Life with the real Steve Irwin
Exclusive: By Steve Irwin's manager John Stainton
September 17, 2006
THEY say the best partnership in the world is with two opposites, and you couldn't get two people more opposite than Steve and me.
I was and still am a city slicker. Steve was born to the bush, but somehow, together, we worked.
He spoke about crocs and snakes, and stuff I've got to admit I had absolutely no interest in.
But somehow he pulled you in, pulled you in by his sheer energy and enthusiasm and you just couldn't help but get on the roller-coaster ride.
I got on - even though everything he loved, I hated. I absolutely hated camping out. There we'd be in these bloody mosquito-infested swamps, and Steve would be jumping around saying "Isn't this great'', and there I'd be Aerogarded up to the eyeballs.
We'd be in exactly the same place, but he'd be in heaven and I'd be in hell.
But you wouldn't swap it for the world, and I guess I want to tell the world how great he was.
I don't know if I can do it, if I can find the words ... but all those years, all those stories, he never missed a beat.
We'd work all night, and then my phone would ring at five o'clock in the morning and it would be Steve, saying: "Come on, mate! What are we doing? We've got to do this, we've got to do that'' and I'd be like, "Steve, it's five o'clock in the morning'' and he'd say: "I know mate, lets go!''
And if you went, you'd have the time of your life because even though the work you were doing was serious, there was always time for laughter.
Steve loved a practical joke. He'd try to set me up and I'd set him up.
Once, I got him an absolute beauty. I set up this elaborate hoax where I told him there was this Arabian sheikh who wanted to visit the zoo, and who wanted to meet Steve.
I said that it was very important it went smoothly because this sheikh was a passionate conservationist who might want to donate a great deal of money to conservation in Australia.
I hired all these actors to play the roles - the sheikh, the translator and various hangers-on - and Steve agreed to meet him. On the day, you should have seen him. He had no idea how to meet this so-called sheikh.
He was bowing and calling him "your majesty'' - he was completely like a fish out of water. Then I had the sheikh say he wanted to see the camels.
Now, the two camels at Australia Zoo were Steve's pride and joy. He loved them; really, really loved them.
So I had the sheikh say through the translator that he wanted those camels.
Steve was devastated, completely taken aback and he was trying to say that no, unfortunately, the sheikh couldn't have them and the translator was saying, "No, by the man who was with him when he died the sheikh wants those camels - he must have them.''
When we let him in on the joke, Steve never forgave me and never stopped trying to get me back.
We had so many good times like that, but we had tough times, too. I guess what made the rougher times easier was that we had each other.
He watched my back, and I watched his.
We had to look out for each other in different ways. Sometimes, the way he had to look out for me was physical, and he saved my life a couple of times.
I guess the simplest way to describe how we were was that he looked after me in the bush, and I would look after him in the city.
In the bush, sometimes, he would have to shield me against animals that wanted a piece of me, and in the city I tried to shield him against all the people who wanted a piece of him.
I guess it was hardest for him in America, where he literally couldn't leave his hotel room.
He loved Bindi and Bob and Terri like you wouldn't believe, and I don't believe I've ever seen a better father.
If those kids needed him right there, right then, well he'd go, right there, right then. Steve was utterly in love with his children, utterly in awe of his children, and his children are so much their father's son and daughter.
Steve will live on through Terri, through his kids and through his work and, even though reality tells us he's not here himself to do it, I still think that in a way he is.
I know this will sound strange to some people: I think he's still with me.
I'm still looking out for him and he's still looking out for me.
In the past few days when I have struggled, really struggled to find the right words or make the right decisions, I have felt very strongly that he is with me.
When I have sat and cried, I have felt his hand on my shoulder.
He's still beside me, still giving me a kick up the bum when I need it.
For 15 years, we pretty much spent every day together and, if we weren't together, we were talking on the phone. Yet in all those years, there was never a cross word between us.
One thing I would like people to know about Steve, is that he was a man of intellect. His image - that larrikin, happy-go-lucky, rough-and-tumble bloke we all saw on the television - was real, completely fair dinkum, but he was also a deep thinker, a man of great intelligence and a consummate professional.
In the past few days I've had to do things, say things, plan things I never imagined I would, and bringing my mate home in the helicopter and then the aeroplane was one of them.
But it was an absolute privilege. I'm just so honoured that in the roller-coaster we took together over all these years, it was me who rode beside him at the end.
