Life On Air (Hardcover)

Attenborough's Life On Air began in 1950, having taken a degree in Natural Sciences in the University of Cambridge, done National Service in the Navy, got married, done a year as an editor with an educational publisher, had a son and then answered a BBC recruiting ad in the Times. Turned down for BBC Radio, he was offered a traineeship in BBC TV which was pioneering the medium in Britain and he has never looked back. The rest is TV history and you can read Sir David's personal view of it all in his engaging and highly entertaining book.

This is no boring story of the rise and rise of a media mogul in the smoke-filled rooms of Ally Pally and Lime Grove. Having served his apprenticeship producing programmes like Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? and Song Hunter with the famous American folk singer and song collector Alan Lomax, he managed to escape from the confines of overlit studios into the natural world. Zoo Quest began in 1954 with an animal collecting trip to Sierra Leone and David Attenborough had found his metier. Since then he has managed to bring the wonders of the natural world into millions of living rooms around the world and to reach general audiences without patronising them, without any spurious antics, silly voices or dumbing down. His animal and plant subjects are the stars, Attenborough is the master of ceremonies who introduces the acts for our wonder and amazement. But his scope extends way beyond the birds and the bees.

In the 1960s, it was suggested that he took up an administrative post--"after all, you won't want to be gallivanting around the world when you are 50". Fortunately, he did not abandon gallivanting for admin but went freelance, studied anthropology and helped extend our view of native peoples and sympathies for their life styles. He went on to become responsible for coming up with famous BBC TV series such as Kenneth Clark's incredibly successful Civilisation series, followed by Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. Inevitably, he did become one of the BBC suits but one that wore a camouflage jacket.

What is remarkable is that Attenborough has managed to do it for so long without really changing his own style too much. He has not had to because the technology has changed and so he has constantly been able to give new views and insights into the details of life on Earth. Writing pretty much as he speaks, it is easy to hear his voice, dry sense of humour and generosity coming through all the time. Do not expect to read personal details, navel-gazing or malicious gossip--that is not his style. The only personal note comes at the end with the death of his wife in 1997. Over 100 photos associated with the huge range of programmes he has been intimately involved with decorate Life On Air, a fascinating personal story of our times. He says that he knows of "no pleasure deeper than that which comes from contemplating the natural world and trying to understand it"; he certainly manages to convey that in Life On Air. --Douglas Palmer

Review
In this volume of memoirs Britain's best-known natural history film-maker tells the stories of the people and the animals he has met and the places that he has visited.

This is an enthralling autobiography from one of the linchpins of television. Starting in 1949 when he was 24, Attenborough relates the in-depth story of half a century as one of Britain's top broadcasters. He emerges as straightforward, unpretentious and honest - he tells us that when he started in television he'd barely even watched it, much less contemplated an insider's role, but the financial lure of a BBC training course was too tempting to refuse. His subsequent life of travel and adventure was fascinating, and his telling of the tale here is vivid and enjoyable. Attenborough was intimately concerned with the development of the BBC's rich tradition of natural history programmes, and he gives us a behind-the-scenes glance into the planning, the increasingly sophisticated techniques and the occasional wobbles of execution. Most of all, he is a master story-teller, and this work is crammed with anecdote on every page: he tells of the unexpected influence of the Queen of Tonga and the disappointment of the harem of the ruler of Benin. He deals with leaches in Papua New Guinea and is mistaken for the Duke of Edinburgh in Makaruka, where he boldly dons a loincloth to mix with the locals. He describes attempting to make the first film of a living coelacanth, and rushing out from a meeting of the trustees of the British Museum to film the eruption of an Icelandic volcano. There's also a chance to learn about the inner machinations of TV executives, and perhaps rather more than you wanted to know about the copulation habits of tortoises. Throughout Attenborough is engagingly unpretentious and quite prepared to tell a joke against himself - as when he took over at short notice from Desmond Morris (who had to flee the country for tax purposes following the huge success of The Naked Ape) and travelled to Tanzania for an interview, where he was welcomed by a glamorous woman who whispered confidentially, 'weren't you once David Attenborough?'. He ends in the present day, aptly enough mid-TV series, still displaying an engaging fascination with the natural world and still modest about his immense achievements. This delightful autobiography is a credit to its author in every possible way. (Kirkus UK)

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