A CHILDLESS Scot has revealed how he ended up adopting a wild otter as his daughter – after it begged him for help.
Billy Mail is featured in a stunning new National Geographic special which documents his incredible relationship with a fish-eating mammal he christened Molly.
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And the energy worker from the Shetland Isles admits that Molly became like a surrogate child after he was unable to father any children of his own.
Billy, who lives in the Northern Isles with wife Susan, says: “I was never able to have kids and it’s just one of the things that didn’t happen – it was unexplained.
“I kind of treat Molly like a child. Perhaps it was to help replace the void, the kind of emptiness that’s left when you don’t have kids.
“I know you can’t truly fill that void with an animal, and I didn’t set out to do that with Molly, it just ended up like that. She’s my girl.”
The documentary Billy & Molly shows the otter first approaching the worker at an energy recovery plant as he was on a jetty by his home.
He says: “She didn’t look healthy. She was absolutely emaciated, as the skin was hanging off her and it was obvious she was very hungry.
“So I just started giving her some food, feeding her fish by hand. I would hold it in my clenched fist and she would give me a nudge. But I was wary as she has got teeth that can do some serious damage.”
Susan adds: “I did warn him that if he ever came home missing fingers, there would be trouble.”
Billy reckons he bonded so quickly with Molly after losing his dad Willie, 89, from “old age” and mum Evelyn, 87, to covid shortly before the otter first appeared in 2021.
He says: “When Molly rocked up, it was a lovely distraction. It just took your mind off everything else at that moment and was a welcome relief.”
Before long Billy was going on fishing trips to stock up on mackerel in the extra freezer he bought for Molly.
But wife Susan – who has adult children from her previous marriage – admits she started to worry that her hubby was taking his relationship with the wild animal too far.
She says: “When Billy started doing this I am not going to lie, I was like ‘What on earth is going on?’
“There was more than one occasion when Molly chased our dog Jade and I into the shed. We’ve never been bitten by her but I was worried that she could.”
Billy, 57, adds: “Molly has never shown any aggression but she is still a wild animal and an otter could kill a dog if it gets in the wrong place.”
But if Susan was concerned by Billy’s obsession at first that was nothing compared to the moment he constructed a mini cottage for Molly complete with family pictures on the wall of himself, his wife and dog Jade.
It even had wifi for the Ring doorbell camera he installed so he could keep tabs on Molly remotely when he was at work.
Susan, 59, said: “We didn’t even have wifi in our new extension at that point. I was like, ‘You’re spending all this time putting in wifi for her, but you can’t even get ours sorted?’”
But then every father’s worst nightmare happens when Billy’s “daughter” soon finds a suitor in the shape of a “bad boy” he named Bozo.
He says: “Bozo was a proper bruiser with scars on his face. I’d get a message at work saying, ‘The boyfriend has turned up again’.
“I would act like the angry dad, but inside I was hoping that she would go off and get pregnant and just be an otter.
“But Bozo never came anywhere near us. It’s only ever Molly that’s shown that kind of trust and willingness to come close.”
However in one heart-stopping moment after Molly has been missing for weeks, a dead otter is washed up on the shore during a winter storm.
Billy said: “From a distance all I saw was a bundle of fluff lying there. It was a proper horror moment.
“Fortunately I realised pretty quickly that it wasn’t Molly as the body was too small – a juvenile.
“But you then realise that it could easily have been Molly because of the hardships they face trying to survive in this climate.”
But horror turns to sheer delight when a clearly pregnant Molly reappears, settling into her little cottage before giving birth to a pup.
And while Billy never got to experience those sleepless nights as a parent, he gets first-hand experience as Molly is constantly pestered by her offspring while trying to nap.
TV STAR LOST FINGERS IN OTTER ATTACK
BILLY & Molly isn’t the only otter love story to come from Scotland after the hit sixties film Ring of Bright Water.
BILLY & Molly isn’t the only otter love story to come from Scotland after the hit sixties film Ring of Bright Water.
The movie featured Londoner Graham Merrill – played by Bill Travers – living with his pet otter on the west coast of Scotland where he falls for local Mary McKenzie (Virginia McKenna).
It was based on the autobiographical book of the same name by Gavin Maxwell, but in reality there was a far bloodier ending than the film’s comedy plot.
That’s because a teenage Terry Nutkins – who would go on to host BBC kids programme The Really Wild Show – had helped Maxwell raise his wild otter called Edal, only for the animal to chomp off two of his fingers.
Terry, who passed away in 2012 aged 66, once said: “Edal tore off my welly and I automatically put my hand down to get her away but she bit my thumb and had that hanging off in a split second.
“She then got hold of my middle finger on my right hand and started crunching away on it, taking it right off.
“I picked her up and threw her across the room, but as I did that she spun round mid-air and took the middle finger clean off my other hand, before I managed to lock her in the room.”
Maxwell later wrote how Nutkins lay in hospital and calmly said: “Chop ‘em off, doctor. That ruddy lot’s no good to anyone.”
But Terry added: “It wasn’t funny at the time as I ended up with gangrene. I can remember the smell now.
“I was in hospital for a month. I was only 14. It was hugely traumatic.”
He says: “There is incredible footage where Molly actually puts her paws over her eyes trying to sleep.
“The documentary makers are otter experts and they say this is the first time anything like this has been caught on camera.
“You can really feel her pain as she’s trying to get to sleep while her pup is crawling all over her.”
Molly is still a regular visitor to the couple’s home, but while Billy helped nurse her back to full health, he believes her presence has given them a new outlook on life.
He explains: “Molly’s needs were simple – food, warmth and shelter.
“So she’s changed us as we realised that our needs are really not that dissimilar – all we need is food, shelter and love. You don’t need an awful lot to be happy.”
But with Billy & Molly already in the running for a glut of top industry awards before it’s even screened, are the couple ready to share their “daughter” with the rest of the world?
Susan, who is services manager at Shetland’s Sumburgh Airport, admits: “It is a big worry that we’ll get lots of people turning up looking for Molly, but we have no control over that. We don’t own her.”
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Billy adds: “At the end of the day she still comes and we still feed her – frankly she’s too good not to share.”
*Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story is streaming on Disney+ from 14 November, and airs on 15 November at 8pm on the National Geographic channel.
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