Personal histories
Sir David Attenborough and `Animal, vegetable, or mineral?'
12th October 2009, Monday afternoon, Sir David Attenborough, the 2009 Personal-Histories Project. 3.50pm. Babbage Lecture Theatre.
On 12th October 2009, at the University of Cambridge, Sir David Attenborough spoke before a huge crowd about his experiences as a young assistant producer of the iconic and immensely popular BBC television quiz programme, `Animal, vegetable or mineral?', during the early 1950s. As he stated in an earlier letter to the Personal histories team, `I have many vivid memories of Glyn Daniel, Mortimer Wheeler and others as well as having something to do with Buried Treasure, Chronicle and the Silbury Hill excavation.'
`What a starry collection of diggers, if the roof had fallen, in there wouldn't have been a site director left in the country,' wrote Maev Kennedy, archaeology correspondent for \textit{The Guardian}, when commenting on the illustrious audience who had gathered to hear Sir David's memories.
Read about this event, as reported in `Archaeology becomes a sensation' (British Archaeology, Jan–Feb 2010).
The transcription is available from the Division of Archaeology's web site.
A virtual exhibition of the event can be viewed on www.personal-histories.co.uk and the film will be available shortly.
For more information, contact: Dr Pamela Jane Smith.