Terry Wogan's unseen 1965 rejection letter from David Attenborough - and Sir David's reaction 50 years on
The then-BBC2 controller passed on the young Irish broadcaster. Radio Times has the original letters - and spoke to Sir David just recently...
Way back in August 1965, the broadcasting world was a different place. Doctor Who was just a year old.
Tomorrow's World had been on air just a month – and TV audiences were yet to fall under the spell of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds...
And over in Ireland, a young broadcaster named Terry Wogan was trying to get a job on British TV.
Back in those days, there was no email or internet. So Wogan wrote a letter to BBC2's controller.
Who just happened to be Sir David Attenborough!
Wogan's argument was a convincing one.
But Sir David Attenborough – the man who brought us Monty Python's Flying Circus and BBC2's snooker coverage – wasn't convinced.
"I am afraid that, at the moment, we do not have any vacancies for anyone with your particular talents and experience," he politely informed 27-year-old Terry.
Five decades on, Sir David is amazed when Radio Times calls him to remind him of the exchange.
But it all worked out in the end. With his rejection from BBC2, Terry turned to radio and in 1966 was offered a job presenting a show called Midday Spin on the BBC Light Programme...
And the rest – as they say – is history...
Read the full story – including the secret memo that followed – in the new issue of Radio Times, on sale from Tuesday.
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