Issue 153

Book of the Month: Life on Air

26th February 2007

The autobiography of this National icon is also a fascinating documentation of the history of the BBC and of wildlife documentary making. He tracks his career progression from his Cambridge degree in Natural Sciences to a dissatisfied junior editorial assistant before he was offered a job as a trainee television producer for Auntie. He was originally rejected as a presenter because his "teeth were too big".

Filming for his first series, Zoo Quest, took him to, amongst other places, Indonesia with a tame Orang-utan companion named Charlie, New Guinea where he was accompanied on his expedition by several thousand Wawawi tribesmen, the Island of Pentecost where bungee humping was founded and Paraguay where thirsty butterflies drank the sweat from his palm.

Attenborough is forced to condense his descriptions of such lifechanging trips into a few paragraphs because he has seen and done more in his lifetime than seems physically possible. He tells his life story with modesty, sensitivity and typically dry British humour. Of his dinner party at the then Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden's house, he comments: "Sometimes one does not deserve one's good fortune." He says he knows of "no pleasure deeper than that which comes from contemplating the natural world and trying to understand it."

His family is rarely made reference to but the insights he does allow are touching and memorable; namely where he describes his wife, Jane, who sadly died in 1997, caring for an orphaned baby gibbon, Sammy, by attaching it to her in a cloth sling. He has had the chance to meet many fascinating, influential people and animals, but he comes across as down to earth, hard-working and grateful for the opportunities he's been given. His story is extremely moving, funny, engaging and truly inspirational.

Kate Fletcher