Amusements along the way

DABBLING with things that grow, Alan Titchmarsh asserts, is "every bit as exciting as a dalliance here and a dalliance there". An odd remark from a man viewed as a gardening sex god and who came second only to George Clooney in a sexiest man poll, a reputation tarnished slightly by winning a literary award for best bad sex.

His autobiography is short on scandal, something for which one or two reviewers have taken him to task. He's unrepentant. "Life is richer than kiss and tell," he says, chatting before a book-signing session at Borders in York. Readers seem to agree with him. They've been "quite nice about it" he says, and the fact that the book is celebrating its third week in the bestsellers' list seems to indicate there's a market for a scandal-free memoir, whatever the critics write.

"Does it mean life without scandal is life not worth living or recording?," he asks, then answers the question himself. "I don't think that's true. Mine was a life that was fairly idyllic in the Dales, which is a lovely place to grow up."

He'd been asked to write his life story before and said no, but felt the time was right now "because some interesting things have happened over the past few years". He refuses to call it an autobiography because it sounds rather pompous for an account of "amusements along the way", and didn't want to make it sound more important than it was.

"It was the most difficult thing I've written bookwise because you have nowhere to hide," he says. "In fiction, you can hide behind characters and make them say your thoughts and things you wouldn't say. When you're writing about your own life you're conscious of the limitedness of your own pallet. And I didn't want to turn it into fiction and write a Herriotesque novel."

The rules for what to include and what to leave out were simple: "The only things I put in were things I felt had affected me most in my life and I thought would be of interest to other people. I've been in the business and TV and know what questions are asked and what people want to know."

The book's publication comes at a time of change for the nation's top TV gardener. Titchmarsh is leaving the two BBC shows with which he's most associated, Ground Force and Gardeners' World, for fresh challenges. At the same time, he's moving from Barleywood, the Hampshire house in which he and wife Alison and daughters Polly and Camilla have lived for 20 years. His new house is only a short distance from his present one, although both property and garden are different.

After 27 years of having cameras in his garden every week for TV programmes, he wants a bit of privacy and the chance to make a garden to complement the house. "Georgian with a twist," will be the theme of his design.

These changes aren't anything to do with a midlife crisis. Anyone who reads his book sees that Titchmarsh has never stayed put in one job for too long. He likes the stimulation of new things.

He doesn't want to sound pretentious, he says, but life is looking down an alley and choosing which way to go. "You have to make decisions and take risks. I left Kew when I had a great job, and then went freelance with a baby on the way. Most of the time I've got away with it. One of the most fortunate things in life is to be born with the incapacity to be bored. I've always gone with my aptitude."

He's never stopped gardening, even during the ten years he was presenting the Pebble Mill show on the BBC, and can rightly claim to have been partly responsible for sharpening people's appetite for both gardening and programmes about it.

"You can become evangelical about gardening. It's important because it's the sharp end of conservation and care of the planet. It's dramatic to say, 'how can digging save the planet?' but that's the start of the journey."

He's not disappearing from our screens, with a second series of How To Be A Gardener due next year and a new gardening series which he can't talk about yet. What has been announced is that Titchmarsh is going to present a landmark series about the natural history of Britain for the BBC. The eight-part series will take 18 months to film and won't be on screen probably before 2004.

The news caused comments in the media that the Beeb were grooming him to be the next David Attenborough. The tone of the articles was not altogether sympathetic to the idea. One columnist suggested it was part of the dumbing down of the BBC, what with Rolf Harris presenting an art programme and Titchmarsh one on natural history. The remark clearly hurt. "I have a degree in botany. I spend my life in botany. It hardly makes me a dilettante."

His passion for gardening isn't shared by his wife Alison, but that's not to say she doesn't take an interest. "She likes being out there in the garden. Her inspiration in our garden has been enormous. I couldn't stay married to someone who wasn't sympathetic to my cause."

The new house and garden present those fresh challenges he relishes so much. "It's lovely to be daunted and a bit scared," he says.

He quotes a remark made by Judi Dench, that she only takes roles she can't do. He adopts the same policy, saying "you can't play the safe bet".

l Gardeners' World: Friday, BBC2, 8.30pm.

* Trowel And Error is published by Hodder and Stoughton, £18.99, and is available from The Northern Echo Bookshop on 0800 015 0552

Published: 28/09/2002