David Attenborough, much-loved British broadcaster, natural historian and writer, shared how his passion for collecting fossils fuelled a legendary career.
Attenborough is a natural history icon loved around the world for informative and engaging TV like The Blue Planet and Planet Earth. In his five decades in broadcasting he’s scooped four BAFTAs and been awarded a prestigious BAFTA Fellowship.
Attenborough told a packed audience at the special Life in Television event how collecting fossils as a child inspired his love of the natural world.
“It’s easy to be sniffy about collecting,” he said.
“But for a naturalist it’s the absolute bedrock – looking at natural objects and deciding that this is different from that. Charles Darwin collected beetles obsessively – it’s a great thing to collect.”