David Attenborough’s cameraman on 40 years of adventures

"When you work with polar bears you have a certain respect for them," he says.

"You are travelling in the Spring and you haven't seen a single other living thing, any seals there arem are underneath the ice and then you find this polar bear striding along in minus 30, fat and well fed and settling down to sleep. 

"A big polar bear will be about nine to ten feet long. If it stood beside you on its hind legs it could reach about 4 metres. 

"They absolutely typify the animal that people want to see and so to be given the chance to see several hundred, to see them mating, to see them coming out of their dens to hunt, it's a great privilege.

There is a similar reverence when he describes filming whales underwater, where poor visibility means it’s necessary to get a lot closer than might feel comfortable.

"You can't hide from an animal underwater, if you can see an animal, the animal can see you. On land you can be so far away with a long lens, you don't pose any threat to the animal.

"Being in the water with big whales is really exciting because you have to be on the same wavelength as the animal so they will carry on doing the same natural behaviour in front of you.

"When they do come close, it's their choice. They can either come towards you or run away so if an animal chooses to come towards you in a non-threatening way, it's incredible."

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He has just returned from a break at his cottage in Connemara, County Galway, where he enjoyed the benefits of almost an hour of extra light in the day.

"It's about as far west as you can go. The sun rises later and sets later by about 50 minutes. It's a bit like living in Orkney," he says.

Having spent so much time in nature filming some of the world's most enigmatic creatures at close quarters, he's furious about climate change government inaction.

"I am sort of lost at what to do", he says, describing the Neflix black-comedy Don't Look Up as the perfect analogy of our unwillingness to contemplate what lies ahead.

He’s says most people probably don’t appreciate the implications of a four degree rise in temperature, which is what climate models predict the world could look like by 2100.

“You can forget about nature as we know it, “ says the Fife-born photographer.

“The world as we know it, insects, crops growing....that shouldn’t even be a theory in a risk assessment. They are somehow imagining we can adapt to it.

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“You have to think big, we spent £400bn dealing with Covid. We are still not looking up.”

He would like to see more emphasis on the teaching of natural science "in all its forms", starting in primary schools.

"Like learning what happens when a cow eats grass. We need to educate people value health and health starts with what you eat."

"We are all part of nature. Not many people get to have the same experiences as I've had but far too many people grow up in a world where they don't experience nature and it just does not occur to them how much we rely on it."

In a filming career spanning four decades, Allan has worked for Discovery, National Geographic and the BBC as well as The Blue Planet; Frozen Planet; Ocean Giants, Expedition Iceberg and Forces of Nature.

After decades of flying all over the world "guilt free", thoughts of his own carbon footprint has made him re-thinking overseas projects by air and he plans to spend more time filming in the UK for the forseeable future.

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He sounds dejected at the prospect of air travel "getting back to normal"post-pandemic and £10 flights to Ireland.

"We hear a lot about offsetting which is a slightly weasily word," says the 71-year-old, who lives in Bristol with his partner and Labradoodle. "If you were Catholic it used to be that you could confess your sins and pay the priest some money and they would forgive your sins.

"It's a bit like that. There is no amount of offsetting that can remove the carbon dioxide you've just put into the air."

At 95 Attenborough is, he says,  "every bit as enthusiastic as he's always been".

"A word to described David is consistency. Consistency of standard - you can recognise a David programme when you see it and consistency of beliefs and integrity in terms of how the projects are filmed.

"He's been increasingly high profile when it comes to the climate."

He says the first ten minutes of his most recent documentary perfectly captures his off-camera persona. 

In Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard, which was screened on BBC1 in December, he meets a couple who accidentally discovered a mammoth fossil in Swindon. 

"What you saw is a different David from what you normally see. The first ten minutes of that he was classic David, he was spontaneous, he was friendly, he was funny, they had tea and cake and he clearly got on with these two people right from the start.

"The reverence he showed picking up those bones was classic David but the David you saw there was the one I know.

"I count myself lucky to have met him a long time ago and we are still good friends."

He first met Attenborough in 1981 and recalls his surprise that he was content to move on after one-take. "It's such a contrast to what happens today," he said.

He hasn't seen him since the pandemic but says Covid would have been tough for him "because he thrives on people and human contact" and hopes to work with him again soon.

He says he feels fortunate to have seen Antartica when there were less tourists and less rules to follow.

"It's much harder filming wildlife when there are tour ships. It sort of detracts from the wilderness experience but I am talking fro the point of view of being selfishly privileged."

Doug Alln will be sharing insights into his travels at two events in Glasgow and Edinburgh in March, organised by Heather Suttie's Bookface, Book Swap, where he will be discussing his book Freeze Frame: A Wildlife Cameraman’s Adventures on Ice.

For tickets to the Glasgow event, on March 5, click here