Today, on his 100th birthday, we find ourselves thinking not about where Sir David Attenborough has been, although that list is obviously extraordinary, but about where he always comes back to. Over the course of a career spanning more than seven decades, he has reshaped the way we see the natural world through landmark series including The Blue Planet and Planet Earth. He brought the deep ocean and its astonishing life into living rooms for the first time, like the elaborate courtship of birds of paradise, or the now-iconic iguana outrunning snakes on the Galapagos. Over time, his work evolved from documenting the wonder of nature to reframing it as fragile, which is undoubtedly his greatest legacy.
As extraordinary as his influence has been on our understanding of the planet we all live on, there is something quietly compelling about turning the lens on the man himself – and, specifically, the small corner of London he has chosen to live in. But before Richmond, there was Leicester.
David Attenborough
John Stillwell – PA Images/Getty Images
Born in Isleworth, raised in Leicester
Sir David Frederick Attenborough was born on 8 May 1926 in Isleworth, Middlesex, just across the river from the Richmond neighbourhood he would later make his permanent home. He didn’t stay long. When he was five, his father Frederick accepted the position of principal of University College in Leicester, and the family relocated to College House on the university campus – an environment rich in intellectual curiosity and, during the Second World War, quiet compassion: the family took in two Jewish refugee girls through a humanitarian programme, giving them a home for seven years.
