Q: Mark in particular has a substantial amount of survival experience. Did you feel your skills were lacking at any time during your stay, and what useful new skills did you take away with you?

Olly: My skills are always lacking. Mark is a jungle man, the jungle is in him and he is only him, when he is in the jungle. If he was a plant, he would be a piece of rattan – you can make anything out of rattan – houses, bridges, bow strings. With imagination you could probably make a working model of Barry White - it’s usually reliable and you know what you’re going to get and you like what you get, because it’s useful and durable.

As a skill set, that’s the Captain. Although like rattan, each piece has a very different character and as the relationship to his pig, Archie will testify, the Captain is not a normal human being. Fortunately for the British population, for the rest of the year, Mark lives overseas in a confined space where he won't hurt anyone.

Well as for me, I base my survival on pure chance. Sadly I don’t have any useful jungle skills and at all times I found myself completely lacking. But the Mek were so generous and patient that they put up with me, especially the ladies who for some reason seemed to enjoy teaching me the right way to plant a potato at least once a week – not sure I quite mastered it by the end – but one day I want to have my own veggie patch and just see if I can still grow a potato.

Then return to Merengmen with a bag of spuds and invite them around for dinner.

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