Soper

Tony Soper co-founded the BBC's Natural History Unit, which began in Bristol in 1957 and has since produced countless wildlife programmes around the world.

Mr Soper was born in Southampton in 1929 and brought up in Plymouth, where he started his career at the corporation as a trainee engineer in 1947.

Speaking to BBC Radio Devon in 1995, Mr Soper said the team who set up the unit "had to be very resourceful" in its early days.

Mr Soper is survived by his wife Hilary, his two sons Tim and Jack and his five grandchildren.

Opera production of Puccini’s “Turandot” designed by David Hockney, a staging by Pacific Opera Project of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and the West Coast premiere of Kate Soper’s one-woman experimental “Ipsa Dixit” at Long Beach Opera.