HE’S handled deadly spiders, snakes and scorpions without batting an eyelid, but if Sir David Attenborough sees a rat he’ll be the first to run.

The softly-spoken but ever-enthusiastic veteran broadcaster, who remains the country’s most famous presenter of natural history programmes, flinches at the very thought of these agile, furry rodents.

“I don’t mean that I mildly dislike them as I dislike, let us say, maggots. I mean that if a rat appears in a room, I have to work hard to prevent myself from jumping on the nearest table,” he confesses in his latest book, New Life Stories, taken from his prize-winning Radio 4 series.

Sir David, 85, who will be celebrating 60 years of natural history broadcasting next year, shows no signs of slowing down.

Last year he filmed a new series, Frozen Planet, at the North and South Poles, which will be shown this autumn. Later this year he’s off to film in Borneo and is also working on a new 3D series about plants in Kew, near his home in Richmond, Surrey.

Sir David is a regular visitor to Dorset, and has filmed some of his documentaries here, including Life in Cold Blood and Flying Monsters 3D. He’s patron of the Lyme Regis Fossil Museum and his most recent visit to the area was to Dorset County Museum earlier this month where he unveiled an historic fossil of a giant pliosaur discovered in Weymouth Bay.

He described the fossil of this huge marine reptile, which roamed the seas 155 million years ago as ‘magnificent’ and ‘stupendous’ and added that he was “well aware that the fossils of the Dorset coast are among the most important in the world for their period and this is the birth place of modern palaeontology”.

He acknowledges that other younger natural history presenters – Steve Backshall and Dorset’s Bear Grylls spring to mind – have a more confrontational ‘look at me’ style than his own.

“They are merely adventure programmes, while natural history is the supporting cast. They are deliberately programmes where someone who the audience can identify with will be meeting snakes or whatever it is, which is a slightly different type of programme.

“I’d done adventure programmes back in the ‘50s but in more recent years I’ve tried to do programmes where natural history is the star.”

But he believes there’s a place for all the programmes, whether it be crocodile hunting with the late Steve Irwin, or Deadly 60 with Steve Backshall.

“Very often people will be drawn to a programme because it’s a Boy’s Own adventure, and discover that natural history in itself is rather interesting and will try other programmes.

“I don’t think the adventure programmes are damaging, providing you don’t maltreat the animals.”

In the past, Sir David has been accused of not appearing to be passionate enough about saving the planet, just presenting the animals as they are.

“I spend more time involved in conservation issues in my private life than I do on the screen,” he retorts. “And nobody’s going to save things unless they know what they are and what makes them interesting. You can't go out and raise money for conservation for something that people have never heard of.

“Some people say you should never do any natural history programme unless you say that nature is under threat and it’s the viewers’ fault. That’s absurd. It’s like saying you’re only allowed to make a programme about human beings if they’re in hospital.

“But at the same time, I could point you to a whole series of programmes I’ve made on conservation. I never did any of the major Life series without ending up with a survey of the possibility of conservation and the dangers. I think you have to do both.”

He used to spend about a third of the year abroad. Today, although his work schedule is heavy, he doesn’t go away for so long.

“I can’t climb trees as energetically as I used to and I can't walk all day – indeed, I find it hard to walk about 100 yards. I’m 85, I don’t behave like a 25-year-old.

He has lived in the same rambling Victorian house in Richmond, Surrey, since 1952.

His daughter Susan is his personal assistant while his son Robert is an anthropologist.

His wife Jane died in 1997 from a brain haemorrhage on the eve of their 47th wedding anniversary. He had been filming in New Zealand but rushed back to London, arriving a few hours before she died. It’s a subject on which, understandably, he doesn’t elaborate.

The retrospective series in Borneo will take him back to places where he can reflect on what has happened in the last 60 years, not only in terms of conservation but also in terms of how films on conservation are made.

And there are still places on this planet he’d like to explore.

“I yearn to go to the Gobi Desert but I never shall because the BBC pays me to film animals and the Gobi Desert has very few animals.”

He has no thoughts of retirement. “It would be boring, wouldn’t it?”

And he never goes on holiday. “Sitting at the seaside with a bucket and spade is what you do when your children are small, but since my grandchildren are now in their 20s they’re not bucket-and-spade kids any more. My holiday will be going off to Borneo.”

A special screening of ‘Flying Monsters’, followed by a Q&A with Sir David Attenborough, will take place at the Electric Palace, Bridport, at 4pm on Saturday July 30.

• New Life Stories by David Attenborough is published by Collins at £20