A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

"Yes, exactly. It’s really powerful, partly because he starts as a child. The first bit is about when he was 11 and, when he finishes the book, he’s 94. My own father is 90 so I’m aware, in a really visceral sense, of just how much they’ve seen in their lives. When I talk to my dad, it’s like a history lesson sometimes and you can’t quite believe he was there for it. You get the same feeling with this book with Sir David Attenborough. He just writes so well, and so clearly, about what it was and what it is. Then the second part of the book is ‘That’s the problem. Those are my memories. This is the mess we’ve got ourselves into—and here’s what we can do about it.’ So it is a hopeful book, in the end. I should say that the book is written with somebody else, Jonnie Hughes. I feel sorry for Jonnie Hughes because it’s by Sir David Attenborough. We should mention Johnnie because Sir David does say, ‘Look, I didn’t do this on my own.’ Yes, this book is really accessible. It’s very readable. I think it’s because both Sir David and Johnnie write TV scripts. A TV script is quite sparse in comparison with writing a novel or a book, you have a lot fewer words. It really benefits from that because it’s readable and clear. I really liked it."