ALAN Titchmarsh sneaked into East Lancashire to transform an unsightly garden into a place of beauty.

But don't tell his mother.

Brought up in Ilkley, but now firmly based in leafy Hampshire, the multi-talented former Yorkshire Man of the Year doesn't get much time to see his dear old mum.

Reporters Jamie Diffley and Charlotte Bradshaw caught up with Alan and the rest of the Ground Force team when they unleashed their skills on another unsuspecting homeowner.

A flying visit to Great Harwood this week would have provided the perfect opportunity to nip across the Pennines.

But the busy life of an award-winning presenter, best-selling novelist and all-round nice guy doesn not provide many windows of opportunity for life's little pleasantries -- like visits back home.

"Don't tell my mother that I've been here," he said.

"She'll kill me when I get home and tell her."

Alan and the rest of the BBC Ground Force team, Charlie Dimmock, Tommy Walsh and helper Willie Shanahan, spent two days in the town this week after rallying to an emergency call from 18-year-old Kathryn Speak and 10-year-old brother Edward, who pleaded with them to sort out their neighbours' garden.

Carol Bennett and Bernard O'Brien were shellshocked when they returned home from a caravanning holiday in Clitheroe to see the transformation.

Former builder Tommy Walsh, the show's "handyman", said: "It was a bomb site before and now it is beautiful."

Tommy is the only member of the Ground Force team who is not a trained horticulturist but his natural charm in front of the camera has established him as a firm favourite with viewers since the show first aired in 1997.

The father-of-three was spotted by chance by the show's producer and invited to screen test with Charlie Dimmock. From then he hasn't looked back. "After leaving Lancashire I'll be going back down to London for some meetings. There are some personal appearances and I'm also writing a book," said Tommy, who owns his own building company that restores old buildings. "I am very busy at the moment, with only four days off from now until August.

"I'm on the Ant and Dec show (tonight, 6.20pm, ITV), which should be fun, and I am also opening a hospice in London. I love doing this show because of people's reactions. There is nothing like it."

Charlie Dimmock's exposure on the BAFTA-winning show quickly established her as a television superstar. Her flair for all things green-fingered and her expertise in creating water features made her a natural for the programme that she has helped to become one of the most popular on British television.

She is a trained horticulturist and spent three years at Winchester and Somerset College, plus a year at the Chelsea Physic Garden, honing her skills.

So keen is she on gardening that until recently she still had a regular job off-camera.

She said: "I used to work in a garden centre but I had to give it up because of my busy schedule with Ground Force and other things.

"I have to admit that I don't always appreciate help when I am gardening. I like to get on with it in my own space because if you get too much help then things start to get out of hand and things can go wrong." Ground Force was an unexpected hit. Starting off on BBC2 its popularity soon pushed it on to BBC1 where maximum exposure saw the viewing figures soar to around 12 million.

But the question of whether the programme continues to flourish was plunged into doubt when Alan Titchmarsh decided to hang up his shovel.

"I get a bit itchy to move on and I'll be stopping at the end of next year," he said. "I wanted to quit while we were ahead. It's been a great series for four years. We have done 55 gardens and at the end of the next series it will be about 66. I thought that was a nice number to go out on."

Coyly refusing to talk about his next move, Alan did reveal that plans are in the pipeline for a new show.

"It will be a back-to-basics kind of gardening show," he said.