Sir David Attenborough

"David Attenborough has been interested in natural history for as long as he can remember. As a child he had a succession of pets - grass snakes, salamanders and tropical fish among them - and explored the countryside around his home in Leicester, watching birds and collecting fossils. Eventually, he won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in natural sciences. After doing his national service in the Royal Navy, and a brief spell in educational publishing, he joined...See more

"David Attenborough has been interested in natural history for as long as he can remember. As a child he had a succession of pets - grass snakes, salamanders and tropical fish among them - and explored the countryside around his home in Leicester, watching birds and collecting fossils. Eventually, he won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in natural sciences. After doing his national service in the Royal Navy, and a brief spell in educational publishing, he joined the BBC Television in 1952. There he produced a wide variety of programmes - archaeological quizzes, short stories, political discussions among them - but eventually he persuaded the Corporation to let him go to the tropics to make films about animals and so started the series of Zoo Quest Expeditions, three of which are described in this book. In 1965, he abandoned programme-making to become Controller of BBC 2 which at that time was less than a year old. For four years he was responsible for the network's editorial policies and for turning it into the first colour network in Europe. In 1969, he was appointed Director of Programmes, responsible for both BBC Television's networks, but in 1972, after eight years behind a desk, he resigned and returned to programme-making. Since then he has produced several remarkable series, Eastwards with Attenborough, The Tribal Eye, and most recently, Life on Earth." See less