The BBC Pure Historical past Unit is thought worldwide for blockbuster tv sequence comparable to Planet Earth. The unique concept for a “wildlife unit” based mostly in Bristol got here from the naturalist and TV presenter Tony Soper, who has died aged 95. However he turned down the possibility to run it, as he was “extra fascinated about making programmes than overseeing them”.
He went on to have a distinguished profession as a wildlife TV presenter: his easygoing character, craggy options and distinctive Devon burr made him a agency favorite with viewers. On display screen from the early Sixties to the late 80s, he was a significant affect on a number of generations of younger naturalists. Together with figures comparable to Peter Scott and Invoice Oddie, he was instrumental in bringing British wildlife to a wider viewers.
Born in Southampton, Tony was the son of Ella (nee Lythgoe), a former store assistant and a pillar of the native Townswomen’s Guild, and Bert Soper, a transport agent. The household quickly moved to Plymouth, and he was all the time a proud Devonian.
Tony attended Hyde Park elementary and Devonport excessive colleges, passing his College Certificates in 1947. It was assumed that he would go into his father’s career however, as he recalled, “I loved the ships, however not the workplace.” So, after actually knocking on the door of the native BBC, he joined as a trainee engineer.
He was quickly attracted by the extra thrilling world of radio manufacturing, and after a spell as an assistant studio supervisor he moved in 1950 to Bristol, to work on programmes together with wildlife.
The next yr, he and the producer Desmond Hawkins attended a lecture by Scott that featured movie of Scott’s expeditions to Iceland. They each realised that this topic was ideally suited to the brand new medium of tv. In January 1954 the primary stay wildlife TV outdoors broadcast, Wild Geese in Winter, was broadcast from the Wildfowl Belief HQ at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, with Tony because the unofficial assistant ground supervisor.
In 1956, he produced the second sequence of Look, a stay outdoors broadcast programme introduced by Scott. Following its success, he despatched a memo to Hawkins (by then, head of programmes in Bristol) suggesting the creation of a brand new wildlife unit. A yr later, the Pure Historical past Unit was born, and Tony was despatched out to purchase the primary digicam: a 16mm clockwork Bolex. He put his new-found photographic expertise to good use when he accompanied Scott and his spouse, Philippa, to the Galápagos, for the 1960 sequence Faraway Look.
In 1965 he printed The Hen Desk Guide, a information to backyard birds, which turned a perennial bestseller, remaining in print till the millennium. In 1967, he started internet hosting the RSPB’s cruises to see flocks of avocets wintering in Devon, which proceed to today.
However it was as a TV presenter that Tony actually made his identify, incomes the epithet “One-take Tony” for his unruffled and constant fashion. He received his massive break in 1962 on the youngsters’s sequence Animal Magic, with Johnny Morris, however ultimately determined that the anthropomorphic method, with Morris assigning British regional accents to the animals of Bristol Zoo, was not for him, so he left the BBC to pursue a contract profession.
His affability endeared him not simply to viewers, but additionally to his colleagues, who recall that he was all the time a pleasure to work with.
Tony married Rae Francis in 1960; they divorced in 1969. Two years later he married the artist and printmaker Hilary Brooke, with whom he had two sons. By then his presenting profession was starting to take off, with standard sequence together with Soper at Giant (1972), Wildtrack (1978), Beside the Sea (1979) and Discovering Birds (1983), the latter two produced by the BBC’s Persevering with Training division in London.
In the meantime, in 1980, the Pure Historical past Unit launched the primary of a sequence of out of doors broadcasts within the Birdwatch strand, an early model of Springwatch. Tony’s legendary unflappability was examined when, throughout a stay transmission from the gannet colony at Bass Rock off the North Berwick coast, a dense wall of fog descended, making it unimaginable to see the birds. One way or the other Tony managed to fill the time till the fog lifted.
Within the early 80s Tony was the lead presenter of a stay present affairs sequence, Nature, the primary actual try to current hard-hitting conservation tales on tv. As a trainee producer on the sequence, I all the time discovered him form, useful and inspiring.
By later within the decade, nevertheless, Tony’s presenting profession was on the wane, as BBC chiefs thought of his relaxed, casual fashion to be quite old style.
Realising that he was falling out of favour, he determined to pursue a brand new profession main wildlife cruises, largely to the Arctic and Antarctica: he as soon as calculated that he had crossed the infamous Drake Passage to Antarctica greater than 100 instances.
This led to extra books, together with a sequence on wildlife printed by the journey information agency Bradt. His elder son Tim adopted Tony into expedition tourism and co-founded EYOS Expeditions, a luxurious constitution firm; his youthful son, Jack, turned a BBC radio producer. The cruise work continued till 2012, and Tony’s freelance work after that included self-publishing The Northeast Passage (2016), in regards to the wildlife on the islands above the Arctic Circle, between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
He’s survived by Hilary, his sons, and 5 grandchildren.
