This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
It’s unlikely there will be any birthday banners, balloons or party poppers in the Attenborough household on Friday 8 May. For there’s one thing that centenarian-to-be Sir David isn’t a fan of, and that’s a fuss. Which is a shame. Because on this very special day in his extraordinary life he’s likely to be at the centre of quite a lot of it.
His typically heavy postbag will be further swollen with cards from scores, perhaps hundreds, of well-wishers both familiar and unknown. There’ll be calls from family and from his many colleagues and, of course, messages from royal admirers to savour. And then there’s the birthday bash – the star-studded tribute, led by his good friend Kirsty Young, that’s being held in his honour at London’s Royal Albert Hall and will air that night on BBC One.
“Oh, he is going to hate all of the attention,” laughs Liz Bonnin, who will be one of many people on stage and screen helping celebrate his birthday milestone. “He will not be comfortable with all the love and the gushing because he is just so modest.”
One of the themes of the evening – which is likely to feature a few surprises alongside Chris Packham, Steve Backshall and music from the BBC Concert Orchestra – will be how Attenborough has changed not just attitudes about the environmental challenges we face, but the lives of those now responding to those challenges – Bonnin among them.
“I was nine at the time and I remember Life on Earth being repeated on TV. “When the gorillas sequence came on, I was captivated by this man and how engaging he was. It changed my life.” So much so that Bonnin went on to gain a Masters in wild animal biology and later started work with the BBC. It was while she was still learning her craft that she was introduced to Attenborough for the first time.
“I got the opportunity to say hello but I was overwhelmed and couldn’t string a sentence together. But I also remember feeling that everyone wanted a piece of him.” It was something she observed in later years after she’d got to know him much better and, in her eyes, made his star shine even brighter. They were both attending the reopening of the Cambridge Museum of Zoology and Attenborough was, as usual, in great demand.
“Standing quietly in the corner of this busy room was the son of one of the curators,” she recalls. “I saw David clock the boy and just walk over and start talking to him. That humanity, that generosity of time. That was the day I realised who he truly was. It’s always stayed with me.”
One memory that’s stayed with Attenborough is an incident that he described to Bonnin in an online interview he did with her in 2021.
He revealed that when he was travelling through what was then British Guiana in the mid-1950s for his series Zoo Quest, he was handed a gun by a cattle rancher and invited to shoot a caiman – a south American alligator – that was resting in a swamp.
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“I foolishly, no innocently pulled the trigger,” he told her. “There was an explosion and the caiman arched into the air with a huge splash and the entire scene was destroyed. All the birds screamed and disappeared and I sat there appalled. It was the first and last time I shot anything. That moment of the wonder, of this community of diverse birds and reptiles and what I had done to it, has lingered in my mind ever since.”
“It’s an extreme example,” says Bonnin, “but to have had that experience and for it to have stayed with him says a lot about who he is.”
Who he is, as will be clear during the 90-minute, televised Royal Albert Hall celebration, is an inspiration to millions, particularly those working in conservation. Bonnin has seen first hand just what an impact a handshake or a quiet word has. “I don’t think many people realise how much time David has spent travelling the length and breadth of the country, and the globe, connecting with conservationists and policy workers.”
So if, through Radio Times, Bonnin could send Attenborough a birthday greeting, what would she want to say?
“It would be a little less happy birthday and more of a thank you. Thank you for inspiring us, thank you for your humanity, for being the voice of our conscience and the voice of our planet and thank you for showing us what we can be when we’re at our best.”
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