It seems incredible now, but back in 1987, when Mike Gunton was joining the BBC’s Natural History Unit as a junior producer, he was inspired to move quickly because it was widely believed David Attenborough was on the brink of retirement.
A Trilogy That Wasn't the End
The programme they were making together was The Trials of Life, seen at the time as the last in the “Life” trilogy, which had started in 1979 with Life on Earth. “Like many people of my generation, I had seen Life On Earth as a teenager and thought to myself ‘this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen’,” Mike recalls. “I thought, my goodness, I've got to work with this guy, and this is my last chance!”
“So through various fortunate coincidences and conversations, I managed to get on that project. At this time he’d have been about 66, so the perfect retirement age. And I thought ‘this is it, we'll do this one and we’ll finish the trilogy and that'll be his great work done’.”
Early Collaborations
Mike was only a junior member of the team, and he had no wildlife experience, but he was very good at working directly with presenters, and quite soon he’d done “about 30 to 40” pieces to camera with David, getting to know him well in the process.
The presenter was quite set on the idea that he was indeed about to hang up his microphone, Mike remembers. “I spent a lot of time travelling across the world with him in cars or boats or planes and I was about to get married and so we’d talk about family life. One of the things that came up was ‘well, of course, it's a good time to retire. I've done it all. I think I'm very happy’.”
“It was a kind of informal, it wasn't written into a contract or anything, but that was the vibe. And I remember my boss at the Natural History Unit saying that when we finished The Trials of Life, we really needed to think about who was going to take over from David as the new face of natural history.”
For the last shoot of that series, Mike flew halfway around the world with David. “I thought ‘well, this is quite a historic moment, going out to New Zealand to do this last piece with the great man’.”
Retirement Never Came
Of course - the retirement never came and these days David professes to not even know the meaning of the word. “I probably have said ‘Action’ to David about 500 times since then,” Mike laughs. “But at the time I really thought that was it.”
The many, many shows David has made since that moment include Life of Birds, Life of Mammals, Life in the Undergrowth, Life of Plants, plus Blue Planet, Green Planet, Prehistoric Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet, along with Dynasties, Kingdom - and there are many more - not to mention a huge raft of one-off passion projects.
The Secret to His Energy
As he turns 100, you’ve got to wonder where David actually finds his energy? “If I knew the answer to that, I probably would bottle it and sell it because I think it would be like the elixir of life,” Mike chuckles.
One thing that helps is his natural strength. “He’s always been incredibly strong, the TV executive says. “We’d be carrying a generator through the jungle and there’d be two of us who were 30, a cameraman who was a tiny bit older, and then David who's 65 on the other corner. Physically and constitutionally, he’s as strong as an ox.”
Mike believes that working with far younger colleagues has also helped. “He loves his job. He loves the camaraderie of the work, he loves the interactions with us. And, of course, I think it keeps him young. Although I now feel quite old, as far as he's concerned, you're significantly younger than his children. And there are people who work with me who are younger than my children. So he's working with these multi generational colleagues who bring an energy themselves and that’s inspiring.”
He acknowledges that his longevity also comes down to old-fashioned luck. “There's eight billion people on planet Earth, and when the Almighty dished out the cards, he handed David five aces,” he laughs. “But you still have to play the cards well and, of course, he has played them brilliantly.”
Daring Filming Moments
In terms of filming near-misses he remembers there were some big concerns over the decision to film David in a hot air balloon over the Alps for the opening sequence of the BBC's Planet Earth II. It was 2016 and David was 90.
He’d and series producer Tom Hugh-Jones had come up with the plan because it was the first sequel to any of the big landmark series, and they wanted it to be special.
“I don't want to be too clever about it, but the idea was that David would represent the eye of God looking down on the planet,” Mike explains. “Quite a few people thought we were a bit mad doing it because it's not without risk and it was also incredibly difficult.”
The filming would take him two miles up in the air - and then there was the bumpy landing to consider. So they decided to send a doctor on the ride too, just in case. “For a man who's got a 90 year old heart and lungs that's physically and physiologically quite a stress on them,” Mike says.
And so it was that, exactly 10 years ago, they turned up in the snow on a day of perfect weather, with clear skies and no wind. “Off we went and it was all lovely and we got everything we needed.”
They realised that they’d overstepped the mark however when they thought they might send him up again to get some extra angles. “The pilot looked at us like we were crazy, saying: ‘You’ve had every single piece of luck you're ever gonna have.’” Realising they should not tempt fate, they left it.
Rowing Across a Lake
Another slightly hairy moment came when David was filmed rowing across a lake in Croatia for Green Planet. Mike says that he had rowed them out to the middle and duly hidden under a tarpaulin with a walkie talkie, from where he would cue the drone while David delivered his lines to the camera.
But afterwards things got a bit competitive. “That was a classic David,” Mike smiles. “He was 94 or something and I said, ‘look, I'll row us out there’. When we’d finished he was at the oars, because that was the scene, and I said, ‘right, we're done, I'll row us back’.” At this point David, who’d been hearing how Mike was in his university rowing team, wanted to prove that he was every bit as good.
“He said 'just because you were a rower at university doesn't mean I can't do it you know. I was a rugby player and we used to row against the rowers, and we used to beat them.’ He was pretty determined to do it.”
Mike had little choice but to allow David to row them the mile back to shore, admitting he felt “slightly worried” the entire time. “You always think to yourself, please God, don't let me be the person responsible for David Attenborough having a heart attack while he's rowing me across a lake.”
Teamwork and Admiration
When it comes to the scores of brilliant production staff and crew who have worked on the programmes David is involved with, Mike says they all feel enormous gratitude for the attention he attracts to the shows. Using a football analogy, he laughs: “Ronaldo scores the goals, the rest of the team are all essential, but you pass the ball to Ronaldo because he's going to score, or Harry Kane. And here it's the same, David is the figurehead. And that’s because he is brilliant at doing that job, no one is better at representing the efforts of everybody.”
Mike himself has worked on hundreds and hundreds of Attenborough scripts, and says there are always tweaks made by the presenter before he actually delivers them. “I always say to the youngsters here, look, we'll get it to this point but don't you worry, this will be Attenborough-ised.
“I'm pretty good at knowing how David would say things, but then it comes back and I'm like, ‘yeah, that's much better than I expected’. Of course he knows how to speak like David Attenborough better than anybody.”
Why He Is Beloved
Asked why he thinks the TV star is so beloved, not only in Britain but across the world, Mike doesn’t hesitate to explain. “He's authentic. You trust him. You also see that he believes what he is telling you is really important, interesting, entertaining and will make your life better. That confidence and that conviction and that authenticity is rare and I think people can sense it and they think ‘yes, I want to listen to what this person says’.
He says another of David’s great gifts is that he somehow makes viewers feel as though they are there with him, being spoken to directly. “Despite the fact that he comes from a generation where there's a certain formality about him on screen, nevertheless, you feel he is with you and telling you personally about these things. The audience feels that being with him makes each of them a better person.”
And will the pair of them continue to make programmes together once the centenary celebrations have ended? “Yes, I don’t doubt it for one second.”
