Goldfish In Distress
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Here's one of my favourite Attenborough-adjacent stories to celebrate his 100th birthday and magnificent career. "Goldfish In Distress", a 1978 episode of Wildlife on One, contains a somewhat spurious and utterly hilarious sound-effect...
Keith Rodgerson: In 1981, whilst working for the BBC film unit, I went into the office one day to find our boss with a goldfish bowl and a book on his desk. "Maurice Tibbles has made a film about goldfish, and in this book it says that they can make a vocalisation when they are distressed. See if you can record it? There's a good chap" he said. So off I went with the goldfish to our crew room. popped a mic in the bowl, put on my headphones and heard nothing but the noise of the room. wasn't surprised but when I realised that the film editor of the show was a friend of mine, David Aliband, decided to play a little prank on him. I took the bowl and my recorder into an empty radio studio and started recording. "I'm going to put the mic into the bowl now" I said into the mic. Splash! Silence! Splash! Silence! "That didn't work. Let's see what happens if prod the fish with a pencil". Squeek....squeek! "Gosh it works. Let me do some more to give you enough to edit!" Having done the recording I took the tape down to the cutting room but David wasn't there so left it on his desk. I expected a call to say wasn't born yesterday, and besides, I'm sure a goldfish wouldn't have a Scottish accent!" That didn't happen, however. Instead, the following day I found a letter in my pigeon hole (remember them?) from the then head of the Natural History Unit congratulating me on the wonderful recording which "will make the opening sequence much better". What to do? Nothing! was my decision and so when the film was transmitted, my Scottish squeeking took pride of place. said nothing about this for several years until a friend in London rang me to tell me that, not only had the recording been put on a BBC effects disc but it had just been used in a natural history quiz on Radio 4. Years later plucked up courage and related the tale to David Attenborough overa bottle of wine in the Serengeti. He chortled!! Lovely man