David Attenborough at the BBC

As we celebrate his 100th birthday a chance to hear some of the highlights of Sir David Attenborough’s exceptional and unique career. From his childhood in Leicester, with his University Chancellor father and suffragette mother, who took in two refugees from the Kindertransport during the war, keeping pets, being urged to by his brother Richard to be a bit of an actor, through being turned down for a job as a BBC Radio Producer. He then become a last minute television presenter replacement in 1954 and subsequently travelled across continents, showing us the true wonders of the natural world.

He modestly mentions the only creatures that scared him, even though he was one of the first human beings to be filmed being accepted by mountain gorillas in the jungles of Rwanda and was equally at home at the North Pole or in a cave full of bats.

David also celebrates BBC Television Centre with Michael Grade and Bob Harris – revealing that he knew exactly what they up to in The Old Grey Whistle Test studios with Bob Marley, when he was controller of BBC 2. While working in Shepherds Bush he introduced us to Snooker in colour and the epic Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation series, which inspired him to create the ground breaking thirteen one hours of Life On Earth.

There are also clips taken from his field recordings in remote, previously undiscovered places and in a musical adventure, hunting for the natural history of Folk, with the great American song collector Alan Lomax.

David’s story is equally about his long term concern for the planet and we hear him meeting Greta Thunberg, being astonished by the public response to images of plastic in the oceans, being praised by Prince William as the Earthshot prize was launched at Kensington Palace and addressing world leaders at recent Cop 26 conference in Glasgow. David remembers Zoo Quest, The Trials Of Life, The Blue Planet, The Frozen Planet and Africa amongst many other landmark moments, through his past interviews with BBC presenters including Sue Lawley and Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs, Sue MacGregor on The Reunion and Steve Wright, Tim Smith, John Dunn, Jeremy Vine and Pete Murray on Radio 2, plus Nicky Campbell, Greg James, Mishal Husain, Nick Robinson, Peter Curran and producer Julian May, over many decades.