Jeremy Wade was born in Ipswich on March 23 1956, and cut his teeth as an angler as a young boy on the picturesque banks of Suffolk's River Stour. He studied for a degree in zoology from Bristol University and earned a post-graduate teaching certificate, before working as a secondary school biology teacher in Kent. After travelling for his first overseas fishing trip in India aged 26, Jeremy began writing articles for fishing magazines. These freelance commissions partly funded subsequent exotic angling expeditions to the Mekong, Congo and Amazon rivers. While globetrotting in search of river monsters may seem like an angler's dream, Jeremy has not emerged from his travels entirely unscathed.