Ilkley's Alan Titchmarsh 'thrilled to bits' at CBE
He's been given the award as part of the New Year Honours
Broadcaster and gardener Alan Titchmarsh - who is from Ilkley - said he is "thrilled to bits" to become a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year Honours.
He is being honoured for services to horticulture and to charity.
Titchmarsh told the PA news agency that "both thrill me equally" adding that "a lot of my charitable work is to do with horticulture".
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."
"Thrilled to bits, surprised, but thrilled and honoured that I should be thought worth a CBE, flatted beyond belief."
Born and raised on the edge of Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire, he left school at the age of 15 and became an apprentice gardener.
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."