Alan Titchmarsh Interview

Alan Titchmarsh is as passionate about history as he is about gardens. The Britain's Best presenter really wants us to get out there and celebrate our country's historical treasures. We caught up with Alan during a break from filming, to find out more about his involvement with this unique project.

 

What has working on Britain's Best meant for you?
When you get involved with a project like this, it awakens all those memories of places you've been to. I've totted up that, out of our initial 100 nominations, I've visited 50 of them. So I've done half! It's been a voyage of rediscovery in some cases, and of new discoveries in others. I like to think I'm a great champion of Britain's heritage, both natural and manmade. Britain's Best is just such a tremendous way of celebrating it.

What are you looking forward to as far as the rest of the project is concerned?
I'm looking forward to visiting places I've been to before and reacquainting myself with them. But, above all, I'm looking forward to being recommended to go to places I may not even have heard of. Because the whole essence of this series is its interactivity. It's viewers saying to us, via the website, via texting, via phone calls: "'Ere! This should be on your list. This is worth going to." And they can encourage other viewers to go and see them and hopefully we can get a groundswell of votes going. I'm very keen to make sure we celebrate this rich British heritage, which is enormous and diverse, and get to know what we've got better. We're very happy to hop on a plane but we're terribly bad at going to things on our doorsteps. What I hope Britain's Best will do is give us cause to get out more within our own islands and help us realise what treasures we have.

What have you learned from getting involved with Britain's Best?
I've learned throughout this series that these icons of our lives won't just stand there of their own accord. They need to be cherished. But it needn't be an onerous task. All too often, nowadays, I think we're bludgeoned into caring about things, made to feel guilty. Guilt is piled on us day after day about the way in which we're desecrating the past. It is right that we are aware of that. It's right that we do something about it. But this series, Britain's Best, approaches it in a different way. It says, look at the lovely things we have. Take care of these. Hand them on safely to the next generation.

How has making Britain's Best compared to making programmes in other genres?
The great thing about making this series is that I've been allowed to be dry! Some of the time. I've been looking at gardens but I've also been looking inside palaces, castles, stately homes. It's lovely to come in and clean up! I think people might be surprised by the fact that I am interested in architecture, that I am interested in interior design, to which my answer is always I've been designing gardens for years, why does my interest in shape and form and light and proportions stop at the doormat? I'm equally interested in what happens inside a house and the way the house itself is constructed.

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