How Attenborough battled army to save gorilla film

[Anthea]

Revealed: How Sir David Attenborough battled army to save gorilla film

“The driver said ‘bandits’, put his foot down and charged through this road block,” he told an audience. “They started shooting at us with bullets winging over the top of the truck.

“We went on and a few miles on we met another corner and there was a much more substantial road block. It wasn’t bandits but the Rwandan army, and somehow we’d got mixed up in a problem with filming the gorillas.

“We had no idea why we were stopped, but we were stopped and arrested and taken to an army camp where we were taken to a jail like a hole in the ground.

“We were there surrounded by all these army people. It was at that point I realised they were actually going to confiscate the film.”

Sir David continued: “Well Martin of course, bright bloke that he was, after that first roadblock thought ‘we’re going to be in trouble here’.

“So what he quickly did was change the labels on the cans. He took the label off an unused can and put it on the one we’d shot, and took the label off and put it on the other.

“When they said ‘we want your film’, Martin said ‘there you are, I’m very very upset about it’ and gave him unexposed film.”

The programme will also see fans of Sir David, including Sir Michael Palin, Joanna Lumley, David Cameron and the Duke of Cambridge pay tribute to the naturalist and his legacy.

It will be broadcast on BBC One at 7pm on Sunday, May 8.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04 ... um=twitter