Lucy Tassell

But his TV career almost happened by accident.

It's a really interesting story that he saw an ad in the paper for a sound radio job.

He applied for that, didn't get it, didn't even get to an interview stage.

But a short time later, he received a letter from the BBC and they had this new thing called television going on.

He was interested.

He was invited to attend a three month training course.

He was paid about a thousand pounds for that course, which he said was three times more than he was earning per year at the time.

Yeah, that's a lot of money.

money.

Exactly.

And so he kind of couldn't refuse that opportunity.

So he went on, he did that training course, and then he joined the BBC as a producer.

So he was working behind the scenes in television production in 1952.

Two years later, he launched a series called Zoo Quest with a reptile curator, a guy called Jack Lester.

And as part of that program, he traveled the world

filming animals in the wild in far-flung parts of the globe.

And he began appearing on camera in that role.

He was super engaging.

He had this curious presentation style that, you know, would go on to become his hallmark.

And the bosses at the BBC recognised that talent early on and the rest is history.