My First. . .

MEMORY: Lowlands Farm, Wycoller. My grandfather farmed there and I can remember at hay time I had a little truck and I used to take hay back to the farm.

HOLIDAY: Morecambe, in the September holidays after the war. We stayed in a guest house just off the seafront with a Mrs Hepworth, who had some kind of contact with my mother -- I think they went to school together.

JOB: I worked on a number of farms delivering milk when I was still at school. After leaving Park School in Colne I worked at Hernal White's nursery in Colne.

HOME: I was born in Ulverston but we later moved to Laneshawbridge, near Colne, not far from Lowlands Farm. We moved to Dudley Street and then Grosvenor Street, in Colne, where my father had an allotment at the end of the street -- that's where I got my interest in horticulture.

AMBITION: To earn £1,000 a year. I used to think anyone who earned that must be like a millionaire today.

PET: We always had Jack Russells. I had one called Nip and I have one now called Misty -- the fifth since I was married. We have always had cats too and now we have a marmalade cat called Chivers.

RECORD: Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets.

CAR: A Triumph, 1934 or '35. I bought it for £10 when I was a student at Oaklands College, St Albans.

EMBARRASSING LOTTERY MOMENT: I knocked myself out at Luton Airport and ended up at Luton Hospital. For the first 25 weeks we did outside broadcasts. I was blinded by a spotlight and walked into the nosewheel of a plane, resulting in 15 stitches to my head.