Sir David Attenborough, the beloved environmentalist and broadcaster, has joined in the chorus of people remembering the late Elizabeth II and said: “The whole nation is bereaved.”
In a statement issued to the Press Association, Attenborough said: “If there was a technical hitch, she wanted to know what it was, and if it had a funny side, she was quick to see the joke.
“Yet not for one second could you forget that you were in the presence of someone who had willingly accepted enormous responsibility and dedicated her life to serving the nation – that you were, in short, in the presence of royalty.”
A friend of the late Queen, Attenborough elaborated on his long friendship with Elizabeth II in an interview with ITV News, recalling her sense of humour and how “she laughed in a genuine way” if she found something funny.
He added, “When you met her, you were well-aware that you were in the presence of someone who was extremely important to our society and yet she made it seem that you were meeting another human being with exactly the same conditions that all human beings have.”
With the late Queen dedicated to environmental causes, just like the late Duke of Edinburgh and the current King Charles III, she joined forces with Attenborough on a documentary entitled ‘The Queen’s Green Planet’ in 2018.
In the hour-long documentary, the pair walked around the royal estates and spoke of climate change and how the Royal Family has been dedicated to environmental issues throughout The Queen’s reign.
Sir David Attenborough has long been a friend of the Royal Family. Upon Prince Philip’s death in 2021, he remembered the late Duke of Edinburgh as a man who “when he spoke about conservation, he spoke about it with passion and knowledge” and has worked frequently with the new Prince of Wales on environmental causes like the Earthshot Prize.
