Patrick Barkham

Well, his TV career is so interesting because his presenting duties came about completely accidentally.

He studied natural sciences at Cambridge University and then he got a job in publishing and he decided it was quite boring.

So he pitched to get into the more glamorous world of the new TV programmes.

So he became a

producer director and he was put onto a new show called Zoo Quest where he went out with the presenter who was called Jack Lester who was a curator at London Zoo and after one episode out in Sierra Leone Jack Lester fell ill and so David was propelled in front of the cameras and of course he became this colossus on our screens for decades and decades.

Well, it's very interesting how Life on Earth came about because, as you mentioned, David Attenborough became controller of BBC Two and he was a big innovator.

And one of his innovations, apart from bringing snooker to the small screen, was to...

create the landmark documentary series.

He commissioned Civilization, which was an epic 12 parter, and it told the story of culture through the ages.

And then he thought, why don't I make a similar epic documentary, but make it about my passion and the thing that I'm really quite expert in, which is natural history.

And so Life on Earth was a 13 episode series, and it took David around the world three times

He wrote every word of the script and probably to the BBC's amazement, it was a huge success.

It attracted audiences of 14 million, which was as big as telly could get in those days.

And it set the vocabulary really for natural history filmmaking, which the BBC then followed through the 80s.

to create all these series that it calls blue chip or blockbuster natural history documentaries.

And they're still one of Britain's greatest kind of cultural productions, really.

It's a good question, Madeleine.

And I honestly think the answer is that his programmes have rather reflected the public mood rather than shaping them.

And certainly, over the years, his filmmaking has changed hugely.

But even when you look at Life on Earth back in 1979, it contains some very strong environmental messages.