Dan Snow's History Hit - In Conversation with Sir David Attenborough

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Sir David Attenborough is an English veteran broadcaster and naturalist. He is best known for writing and presenting the nine Life series, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, which collectively form a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on the planet. He is also a former senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D. Attenborough is widely considered a national treasure in Britain. In 2002 he was named among the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide poll.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet David Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, in the Canadian High Commission in London. We did an event and I released this podcast afterwards. I thought I'd re-release this podcast for those of you who haven't heard of it, because he's a total legend and we need to listen to what he's got to say, and because his show on Netflix, Life on Our Planet, has just launched worldwide. So please go and check that out after listening to this podcast. Before you do all of that, though, make sure you subscribe to History Hit TV.

You can watch hundreds of hours of history documentaries, new stuff, old favourites, all on History Hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. If you use the code POD1, P-O-D-1, you get a month for free and your second month for just one pound, euro or dollar. So please head over to historyhit.tv to become a subscriber. In the meantime, everyone, here is Sir David Attenborough. You have more honorary fellowships than anyone else in Britain.

You were voted the most trusted celebrity in Britain. You have a shelf groaning with medals and distinction. You've won BAFTAs for black and white television, colour television, HD television and 3D television. I think that's another record. There's one question that I want to ask you, and it's important. Have you ever been involved in anything

that's been a total and utter disaster? My dear chap. 1954, My dear chap, 1954, 50% of things that we did were total disasters. I won't list them in awe because they'll be here all night. But just to give you an idea of what television was like in 1953 as well, I was called by the organisers we called of our little department

all our programmes were live all of them were live they came from Alexander Palace in two small studios neither of which was as big as this room and we put out a service that lasted two or three hours every night.

And as I say, all being live, our job was speech. Anything that was non-fiction, we were a so-called talks producer. And I'm now picking something a really bit extreme,

but it's nonetheless true. The organiser came to me and he said, we've got a series of programmes we've had in the past year or so in which people sit in a chair and tell short stories. And we would like you to produce one. And we've had this one,

which was commissioned by the head of the department and bought, all the rights have been bought, but nobody feels able to produce it. So you, as a new boy, produce it. Go away and do it. And I read it was a poetic short story about a love affair between a fishmonger who got his pleasure from life in arranging fish on the marble slab, and one of his customers. And nothing happened except that they married and were unhappy. But it was clearly poetic. So how would you do it?

To sit in a chair and just tell that story was obviously ludicrous. So I decided I would do it, wait for it, as a ballet to words. It was a catastrophe. The Daily Mirror said, so the BBC wanted to know whether you could dance to words. They've discovered that you can't. And that's it i think that there's an important point here i look out at this crowd and of adventurers and

explorers lots of young people here and i think it's wonderful to hear from you that it hasn't just been all one some glorious golden escalator of success because if you and you look back at history cook and shackleton and scott i mean and it's good to know that even you've suffered setbacks and they've and they've and have they galvanized you they've made you stronger they made you time to prove the daily mirror the wrong next time yes but we you see we were a little club in 1952 people who had television sets were minority and they used to ring up and the telephone operator would put them through to the gallery to have a word with your assistant as you were trying to direct cameras

and they would say things like this is a very boring programme if it can go on for much longer and she would say no I think probably another 10 or 12 minutes but I'm told it's a terrific program that followed her. I mean, we actually did that.

It was a small club. Okay, well, then let's move on. This is interesting because public service broadcasting, where you were able to reach every household in the country and by extension hundreds of millions of households around the world, as you've been saying, do you rue that, even though you've taken advantage of the internet and 3D and all these exciting new things,

do you look back and think, gosh, that was something precious that we had back then, that we've lost? Yes. I think that the ideals of public service broadcasting are very important, and they could be summarised, I would summarise them as by saying that you could the broadcaster, the public service

broadcaster should produce programmes across the widest spectrum of interests and would measure his success by the width to some degree of that spectrum and the fact that some parts of the spectrum didn't get as

big an audience as other parts of the spectrum is neither here nor there. Of course they don't, why should they? And why should people actually be expected to watch continuously from beginning to end? Neither of those things apply when we were monopoly. And monopoly has its evils, has its problems, and I don't deny those.

But the ideal of that spectrum of interest, which you've covered every, as much as you can, still remains with me as being the ideal of public service broadcasting. And the public service broadcasting gave you the opportunity to live a life of adventure and we got the broad canadian geographic society of fellows and guests who devoted themselves to following your footsteps in many ways to living a life less ordinary life adventure why has it been important to you to get out there and and see the world and live those adventures? Entirely selfishness. I can't pretend otherwise.

Of course not. And the ability in the 1950s to go to places that others hadn't been to was enormous to start with. Of course, there were whole areas of the country of the world that had never been seen on television you know nobody for example ever filmed animals in madagascar as far as i could discover before we did in 1959 or 61 or wherever it was that there were that no film existed of those wonderful lemurs youurs and we were given extraordinary freedom it was a small

organisation, we didn't spend much money I can remember what my budgets were I had £300 for films I had £300 for film stocks £300 for travel £300 for living expenses and they gave me £100 as a sort of bonus making it £1000

and they would say, where do you making it a thousand and they would say where do you want to go and I would say I thought I'd like to go to Sumatra oh really is there much of interest there well I'm not absolutely sure of course I hope you'll find something when will you be back oh I think well here we are in August September I think we'll be back for Christmas. That'd be very good. Good afternoon. And there was nothing like health and safety. Can you imagine? Health and safety. Well, you, for what you were doing last time, I wonder you got away with that, going up the Yukon. How did you manage that? Well, we didn't tell the HQ. No, that's right.

Is that sense of excitement and adventure still there today when you're making your programs? Because, of course, cameras have been, or are you still taking cameras to places that have never been filmed before? Yeah, but I mean, if you can actually get on your mobile phone and talk from almost anywhere, I mean, the whole thing is dead.

I mean, it's finished. We went to Indonesia and we were disappeared for two months in the middle of Borneo. And people just didn't know where we were. And we weren't too sure ourselves.

But nobody was there to check you and there was no way of checking it. There was no phone. There was no mobile, and there was no way of checking it. There was no phone, there was no mobile phone, there was no way of getting in contact with anyone. So those days were bliss. They certainly had their problems, certainly, I mean, in one's own relationships.

But no, it was a fantastic privilege. But that's what travelers like you i mean you you do it all the time now well nothing no no sadly getting lost that my wife's getting a bit nervous in the front row that we take often but there are things to explore today i mean you're still fired by a passion for geography nature and so so what what is what's left for us all to explore today well you're doing it in new ways i mean i mean before um the first trips i did in the 50s was with one chap i took the recorder for the sound recording he took the film 60 millimeter film it was a wind-up clockwork camera

and 100 foot rolls 400 on occasion and nobody as I say knew where we were and sometimes it was tough and sometimes you didn't know where you were but it was huge fun and I went out simply out of curiosity to have a great time

reverting to Madagascar I had no idea what these animals were and to be able to come back and say that is the biggest living lemur reverting to Madagascar, nobody, I had no idea what these animals were. And to be able to come back and say that is the biggest living lemur and do a sequence of it was such a huge privilege. But now, of course, everybody's done all that. So now you have to do it all over again. But you do it better. And I mean, a number of times I've sat on a platform and said,

I don't know how we're going to manage next year because how would we do it better than we did? And the answer is that the boffins of various kinds give you more kit and more ways of doing things. I mean, the latest thing now is the drone, as you will know. I bet you took a drone, didn't you? Absolutely. There you go, you see.

But how long has there been drones? Three years, four years, five years? Yeah. About that? And so everybody, and of course you sit by your fireside, and you never even think about how that shot was taken, nor should you, nor am I asking that you should. What I'm asking is that you should get a better, more rounded, exciting picture of what was going on. You shouldn't be worrying about how you do it. And what will the next... I mean, now we can slow things down, we can speed things up,

we can film in the dark, we can film with just heat, we can film macroscopically and microscopically and on zones and in the air and the bottom of the sea and the tops of mountains, everywhere. So, of course, we as broadcasters, and I'm sure you're the same,

think I've got to get something, I've got to do it new. I don't think the audience actually thinks that's all that important. As far as the audience is concerned, it's the story. And you should never, never forget, neither do you, because I know from your practice, you don't forget what the story. And you should never, never forget, neither do you, because I know from your programs, you don't forget what the story is. And it's stories that attract people to programs. And if we can tell them in, as it were,

in more beautiful pictures, exciting pictures, fine. But if you haven't got a story, you are conceiving yourself if you think you can get away with just showing something because it's technically new. My passion for history, let me delve a little bit into your history, if I may. What was it in your upbringing and your background, and I ask this as a father of young children,

I'm hoping they're going to turn out to be Sir David Attenboroughs one day, how was your childhood instructive in creating the adult that you became? I grew up in Leicester and I had a bike. And in 1935 and 1937, you could get on your bike and you could go and find fossils. The eastern part of Leicesterhire, it's on the Jurassic, full of beautiful things, ammonites and bellumnites and nautiloids and brachiopods and wonderful things. And I remember very well just hitting a rock like that and it fell apart rock like that and it fell apart. And there was this perfect, beautiful

perfect in every detail. Beautiful. And I realised my eyes, I was the first person ever to see that shell in 150 million years. The sun had

not shone on it. That was the first time it was. Now if that doesn't excite your imagination, I don't know what to ask for. Because, to me, it was a thrill. And, of course, once you start doing that sort of thing, you overlay all your sort of things, you start

working out, you start collecting for a start, but you also start working out why this is different from that, or whether it's in fact the same, or whether they're male and female, or whatever. And before you know where you are, you are a naturalist of some sort. And I picked a mistaken point up in Nova Scotia to mention just at the moment, because that's the same thing. And that site has not been

known for more than a decade and a half I think and that those are not 150 million years old, these are 2 000 million years old and perfect in every detail and nobody knows how they lived, nobody knows the physiology, everything's there to pray for. The papers are coming out all the time about this wonderful fauna. And so the excitement of reading this, if you don't feel it, well, you certainly shouldn't be in television doing

our job, but I know you do feel that, and you feel just the same as I do. Absolutely. And so as a young man, you're bicycling all over Leicestershire, completely unattended by teachers and parents. And so you're just, OK, so that's independent spirit there. And then how did you find formal education?

Did it beat the interest out of you or did you make great teachers? I must be honest and beg forgiveness of the people I'm not going to be very polite about. But I was brought up in the war. And all people of serviceable age were in the services. So my teachers were old men who had done their time in schools. men who had done their time in schools and unruly boys, you know, BTs, having to deal with them for a career, they were two inspiring teachers. But they weren't great teachers. Nobody taught me geology. There was a nice, there was a man called Mr. Lacey who was very nice and good to me,

who was a biologist. But Barnard's, my classic education, and I now spend time thinking about classics one way or another for various reasons, and I realize how fruitling it was that I spent days, weeks,

I mean, two or three times, four times a week, spaying French regular verbs or indeed Latin. A moa, mas, mat, a mamas, a matas, a mans. Do you know all that lot? I mean, what does it mean?

I didn't... I had no idea what it meant when I left school I've got a faint idea now what it means but the idea of reading Thucydides or Lucretius which I wanted to read for various reasons I couldn't start De Bello Gallico Julius Caesar yeah I mean, first book, first page, first paragraph. That's about it. So you wish you'd spent more time being allowed to pursue the sciences and

the naturalism that you discovered as a young boy? No, I think that, I mean, I was being taught by teachers who had the standards of almost pre-war, 14, 18 war, really. And the notion, I mean, it was a grammar school, a day school, and that was what they taught you. You taught declensions and how to decline verbs and so on.

And that was supposed to be Latin. And it seemed to me they were wasted hours of my youth. If I had a faintest idea of why I was learning Latin, then I don't think you should have started learning Latin until you were in the sixth form of myself. And then suddenly you would realise, as I think probably you do again, that there is

great riches here and there are windows to be opened and perspectives to seem to be sought and new ways of thinking and that and all that that's what latin's for uh people who say well i think it's very useful of course you understand the derivation of english words. Come on! I can get that from a dictionary. But you're also a man who has this wonderful lifelong love of learning, and that's clearly right up to the present day, and that's gone all the way through. We needn't associate learning just with school, do we? No, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

My father was the principal of the University College, which is now the University of Leicester. And he was a marvelous teacher. And I remember very well, reverting to one of these fossils. I found one of these fossils, and I took them to my father. And I said,

what is this father? And he said instead of saying well it's a thing called Diabunophilum turbinatum McCoy and you'll find it's a practical part of this other. He didn't say that. He said I have no idea. But of course there are books which you could probably find

where you could find that out and there is a museum where you could compare it with things and so on. Why don't you do that? So I went and then I came and I said, that's the part that's most exciting. Did you realise that? You know Philanthropy and it's actually a coral. Did you know that? It was found in carbon-liquid limestone and so on. Never. Is it really so Simon? Because he was a teacher and teaching as we all know is not about pouring milk into milk bottles. I mean, it's finding out.

It's wonder, it's excitement, it's thrill. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows

or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. And that's something you've continued to do right up to the present day? Not consciously. I mean, I would like, I suppose,

in being, looking at it in cold blood, I say, well, I hope it was educational. But you don't do it because it's educational. You do it because it's absolutely fascinating. And if you don't think it's fascinating, you shouldn't be doing it. So that's interesting. Do you think today, young people that don't ride on their bicycles

around Leicestershire aren't accompanied very much anymore, sadly. But do you think they have access to learning materials because of the internet, because of the apps and some of the amazing things you've made? Do you think that helps to make up? Are you jealous of their access to education now?

Yes, I'm sure it does. Of course it does. But the trouble is making that leap off the computer screen. That's the jump that you need to do. Of course the computer screen opens all kinds of windows and doors and excitements and vistas. But it should not end there. It should be simply a way that's the thing about television television is actually, people say why don't we have more instructive television

television is actually not a very good teacher because television moves at its own pace and not your pace the places where you wanted it to slow down because you didn't understand it's going hell pace. The place is where you wanted it to slow down in order, because you didn't understand it's going hell for leather. And the place is where you are

bored by it. It's still boring. So what television does is to light flames of candles of enthusiasm. That's what it does. Frames of excitement. That you're on flame. You say, gosh, that's

I must find out more about that. And to convert television to something being methodically going through the laws of physics or whatever is not, in my view, the best use of television. Books do that. What's wrong with books? They can take you at your

right pace. What television should do is to send you to those books and make it imperative that you are desperate to find out what the answer is to that problem and look at so you look in the book that's what it is speaking of uh answers to problems i'm very struck with your more recent work because i'm one of these people who gets terribly depressed when i think about species extinction and global warming and all the diversity we're losing. And in your recent work, you've been relentlessly,

I don't know if optimistic is the right word, but constructive. And you're showing what people are doing around the world and they are solving problems. How are you feeling at the moment about the challenges we face? Big question. Well, it would be untrue to say that I think everything is fine. Of course it's not. We are in the worst situation that humanity as a whole has ever been in history. Ever.

We face huge dangers and huge problems. That cannot be denied and it would be irresponsible to say anything other equally it would be unduly pessimistic to say that we haven't agreed on

things in this conference or that conference you're a historian, never in the history of Homo sapiens has all people in the world got together and agreed on anything anything and how are we going to suppose that suddenly you know we're all going to get together and we're all going to see with one vision and we're all going to agree to do this that or the other of course we can't um and so it's going to be one battle that's won inch by inch by inch. But at the same time, we are aware, should be aware, of at our heels, the disaster clouds are gathering.

And we are getting more and more urgent. There is, we, conservationists did achieve one thing. One thing very remarkable. They did get together, the nations of the world, on the question of whales. They got the whaling nations together, this is what, 20 years ago, and said, and remarkably, remarkably, all these people, Japan and America and France and Australia, they all got together and they say, OK, we understand that if we go on the way we're going,

Wales will disappear and that will be a disaster. And so they got together and came to an agreement. And the Wales have been saved. So that is, I mean, it's a tiny thing. But it's an example of what can be done. And a year last Christmas

in Paris, I was there at some of the things. It did seem that we had got together. We really did. China and America and Europe, we were all talking the same language about the importance of dealing with climate change. And I remember the chief scientist of this country in that time coming out with him and saying, I think he said, we've got that, we've got that.

coming out with him and saying, I think he said, we've got that, we've got that. And indeed, a week before the last American presidential election, I met him at a function and he said, it's wonderful, we've saved it, we've signed it, it's all signed, and we're OK. We now can see that there is a possibility of dealing with global warming. Land a Viking longship on island shores,

scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History,

a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. And David King, those were his words. And two nights after, there was the announcement of the President's election, electing a President who wishes to deny that. And that is, I believe, a major disaster for the world. It's not the time to be polite and political, and I cannot deny saying that.

But it is a huge problem. In the other projects you've seen, whether it's the science trying to take on the challenge of whether it's cleaning up our oceans from the terrible amounts of plastic in them, whether it's algae farms, whether it's renewable energy, are you feeling positive about some of the steps we're now trying to take, and perhaps which won't be affected by politics at the very highest level, because the science is starting to take on a life of its own. It's starting to work and deliver on the ground.

I have great worries about whether you will get huge actions by vast numbers of people, just by political diktats, one way or the other. The hopeful thing in Paris a year ago, 18 months ago, was that there was a notion that we could move from being dependent upon carbon and work out a roadmap which would look at the problems of getting energy from renewable resources. And doing so, and this is the key point, and doing so, so it was cheaper than oil.

Cheaper than coal. So you wouldn't have to say to nations and people, you ought to do this because it's better for you. You would say, you ought to do this because it's cheaper. It'll make your life better. That was what was on the table. And the notion that developed countries would focus their research budgets,

their scientific research budgets, on dealing with the little problems of how you deal with storage of electricity, for example, storing it, which is one of the big problems at the moment, how you would be able to transmit it without undue loss, let alone how you would be able to catch it. But we know what the problems are. We know the science that would solve them. All that is needed is the technological expertise

to work out this and to collaborate worldwide. And that was the prize. And that was what seemed to be within our grasp. How do you think history will judge your generation, our generation, the people that were alive in the 20th century into the 21st? I don't know.

Well, I don't. I mean, it depends what happens. And it depends whether we are at the moment at a turning point or whether we are not. Or put it this way, whether we turn this way or whether we turn that way. I don't know. I mean, we muddle along, don't we?

You can only hope for the best. What advice do you have? I feel very helpless in the face of these enormous problems. I mean, is there anything that we can do, people in this room, people listening to this? Yes, I mean, you know, we talk about things that we want to do with our own personal lives in terms of waste or refuse to speak or whatever. And one does that because you feel,

I was going to say cleaner. I mean, you feel better for it. But you have to work very hard to think that's going to make all the difference to the problems that we're talking about. So ultimately, the problems we are talking about are political problems because they have to be solved worldwide

by worldwide leaders. And we have to make our voice heard to our politicians and in this country we haven't done that not too badly but it isn't, I mean one just hopes that it's worldwide

that people are going to get up together and speak about this and I don't see any reason to chance of political people doing it unless as I point out it's economically better. It is cheaper. It is more efficient. It helps you. It puts things in your pocket, not takes them away.

That's the key. Sadly, we're running out of time now, so I just want to ask one last thing. Again, it's advice in a way. Young people, we've got lots of young people in this room, they're affiliated to the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. They're seeking to live a life of adventure, a life of exploration. What advice have you got for them? How can they be as fulfilled as you've been in your life?

I don't know, because I've been very lucky. But in fact, there are lots of opportunities for kids now. There are a lot of organisations including this and including many in this country which I know better than anything I know about in North America. There are opportunities to do these things. The great heroes and heroines of our society of course are teachers and particularly teachers of kids in their first years I would have been involved with an organization that is trying to persuade schools to dig up the tarmac and put in a pond with a couple of bushes in it and and when you see that happen and I was involved in some stage once to go and see these kids who

were just dipping in ponds and looking what is that you know and the light in their eyes and it's it's so heartening it makes you makes you cry you know and now we I mean it's called Learning Through Landscapes, it's a charity, and it's doing a lot of hard work, and very good work, and succeeding. But of course with the population growth, now what's happening is that the schools themselves, they haven't even got room for a playground of any kind. They're having to put up new schools, new classrooms, new buildings.

And so that's having a bit of a setback. But once a child has been shown what the natural world is, it will live with them forever. Of course, other things take over in the child's imagination, computers and so on and so on. But if you totally lose that initial thrill and excitement, you've lost one of the most valuable things in your life. One of the great sources of pleasure and excitement

and contemplation. And this country is famous. When you look at it, this country has done very well in its schools with those sorts of things. And it's under pressure now. I know the teachers are, but they're the heroes. They're the people who

have the future of our country in their hands. Okay, this is my last question. What can we expect? I know you're very busy. You're flying off to Switzerland and North America. What are you looking forward to in the next few months? I'm going next week to Switzerland to film some

extraordinary ants in the pine forest which at the moment are hibernating but which when they come out they start some of them go down and start living happily with their brothers

others start a warfare and we are planning about this. It sounds boring, and that's all. I just hope we will make it as exciting as it actually is, because it will tell you a lot about what makes a genus split into new species. But that's one thing. And then I am going to Canada. Well it's an extraordinary story. It's about elephants, which are not a lot in Canada. But the biggest elephant ever captured in the 19th century was an enormous

young male who was called Jumbo who came to London Zoo, hence why everybody else calls him Jumbo, that was the first one. And he grew and he grew and anyone knows about anything so when male elephants become adult, they get mustered and they can become very violent. And the London Zoo became very alarmed about Jumbo, because what would happen if he suddenly went on the rampage? And there was an extraordinary relationship between him, Jumbo, and his keeper. And the keeper, it's a long's story was almost certainly on drugs. But anyway In the end you couldn't do anything with elephant without dealing with the keeper the keeper was very different and in the end they sold Jumbo to

Barnum and Bailey Circus and the keeper needed, he didn't want to go so you couldn't get Jumbo to go into a transport without the keeper long story

but the end of it was that he ended up in Barnum and Bailey Circus travelling through North America and they went to a town in southern Canada and as they always did the circus paraded

through town and head of the two was Jumbo and Jumbo suddenly broke loose and he went and charged, broke through, charged down the railroad, started turning on the railroad and there was a locomotive coming in the opposite direction and the two met and Jumbo actually derailed the locomotive and of course was himself killed.

But there are a lot of morals about it. We discovered that the skeleton of Jumbo is in the Smithsonian. And we are using the bones of Jumbo to make out a lot of deductions about what Jumbo was and Jumbo did and so on. So that's the story. I shouldn't have told it to you. We haven't published it.

Don't tell anyone. Do not tell anyone. Don't bother to look at the programme. But the rest of Britain will not buy it in two years. Well, we look forward to many more years of programmes. Thank you very much, Sir David. That's been a real

pleasure. thank you very much Sir David that's been a real pleasure Hi everyone it's me Dan Snow just a quick request it's so annoying and I hate it when other podcasts do this but now I'm doing it

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