Alan Titchmarsh ‘thrilled to bits’ at CBE in New Year Honours
He is being honoured for services to horticulture and to charity.
Broadcaster and gardener Alan Titchmarsh said he is “thrilled to bits” to become a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year Honours.
Titchmarsh, 75, is being honoured for services to horticulture and to charity, having served as the president of Perennial, formerly the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society, since 2004.
He is also the president of the charity Plant Heritage, formerly known as the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens (NCCPG), whose patron is the King.
He said it had been a “teary moment” telling his wife Alison and daughters about the CBE, adding: “I’ve been an MBE for 25 years, so I kind of thought that was… I’ve been very happy with that.”
He added he was: “Thrilled to bits, surprised, but thrilled and honoured that I should be thought worth a CBE, flatted beyond belief.”
Famed for his horticultural expertise, he has been a familiar face on television screens for many years, first covering the Chelsea Flower Show for the BBC in 1983.
In 1996 he began presenting BBC programme Gardeners’ World, which he fronted until 2002, with Monty Don taking over the role in 2003.
Born and raised on the edge of Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire, he left school at the age of 15 and became an apprentice gardener.
Reflecting on his career, he told PA gardening was “all I ever wanted to do”.
He said: “I’m as keen on it, if not more so than I ever was. And this year, it’s 60 years as a professional gardener or horticulturist, call it what you will, it doesn’t really matter.
“I’ve always thought gardening is the sharp end of conservation. It’s so important because it is people’s individual way of doing their bit for the planet, where it’s so easy to be overfaced by the likes of climate change and global warming.
“It all seems so big, but it really does begin at home, and it begins with that patch outside the door and being sustainable with it, and responsible, and being a good steward of your bit of landscape.
“And that sounds rather grand, but all these little bits joined together.
“I was born in the Yorkshire Dales, and I’ve been a countryman all my life and wherever I’ve lived, the piece of Earth outside my back door has been very important to me, because I see it as, although a small piece, it’s a piece of the greater picture.”
Titchmarsh was also among the famous faces who celebrated the late Queen during the Platinum Jubilee Pageant in 2022, appearing on an open-top double-decker bus themed to the 1960s.
Alan Titchmarsh’s Gardening Club aired earlier this year on ITV1 and ITVX and other TV shows over the years include How To Be A Gardener and ITV’s Masterpiece With Alan Titchmarsh.
He also hosted The Alan Titchmarsh Show, but announced in March 2014 he was quitting the long-running chat show after seven years fronting the ITV daytime series.
He was previously made an MBE in the New Year Honours List in 2000 and has also hosted the BBC Proms and radio shows for BBC Radio 2, as well as presenting on Classic FM.
Titchmarsh said of being outside in nature: “It’s just the stuff of life for me.
“I write and I broadcast, both of which, well, broadcasting doesn’t always mean you’re comfortable and dry and warm, but writing does.
“But I’m out there whenever I can… anytime I have time, I’m out there just being a part of it, really, and doing a bit of this and a bit of that.”
He has written more than 40 gardening books and his bibliography boasts more than 10 novels and three memoirs.
