Alan Titchmarsh has had an outstanding broadcasting career off the back of being a gardening expert.
But despite his success, the Love Your Weekend and Love Your Garden host has previously revealed his family weren’t convinced by his career.
That’s because Alan’s father was apparently unimpressed by the path his son chose… even though gardening had been prominent in his family even before Alan was born.
Nonetheless, this detail was not known to Alan for a good while after his dad “turned his nose up” at what Alan does for a job.
Alan Titchmarsh: Gardening is in his blood
Speaking to The Independent in 2012, Alan revealed his father wasn’t keen to follow in the footsteps of those that came before him.
The reason? Apparently Alan’s dad likened green-fingered but back-breaking work as “slavery”.
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Indeed, Alan went against the wishes of his plumber father by taking a job out of school as an apprentice gardener with Ilkley Council.
Alan recalled: “The reason he didn’t think gardening was a career was because his father and grandfather did it.
“And he thought it was slavery. I didn’t know it was in the family sap until much later.”
‘Not very effusive’
Alan left that job aged 18 to take his first qualification in horticulture.
He studied at institutions in Shipley and Hertfordshire before making his way to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.
There Alan took on various roles before deciding to make his way as a gardening journalist aged 24. Just two years later he published his first book on gardening.
As I grew older we became closer.
Alan also became a media figure, appearing in segments on the BBC before presenting coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show from 1983.
Sadly, Alan’s father passed away aged just 62.
And although Alan has described him as “a typical Yorkshire dad – they weren’t very effusive as a breed” – his father did get to see the early stages of Alan’s broadcasting career.
‘I was very fond of him’
Alan also remembered his dad in a 2010 interview with The Guardian – and noted how others also remembered his father fondly following his passing.
“He wasn’t overly physically demonstrative, especially with a son, because up there fathers and sons have a certain relationship, but as I grew older we became closer,” Alan recalled.
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“I was very fond of him and he was a very gentle man, a dear man.
“It’s very interesting that since then people will come up to me occasionally and tell me how much they admired him.”
Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh airs on ITV, Sunday March 13, at 10am. Love Your Garden follows on the same channel at 11.55am.
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