Sir David Attenborough has said Bristol “led the world to be truthful” as the BBC celebrates 90 years of broadcasting in the city where BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit is based. The 98-year-old broadcaster said the city had pioneered natural history television when it began producing The Naturalist in the 1940s, presented by Desmond Hawkins. Speaking to BBC Points West he said: “Desmond was the king of natural history broadcasting and an accomplished naturalist.
“Bristol led the world to be truthful. It started this with radio, and when television came along, Peter Scott and Desmond Hawkins continued that tradition.” In 1979, Sir David presented Life On Earth, made in Bristol, which attracted around 15 million viewers.
Sir David said: “The other big mega power in broadcasting was the United States, and in the 1970s, viewers there just thought natural history was just lions attacking antelopes. “Bristol’s programmes taught them that termites could be just as interesting.” The Blue Planet narrator spoke about the programmes he made in Bristol, which awarded him the freedom of the city in 2013, and said people in London were “derisory” of the way he worked when he was starting out.
He said: “When we started the film people in London were very derisory about 16mm (film), they called it bootlace. We couldn’t film on 35mm because we couldn’t drag around those enormous great big cameras. “Almost every year, we had better facilities.
The film became .