IT is not very often that you get the chance to talk to Sir David Attenborough.

As we sit at the Dorset County Museum, and I listen to Sir David passionately enthuse about art and dinosaur fossils, it’s hard not to just sit there in open-mouthed awe at the man often described as a national treasure.

Born in 1926 in Isleworth, London, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University and social anthropology at the London School of Economics.

After leaving university, he first took to filming television shows in 1952 for the BBC, and has been a mainstay on our screens ever since.

Travelling all over the world, Sir David has continuously pushed the boundaries in terms of filming techniques and the content of what’s being filmed, for both the BBC and Sky television.

He has produced and been a part of some remarkable television shows.

Whether it is travelling back in time to the era of the dinosaurs, plunging the depths of the world’s seas, or showcasing the lives of penguins on Frozen Planet, Sir David has brought to life on our television screens what we could only dream of encountering in our own lives.

Sir David was speaking to me as he visited the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester to officially launch a new art exhibition dedicated to his late friend John Craxton last week, called “A Poetic Eye.”

Craxton, who died in 2009, was a British-born neo-Romantic painter and lived in London and Dorset up until the Second World War before he moved to Crete.

A lot of Craxton’s early work is based on his experiences of Dorset as a young boy and teenager, and these works are exhibited at the museum.

It’s not often people see Sir David talking about art and artists in this way, most people are familiar with him enthusing about science and nature during his programmes, but it is clear he holds the same level of passion for art.

Speaking about the Craxton exhibition, Sir David said: “This is a very important exhibition, it’s a remarkable exhibition and I congratulate Dorset County Museum for having secured it.

“I knew Craxton very well, he was a great friend of mine.

“I first met him because I saw one of his pictures in a very small London art gallery.

“I thought, I’ve got to meet him but I couldn’t find this man. I eventually got to know the owner of the art gallery who revealed Craxton was in Greece and that he wasn’t going to come over.

“He didn’t care for the art scene in London, but he had to earn a living and that’s why his paintings were there.

“I bought one of his paintings and he became one of my great friends.

“What you will see with this show, is a remarkable artist and what is effectively his first show.

“It really does reveal what an astonishing artist he is, and it’s marvellous that Dorchester should get this remarkable show, the first show of its kind.”

Throughout his years, he has travelled the most exotic places in the world, but it is clear he still holds Dorset in high esteem.

It is not the first time he has visited the golden shores of this county. He previously unveiled the pliosaur fossil at the same museum in 2011, and he has also been spotted filming a number of times in the county, including on Monmouth Beach in Lyme Regis.

He has thrown his support behind the proposed Jurassica project on Portland – an ambitious £70 million plan to build a subterranean geological park plan in the former Yeolands quarry on the east side of the island.

Jurassica could see animatronic marine reptiles, fossil displays and virtual reality technology, bringing the history of the Jurassic Coast to life.

Sir David said: “I think it’s an absolutely thrilling, wonderful thing to do.

“It will have a way of showing the fossil heritage of the Jurassic Coast and the fossils that have been and are being found along the coast in such a way, it will make all other museums which showcase dinosaur fossils old hat.

“I have always liked the Jurassic Coast, I have known it for all my life so Jurassica will be excellent, and it will be fantastic for the area.”

As always with Sir David, he looks to the future by exploring the past. At the grand old age of 88, he shows no signs of slowing down in his quest of bringing the weird and the wonderful to our television screens.

There is plenty more in the pipeline for fans of Sir David’s television shows.

“I have just come back from Patagonia,” he said.

“That was filming for a show for Sky that will be shown later this year and it was filming dinosaur fossils and speaking to experts over there.

“Those fossils are completely different to what are found on these shores and both are equally as fascinating as the other.

“I have also been doing some filming in Australia about the Great Barrier Reef, and that will be in 3D for the BBC which will be shown in the near future.

“It was truly fascinating.”