Tue, Jan 31, 1961
The first Survival and a landmark for television natural history. The London Scene was screened on ITV on 1 February 1961 and presented by Aubrey Buxton. The capital was chosen because television viewing was concentrated in urban areas and demonstrating how creatures like foxes, Arctic geese, herons and even a puffin shared the living space with the citizens of London, had obvious appeal. But actually filming the animals in an urban environment was not so straightforward, as associate producer Colin Willock later explained. "The wildlife content of the programme was a bit of laugh, in retrospect. Apart from a few feral pigeons, some ducks in St James's Park, and a fox let out of a laundry basket on a wild night in a quiet street just off Hampstead Heath, the wildlife scenes had been shot anywhere but in London. To be fair, we never suggested that our puffin was standing outside the Thames Embankment entrance to the Savoy Hotel. We merely said that one had been found there and then proceeded to show the bird in its wild state - in Pembrokeshire.
