With DAVID ATTENBOROUGH’S 100th birthday in May local naturalist and scientist Dr John Feltwell recalls crossing paths with the great broadcaster.
The first time I was involved with Attenborough must have been in the mid 80s when I was a paid researcher to provide wildlife information about the Mediterranean; wildlife events and locations for shooting etc. as I know a certain amount about the western end of the Mediterranean. Attenborough’s The First Eden, The Mediterranean World and Man was published in 1987.
In 1995 I wrote to Attenborough suggesting that I write his biography, and he replied that he was flattered and that ‘I intend to have a go at it myself sometime.’
That Autobiography never materialised. Instead, Attenborough published his ‘David Attenborough Life on Air Memoire of a Broadcaster (2002). As I recall, the critics said that book did not offer information on his upbringing or early life. Attenborough did list his earliest books, from Zoo Quest to Guiana (1956) to Paraguay (1959) and to Madagascar (1961). This was a time when collecting animals on expeditions for zoos moved towards the conservation of animals in their own habitat. And so, Attenborough’s career moved seamlessly into bringing wildlife into our homes. So successfully.
But he had been busy on another book, ‘The Private Life of Plants, A Natural History of Plant Behaviour (1995). In that, I provided a dozen photographs including the Frontispiece, as well as photos of dodder and close-ups of pin and thrum primroses, and a dramatic aerial shot of Bedgebury Arboretum with trees flattened following the 1987 hurricane.
There was a time when I met Attenborough by chance on the Tube when I was on my way to shoot the various tropical paintings by Marianne North, daughter of the Liberal MP for Hastings, but that is another story.
A paper cutting from The Times (Jan 4, 2002) said that Saba Douglas-Hamilton ‘has been chosen as the successor to David Attenborough as the nation’s foremost wildlife presenter’ but that has not happened, and she is now mostly promoting the conservation of elephants in Africa. More recently Chris Packham has been in the frame, but it unlikely that anyone will ever replace the great breadth and experience of Attenborough.
John Feltwell