An After School Visit From Sir David Attenborough Delights The Cambridge Children

There was a great deal of excitement at Kensington Palace on Thursday when the Cambridge family were joined by Sir David Attenborough after school. As you can see from the expressions below, particularly Princess Charlotte's, it was a splendid visit for the children. 

Sir David brought a magnificent gift for Prince George in the form of a tooth from a giant shark which is 23 million years old. David discovered it in the late 1960s during a trip to Malta with his family. It was embedded in the island's soft yellow limestone which was laid down during the Miocene period. It's an incredibly special gift. As you can see Louis was eager to have a look too :)

The Telegraph reports:

'Prince George, seven, is known to have a fascination with dinosaurs, with his mother once telling a group of children during a Natural History Museum that he "loves the T Rex because it's the noisiest and the scariest."

The visit was a long time coming for the three children, who have all watched his television programmes. 

On a previous encounter with Sir David, the Duchess told him: “The children were very upset that we were coming to see you and they weren’t coming, they’re massive fans of yours."

Sir David and Prince William enjoyed an outdoor screening of Attenborough's poignant new documentary A Life On Our Planet. Kensington Palace shared this teaser on Friday.

The reflective Netflix documentary sees the renowned broadcaster "recount his life, and the evolutionary history of life on Earth, to grieve the loss of wild places and offer a vision for the future". Produced by WWF and award-winning wildlife film-makers Silverback Films, David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet is described as "a first-hand account of humanity’s impact on nature and a message of hope for future generations." It's very much a stark reminder of the devastating impact on the natural world in recent decades.

It will be available to view on the streaming service on 4 October. 

A review of the documentary from The Guardian:

'I am David Attenborough and I’m 93. This is my witness statement.” There is a tremendously moving sense of finality about Attenborough’s terrifying new documentary on the climate emergency. It is being marketed as a retrospective, a look back at his life and 60-years-plus career. But make no mistake about its true agenda: Attenborough is here to deliver a stark warning that time is ticking for the planet. It is a personal film – and political, too. There is emotion and urgency in that familiar soothing voice. At one point he rubs his eyes, reddened and damp.

You could rename it The Dying Planet, a short, sharp, shocking 80-minute lesson on global heating. There is an obligatory dramatisation of Attenborough as a boy in short trousers collecting fossils. And, of course, clips from the BBC of him as a hearty young man rolling around with baby gorillas in Rwanda. What he didn’t know then, he says mournfully, was how much damage we were inflicting on the planet. “The forests and seas were already emptying.”

One of Britain's national treasures, Sir David Attenborough has been a groundbreaking force with his environmental work and his documentaries; the Life series, which collectively constitute a survey of plant and animal life on earth. Sir David's connections with the royal family are many. We've seen the Duchess with him on numerous occasions in her role as patron of the Natural History Museum. During the opening of Hintze Hall, Kate quoted him in a speech in reference to the importance of experiencing the natural world: "Sir David Attenborough has famously talked about the fact that people will not protect what they don’t first care about, and will not care about what they have never experienced." Below, David and Kate at a naming ceremony for the RRS David Attenborough last year.

The Duchess wore the elegant Gabriela Hearst Marley belted-cotton chambray dress (another amazing ID by UFO No More for their work on the look).

The $1,590 dress is from the Pre-Fall 2020 Collection. It's described as a 'midi dress tailored to look like classic shirting and has a flouncy skirt that's punctuated with mother-of-pearl snaps - undo a few to create a split and use the tabs to keep the rolled cuffs in place.' 

It's currently available in two shades of blue denim at My Theresa, Net-A-Porter and Matches.

The Duchess accessorised with a pair of Patrick Mavros Pangolin Haka earrings in silver.

Kate also wore a pair of navy pumps. 

Kensington Palace said: "With a shared passion for protecting the natural world, they continue to support one another in their missions to tackle some of the biggest environmental challenges our planet faces. This includes working together on the Earthshot Prize - the most prestigious global environment prize in history – further details of which will be shared in the coming weeks."