Why we’re going wild for David

NEXT Friday’s Mooney Show on RTÉ Radio 1 will celebrate the work of the legendary wildlife broadcaster David Attenborough. The great man himself will be in studio.

Born in Leicester, in England, where his father was principal of a college that later became the city’s university, Attenborough studied geology and zoology at Cambridge, and anthropology at the London School of Economics. His brother, Richard, is the celebrated film director.

The BBC inaugurated the world’s first television service in 1936, but transmissions ceased at the outbreak of World War Two. Attenborough joined the BBC in 1952, soon after the service had been restored. Four years later, he organised then Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s Suez crisis broadcast, following which he was invited to Checkers for a tennis weekend. At the request of Buckingham Palace, he supervised the Queen’s first television appearance. Rising steadily through the ranks, he became controller of BBC2 in 1964. Kenneth Clarke’s ground-breaking Civilisation programmes, on the history of art, and Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, were produced during his tenure. But Attenborough disliked management, and, in 1972, resigned.