Billy and Molly have formed an incredible bond between man and otter (Image: National Geographic/Charlie Hamilton James)
This may be one of the most extraordinary love stories you will ever hear. The life of a lost soul called Billy Mail was transformed when he struck up a remarkable friendship with Molly, an equally lost wild otter, on the remote shores of Shetland.
It is a truly heartwarming tale about the transformative power of nature and shows how a deep connection with wildlife can heal us all. As Billy’s wife Susan explains very poetically: “Billy was lost for a while – until beauty found him.” She adds: “I could never have imagined that a wee creature washing up at his feet would change everything.”
In 2021, Billy had recently lost his parents and was feeling all at sea during lockdown. He had also become ground down by the enormous task of totally renovating and extending the new house they had just moved into on Shetland.
He was drifting, lacking real purpose in life. He puts his finger on another reason behind his sadness back then.
“I never had kids,” he sighs. “I don’t think people who do have them realise there’s always a part of you that grieves the loss of something you’ve never had. You live with it, and you deal with it, but the loss always runs a little bit deeper perhaps.”
Susan chimes in: “Billy had a wee hole in his heart. Perhaps it’s the hole a man has when he doesn’t get to be a father.”
Molly lies in a nest of seaweed after a swim (Image: National Geographic/Johnny Rolt)
However, that hole was well and truly filled when he met Molly. Billy and Susan are talking to the Daily Express from their idyllic home on Shetland. With a gorgeous blue sky mirrored in the glittering sea behind them, they are a delightful, humorous couple.
But they would be the first to admit that Billy’s mood wasn’t always so bright. It was completely altered by Molly.
It was three years ago, soon after Billy and Susan had moved to his native Shetland from Aberdeen, that he first saw this orphaned and bedraggled wild otter. Utterly wrungout, she had flopped onto his jetty in a farflung corner of the ruggedly beautiful Scottish island.
Billy recalls that the animal he instantly called Molly was, “A bag of bones”.
Evidently exhausted, she was chomping on a crab. That takes more energy to crack than it provides when consumed, indicating that she was on the brink of starvation. Billy, 57, also realised that she had recently lost her mother. “Otters are normally so shy. For her to be so relaxed around me meant she must have been desperate,” he tells me.
Forging an immediate bond with Molly, Billy was inspired to nurse this abandoned creature back to full health. At the time, he declared: “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, but I’m all she’s got.”
Now Billy muses: “She was just too young to be fending for herself. Maybe I was a last resort. She was vulnerable and she was alone, and it took me back to a moment in my own childhood when I felt like I was alone. It was a horrible, exposed feeling, and I immediately transferred that feeling onto her.”
As Molly grew stronger, their relationship blossomed. Billy remembers: “What started out as a chance encounter turned into trust.
She brought a wee smile to my face and it just stayed with me.” Clearly, the arrival of Molly was just the tonic Billy needed. They started playing games together, impishly mimicking each other’s movements on Billy’s lawn. She frolicked in a pit full of coloured balls and relaxed in the little house Billy had specially built for her.
He even installed Wi-Fi there so he could watch Molly on camera – much to Susan’s indignation: “So Molly has Wi-Fi in her house, and I don’t have Wi-Fi in my house!”
Molly swims underwater (Image: Charlie Hamilton James / National Geographic)
Billy turned himself into a fisherman in order to catch food for his beloved otter. He went so far as buying a new freezer to store all the fish he caught for Molly.
Susan joked at the time: “I’d like some haddock, but I don’t see a lot of the haddock that comes in. Molly gets all of it!”
On another occasion: “I was given a salmon one day, and Billy put it in the freezer.We had a friend visiting and I opened the freezer to get something for him, and our guest said, ‘Oh, great, salmon!’ I had to tell him, ‘I am afraid that’s not for us. That’s for Molly’.”
Molly undoubtedly gave Billy a renewed sense of focus. As a bonus, the Mails and their loyal sheepdog Jade suddenly acquired an adored new member of their family.
Susan says: “Molly didn’t need a friend, she needed a mother. Perhaps because she had lost her own family, she quickly became part of ours. It was like she was lonely and wanted some company.”
The Mails were both charmed by the delightful character of the otter, who even though she has now had a baby still regularly visits them.
Billy observes: “Molly has always been innocent and never aggressive. When she came first, she was fun and playful. She was like a half-grown dog. She was curious and enjoyed our company.”
Molly curled up in her bed prepared by Billy and Susan (Image: National Geographic )
Susan, who works as a manager at Shetland airport, gives a specific example of Molly’s mischievous personality. “We were sitting out on the grass outside here and I had a gin and tonic with a slice of lime in it. I got up to go to the kitchen to get something. As I walked away, Molly came forward and took the slice of lime out of my gin glass! She’s just really cheeky.”
Billy thinks Molly has now matured. “She used to play in the ball pit a fair bit, but now she doesn’t as much. Since she’s had her own baby and gone through that whole process, she’s become much more serious.”
This enchanting tale is chronicled in a moving new National Geographic documentary, Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story.
The Mails assess how their relationship with Molly has changed their lives for the better. According to Billy, who has recently retired from his job at a recycling centre on the island: “When I grew up in Shetland, wildlife was part of my DNA. Then I went away and that bit of me died just because it wasn’t being stimulated.
“But when I came back to Shetland, suddenly I was surrounded by wildlife and after I met Molly, that bit came alive again. Being with wildlife once more has been like pouring water into a dry sponge. It has fed a part of me that had been starved for a while.”
Billy, whose house is now full of otter-branded items such as a mug bearing the caption of “You’re my otter half” over a cartoon of two loved-up otters, continues: “Molly has awoken a little bit of me that had been lying dormant. It’s like she’s shown me how to be a kid again and to have that fascination and joy which we somehow allow ourselves to lose as we get older.”
For her part, Susan is very pleased that Molly has cheered Billy up so much. “Having Molly in his life gave Billy a sense of responsibility which he thrived on? Molly made Billy happy, and he made me happy and isn’t that what love is?”
With typical modesty, Susan downplayed the effect she thought the documentary would have. “I told Billy the film would be, ‘Man feeds otter. Otter swims away. Otter swims back. Man feeds otter.We’re not going to have a blockbuster here’.”
She couldn’t have been more wrong, though, because they have got a blockbuster here. An emotional blockbuster.
Billy outlines why. “It’s a very emotional film on a number of different levels. There’s nothing more heart-wrenching than a hungry animal that’s helpless.That gets to your heart in a special place.
“But there are lots of other emotional threads running through it. There are a lot of tears throughout the film, but they are happy, healing tears. It’s not a sad film. It’s uplifting and in a dark world that’s in a bad place at the moment, it just gives you a chance to feel some love.”
Billy rows next to Molly in the sea just off West Shetland (Image: National Geographic/Johnny Rolt)
He continues: “It’s an escape from the reality of what’s going on around us. I hardly watch the news these days because it’s just so depressing. What is nature? It takes you back to Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and animals have got even fewer needs – just food, shelter and warmth. It’s very grounding to be in nature.”
Susan chimes in: “There’s so much horrible stuff going on in our world right now that to have a film like this just gives you a bit of escapism.
“It demonstrates the huge importance of the whole idea of compassion and of giving and getting back. It shows what can happen when you open your heart to someone or something that you can welcome in.”
Billy sums up the potent benefits that nature can offer. “Nature has always been a source of comfort for me. It’s a welcome distraction from the bad stuff that is going on.
“If I’m sitting out on a mountainside or in a boat on the water, I often say, ‘You can do what you want to my house. You can tear it to the ground if you want. I’ll deal with that when I come home. I don’t care right now. I’m at one with nature’.”
He adds: “Being involved with Molly has made me feel completely at one with nature. Nature grounds you. It brings you to a place where everything calms down and slows down and nothing looks as bad as it used to.”
Good golly, Miss Molly, what a powerful, profound impact you have made.
Billy& Molly: An Otter Love Story is streaming on Disney+ noe and airs on November 15 at 8pm on the National Geographic channel