THE daughter of a woman “raised by monkeys” in the Colombian jungle now lives in the mountainside of the same country.

British-Colombian singer-songwriter Vanessa Forero is the subject of the first episode in the new series of “Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild” which airs on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm.

She has set up home in the very country where her mother, Marina Chapman, said she was brought up by a family of “about 20 capuchin monkeys”.

The Telegraph & Argus wrote about Mrs Chapman’s astonishing tale in 2012 ahead of the release of her now best-selling memoir, “The Girl With No Name”, which she co-authored with her daughter and Lynne Barrett-lee, before it became globally broadcast National Geographic documentary "Woman Raised By Monkeys".

At the time of the article, Mrs Chapman was a mum-of-two in Allerton, who had been a cook at Bradford’s National Media Museum – now known as the National Science and Media Museum.

Her story began when she was kidnapped at the age of four or five from a remote village in her native Colombia, but told the T&A in an interview with reporter Emma Clayton back in 2008 that she remembers nothing before that.

She said: “I must have been kidnapped, because I remember someone putting their hand over my face.

“Kidnapping is common in Colombia. There is no baby registration and children go missing all the time.”

Mrs Chapman was then abandoned in the rainforest and escaped big cats, spiders, and giant pythons, before being welcomed into the monkey family.

She recalls in the book how she used animal instinct to survive, living with the colony for five years, when she learned to climb trees and catch wild animals with her bare hands.

Emma Clayton quoted from the memoir in her 2013 review: “Though I had by now become aware that my new family sometimes changed – some animals disappearing and returning with tiny babies, others disappearing and never being seen again – I began to get to know some of the monkeys quite well.

“There was Grandpa, of course, who was a constant during my time there.

“But also energetic Spot, gentle, loving Brownie and timid White-Tip...who would often jump onto my back, throw her arms around my neck and enjoy being carried wherever I went.

“Of course, I hadn’t actually given any of the monkeys names at the time.

“By now I had no use for human speech at all – only my crude version of monkey language...

“My life had become all about sounds and emotions. And ‘missions’. Missions to find food. Missions to find company. Missions to find a safe place to hide if there was danger.”

The T&A article in 2012 said the book discusses how Mrs Chapman was found by hunters and then she was sold to a brothel in exchange for a parrot.

There she was beaten for walking on all fours before she escaped and was put to work.

She says she then fled to the nearby town of Cucuta, where she led a gang of pickpockets, was a slave to crime lords, and lost three fiancés to violent deaths.

And then came Mrs Chapman’s fateful arrival in Bradford.

More than 40 years ago she was rescued by a family, who took her on as a maid, and they then sent her to the city in England to work as a cook for their children, where she met her future husband.

She spoke virtually no English and he spoke no Spanish, but they married in 1977.

Ms Forero, who is now in her late 30s, said in 2012: “I got bedtime stories about the jungle, as did my sister.

“It was just Mum telling her life, so in a way it was nothing special having a mother like that.”

Mrs Chapman also spoke of an “emotional journey” back to South America with her daughter, in the 2008 interview with Emma Clayton.

Colombia has since become home for Ms Forero, specifically a jaguar reserve.

She said in a post on her Instagram profile yesterday: “This golden bunch gave me the most memorable 10 days.

“Absolutely loved filming for ‘New Lives In The Wild’.

“I remember watching them load into my rustic bamboo entrance… 3 big city trucks full of pro filming gear, pro crew and clean clothes, feeling the contrast of the two worlds and feeling so grateful; how life finds you in the funniest places when you don’t even try…and sometimes don’t even need to leave home (even when you live in the middle of a jaguar reserve with no one around).

“Blessed to have been a worthy enough subject for such a great show and to have met the amazing ‘New Lives’ family. Damn good people and memories.”

The “Colombia” episode of “Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild” airs at 9pm tonight on Channel 5.