whilst listening to music. The pressure was mounting.

Mike: I knew very well that Zeron was profoundly afraid of snakes. One afternoon while we were staying together in a cottage, Zeron had gone to make tea. The crew arrived, and we were chatting so I hadn't noticed what was on the TV, but as soon as Zeron emerged from the kitchen something caught his eye. He must have jumped about six feet while uttering a number of expletives. Unbeknown to us, the natural history programme that was showing on the TV in the background had just shown the image of a snake. Zeron had only seen it out of the corner of his eye, but it was enough to set off a violent recoiling action.

From that day on, I was often tempted to wind him up, but apart from a postcard which I sent him with a snake on it, I resisted temptation because the very mention of the 'S' word was so upsetting to him. So, I was worried about trying to introduce him to the real thing.

Zeron: On the 10 minute drive to the Safari Park, Mike was excellent; he seemed almost like a caring brother. We arrived outside the reptile house where we met Mark O'Shea.

My stomach was in knots and I was getting really agitated! Someone asked me to go into the reptile house. That was the stupidest thing that anyone had ever asked me to do! I couldn't do it. My head was spinning and my legs didn't want to react. My whole being was screaming 'this is lunacy'.

Suddenly I was alone and, for a second, I thought they had deserted me. But then I realised that everyone had gone inside the reptile house. Producer Steve found Dr Naish who came out to me and spoke in such a soft tone that put me slightly at ease. And so I entered the reptile house.

It was like a dream sequence. I just followed Peter by watching his feet. I didn't look around; my eyes were fixed firmly on the back of Peter's shoes. Eventually we stopped walking and Peter said, "Relax and look up." And there I saw a small crocodile in an enclosure with running water, a makeshift pool and rocks. And there, inside, was Mark O'Shea stroking its snout. He made it look so easy and comfortable that I wanted to go in and have a stroke myself. I'd rather be in a room with a croc than have anything to do with snakes.

Then the fools wanted to show me some of the snakes - I wasn't having any of it! I wanted out. Mike said or did something to me that shook me up. I don't know how I got out of the reptile house, but I did, and when Steve found me I actually burst into tears. He took his time to calm me down and console me. I was turning into a wreck. My insides were twisted into the tightest knot you can imagine - I had been near snakes. I hadn't even looked at them - just knowing that I was near them was enough for me to be traumatised. After a time Steve had to go and direct and do some stuff with Mike, leaving me outside with our researcher, Alison. I was still scared stiff.

Mike: I soon found out that Mark O'Shea and Peter Naish had a few surprises for us. As we needed a 'control' for the experiment we were about to undertake, I was "volunteered" to be subjected to a number of tests to see how I reacted to various stimuli: the snakes. Unlike Zeron, I have no phobia of snakes, so the tests were planned to test a 'normal' response to the stimuli. An ECG (electrocardiogram) told me my heart beat, my blood pressure was checked and my galvanic conductivity was measured - this revealed whether I was sweating or not (a 'cold sweat' often occurs when we are scared or stressed).

As I sat in a chair, various sensors were stuck to me and I had my wrists strapped to a table. I was then subjected to a number of 'stimuli' that Mark had prepared. He reckoned these would increasingly worry me (and particularly Zeron). He took me step-by-step through worms, toy snakes and snake skins until we got to the real thing. Once we reached the live snakes, I was first given small snakes to handle before any really large ones. Not surprisingly, I did show a mild reaction to the live snakes, but the biggest reaction resulted from Mark throwing a rubber snake at me.

Throughout the test my heart beat remained pretty stable in the sixties and generally only went up as I spoke (which is pretty normal). In addition, my galvanic skin response (the sweat test) remained pretty uniform, and when it did increase it was usually because I had been surprised. I have to admit that I was nervous with the snakes at first - few people wouldn't be. Even though I am a biologist I have never really thought much about snakes, let alone handled them, so I guess I reacted in the same way as most people would.

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Content last updated: 25/08/2005