David Attenborough visits Charnwood to film Precambrian rocks and fossils

On June 26th the legendary broadcaster and media personality David Attenborough and the BBC Natural History Unit arrived in Leicestershire to film at a number of localities in Charnwood Forest for a programme to be broadcast on January 12th 2009, which will celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth.

(Left) Helen Boynton, Mark Evans, David Attenborough and Sue Cooke

I went into the field with Sue Cooke from the Charnwood Museum, who had done much of the organising. Mark Evans of the New Walk Museum arranged a visit to that Museum in the evening. I was privileged to talk to David over lunch and again in the Museum later. He was very interested in the fossils which we are researching and conserving, and asked especially about the affinities of the cyclomedusoid discs found in Charnwood, and the relationship between Charnia masoni and modern sea pens. He had not heard of recent work by Martin Brasier at Oxford who believes that the two grew in different ways and were probably not related.

We shall, I’m sure, look forward with interest to seeing the programme next year.

Helen Boynton

This item appears in the Autumn 2008 issue of 'Charnia' Newsletter