The creation of the Attenborough myth is a work of art. Or science. Fresh-faced, yes, unfairly boyish at 90, he dresses casually but never scruffily though I doubt he would recognise or bother about the fashion category of “smart-casual”. He looks good in posh. He never plays the part of the explorer returned from the jungle, the desert, the coral reef or the glacier ridge. Though he probably has.

At a museum, a concert, a gallery, David is himself, a person with a huge interest in and knowledge of archaeology, anthropology, music, and painting. Why not, I think he would say? Why put up barriers to knowing about the world as it is? He does not turn away; David always seems to me to turn towards – people, places, things, ideas.

How has he survived those decades of television? I mean as a human being? Constant appearance on the screen with its lashings of fame, adulation and celebrity destroys most people. Too many confuse being recognised with being special, specially clever – unlikely, specially good – impossible. Not David. I believe his commitment to the subject, to the academic discipline, to the challenges of communication through the mass medium of television put him in his own mind behind the subject matter and subservient to the needs of the audience. A man who has canoodled affectionately with gorillas is no shrinking violet, but it was the behaviour of the beasts that shone through.