WHEN the naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough arrived at a Glasgow bookstore for a book-signing in November 2002 (right), he did so in considerable style.

As the Herald Diary reported, “Borders Glasgow staff weren’t surprised by the make of car driven by Sir David Attenborough when he popped in for his Saturday signing sesh. The TV wildlife guru favours a Jaguar.

“They were more surprised, however, when Sir David parked his motor outside their door in Buchanan Street’s pedestrian precinct for three hours, without it being molested by traffic wardens. They speculated ticket-free parking might be a perk of knighthood. It then dawned it would be a brave warden indeed who’d affix a penalty notice to a car surrounded all afternoon by 200 local David Attenborough fans. Glaswegian wildlife devotees: you don’t get wilder”.

Sir David is also photographed here (main image), opening the refurbished zoology section at Glasgow University’s Hunterian Museum, in 1986. He also opened an exhibition, Mr Wood’s Fossils. Stan Wood, who died in 2012, was a real-life professional dinosaur hunter who made many spectacular discoveries.

Sir David has long been a highly authoritative voice in the increasingly urgent campaign to address climate change and reverse the damage done to the planet. Powerful documentaries such as Planet Earth, Planet Earth II, The Blue Planet and Life on Earth have yielded stunning footage and have had a lasting impact on millions of viewers. Many people reconsidered their use of plastics after watching Blue Planet II.

Promoting his latest documentary, A Life On Our Planet (to be released on Netflix and in cinemas later this year), Sir David, asked by Andrew Marr what ordinary people could do, responded. “Stop waste. Stop waste of any kind. Stop wasting power, stop wasting food, stop wasting plastic. Don’t waste, this is a precious world. Celebrate and cherish.

His message to world leaders was equally unambiguous. “This is the last chance. There are short-term problems and long-term problems. A politician is tempted to deal with short-term problems all the time and neglect long-term problems. This is not only a long-term problem, it is the biggest problem humanity has faced, ever. Please examine it, and please respond”.

He is now 93, and has an unquenchable appetite for work. Back in 1990, promoting The Trials of Life, he was asked by if he was getting too old, at 64, to be pursing wildlife through remote habitats. ‘’All the time,’’ he said cheerfully. ‘’When you’re running through the jungle and panting fit to burst, you suddenly say to yourself: ‘Hell’s teeth! What am I doing?’ There are certainly things I find more exhausting than I used to.’’

*Tomorrow: Richard Attenborough in Glasgow