{"id":5444,"date":"2025-04-18T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/?p=5444"},"modified":"2025-04-24T18:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T18:20:07","slug":"50-years-ago-i-rescued-a-penguin-now-steve-coogan-is-playing-me-in-a-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/50-years-ago-i-rescued-a-penguin-now-steve-coogan-is-playing-me-in-a-film\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201850 years ago I rescued a penguin, now Steve Coogan is playing me in a film\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Steve Coogan stars as Tom Michell in The Penguin Lessons, directed by Peter Cattaneo (Picture: Lionsgate)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018It was a tiny movement, really. I almost missed it. If the penguin hadn’t flapped his swings I would have assumed he was dead like all the others\u2026 Then none of this would have ever happened.\u2019<\/p>\n

This was the moment when Tom Michell, a 23-year-old science teacher working in South America<\/a>, first spotted a penguin on the coast of Punta del Este in Uruguay in 1975. <\/p>\n

Drenched in oil from an ocean spill, Tom decided to clean the bird up and return him to the sea. But after the penguin refused to leave the Englishman\u2019s side, Tom smuggled him back to his boarding school<\/a> in Argentina.<\/p>\n

Named Juan Salvador, the penguin became the school\u2019s new mascot of the rugby team, confidant to the dorm housekeeper and an unprecedented swimming coach to a shy boy.<\/p>\n

Now 73, and speaking to me from his home in Cornwall, Tom has reminisced on his extraordinary journey with the flightless bird, which is now the subject of a film called The Penguin Lessons.<\/p>\n

\u2018Who would have thought that 50 years ago I would see a penguin flap its wings in oil, and now Steve Coogan is playing me in a film,\u2019 Tom says, laughing.<\/p>\n

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Up Next<\/p>\n

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