:00:19. > :00:24.Hello and welcome to The One Show with Matt Baker. And Anita Rani.
:00:24. > :00:30.With us tonight are a couple who we reckon have been on TV together for
:00:30. > :00:38.a whopping 7000 hours. Give or take a few. And they are about to add
:00:38. > :00:45.another 30 minutes. It is Judy and Richard! That sounds like it should
:00:45. > :00:50.always have been that way. I agree. It is great to hear. We have also
:00:50. > :00:54.heard that the entire Ledley family have got into trouble recently?
:00:54. > :00:58.daughter was Sleeping Beauty in the Windsor production. And I got
:00:58. > :01:02.carried away. We went down to watch her, and there is the bit when she
:01:02. > :01:06.picks her finger. Everyone in the audience knows she is about to be
:01:06. > :01:12.tricked into pricking her finger. I stood up, maybe a little the worse
:01:12. > :01:17.for wear for drink, and shouted don't do it, it is a trick! And she
:01:18. > :01:23.heard me and burst out laughing. The scene came to a halt. Now it
:01:23. > :01:28.has come into the Madeley jargon. We will say if something is not
:01:28. > :01:34.worth doing, don't do it, it is a trick. We all went on Boxing Day.
:01:34. > :01:41.The whole family went. There were Disney lights and swords and
:01:41. > :01:45.shouting. Someone said to the musical maestro, can you shut those
:01:45. > :01:51.people up? But that is what you do in a panto. The EU can make as much
:01:51. > :01:54.noise as you want here. We will. The panto season may be coming to
:01:54. > :01:59.an end, but another season has been making the headlines.
:01:59. > :02:02.Spring has sprung in January. According to the Woodland Trust,
:02:02. > :02:07.there are flowers in bloom weeks ahead of schedule in parts of the
:02:07. > :02:11.UK. So please send in your photos of your blooming daffodils. We will
:02:11. > :02:16.try and find the most northerly daffodil during the programme.
:02:16. > :02:19.Now, they say truth is stranger than fiction, and over the next few
:02:19. > :02:23.weeks, Gyles Brandreth is setting out to prove it by solving some of
:02:23. > :02:28.Britain's strangest mysteries. First up is the story of a
:02:28. > :02:31.politician who had a double life in more ways than one.
:02:31. > :02:39.John Thomson Stonehouse - economics graduate, business entrepreneur and
:02:39. > :02:43.family man. Perfect material for politics. When Labour won the 1964
:02:43. > :02:46.general election, Stonehouse rose rapidly to power as the minister
:02:46. > :02:52.for technology. There was even talk of him one day succeeding Harold
:02:53. > :02:57.Wilson as Prime Minister. So not just his family, but the nation,
:02:57. > :03:03.was in shock when he went on holiday to Miami, left a pile of
:03:03. > :03:07.clothes on the beach and vanished. His wife had no doubts. I am
:03:07. > :03:13.convinced that it was a drowning incident. The world declared him
:03:13. > :03:17.dead. Barely a month later, police in Australia received a call about
:03:17. > :03:23.an Englishman seen signing cheques under two different names in a
:03:23. > :03:26.Melbourne bank. When they visited his hotel, the man gave the name
:03:26. > :03:30.Clive Mildoon and produced a British passport to prove it. That
:03:30. > :03:36.might have been the end of the story. But one keen-eyed officer
:03:36. > :03:40.spotted a book of matches bearing the name of the same Miami hotel
:03:40. > :03:46.where John Stonehouse had stayed before his apparent suicide. It Mr
:03:46. > :03:49.Stonehouse had faked his death. He had been rumbled, and had become
:03:49. > :03:56.one of the few people in history to be caught faking their own death,
:03:56. > :04:01.leaving his wife and three children believing that he was dead. But why
:04:01. > :04:05.did a high-flying and he want to deceive all who knew him? This was
:04:05. > :04:12.his excuse days after being discovered in Australia. I have
:04:12. > :04:16.been sick. My psychiatrist confirms that. When in public life, one is
:04:16. > :04:23.subject to enormous pressures. was buried darker secret lying
:04:23. > :04:27.behind his faked suicide? In 1969, five years earlier, remarkable
:04:27. > :04:36.allegations were made that Stonehouse was a spy for the
:04:36. > :04:40.Czechoslovakian secret service. He himself adamantly denied espionage.
:04:40. > :04:44.I have gone to Czechoslovakia and had close connections there, but
:04:44. > :04:50.the idea that I was a spy is ludicrous. During the Cold War,
:04:50. > :04:54.such allegations were rife. At the time, MI5 had no hard evidence, but
:04:54. > :04:58.the damage to his reputation had been done. So could it be that the
:04:58. > :05:02.burden of concealing such a secret was the real reason that he was
:05:02. > :05:08.desperate to disappear? Cambridge historian Professor Christopher
:05:08. > :05:14.Andrew is one of the few who have seen MI5's file on Stonehouse. What
:05:14. > :05:23.kind of man was he? John Stonehouse was a fraud. But for a long time,
:05:23. > :05:27.he was successful. The idea that he might have been a spy working for
:05:28. > :05:32.Czechoslovakia in 1969, a detective came along and said, I fear and 90%
:05:32. > :05:39.certain that he is a spy. So Stonehouse was called in, and he
:05:39. > :05:46.put up a good defence. MI5 decided he was innocent. And what he?
:05:46. > :05:49.he had been a spy. The decisive evidence came in the mid- 1990s,
:05:49. > :05:56.when the Czechoslovakian intelligence service, having become
:05:56. > :06:01.an ally, made public some of Stonehouse's file. They were pretty
:06:01. > :06:06.disappointed with the quality of the intelligence he passed on. So
:06:06. > :06:09.to the long list of people who Stonehouse defrauded, it is
:06:09. > :06:15.possible that we can add the name of Czechoslovakian intelligence.
:06:15. > :06:25.the top of that list was his family. This was their first, rather candid
:06:25. > :06:36.
:06:36. > :06:39.Although never convicted for espionage, he did serve time for
:06:39. > :06:42.fraud, forgery and theft. Stonehouse serve just three years
:06:42. > :06:49.of his seven-year sentence following a string of heart attacks.
:06:49. > :06:52.On his release from prison, he lived in relative obscurity until
:06:52. > :06:59.14th April 1988, when the man who once faked his own death died for
:06:59. > :07:04.real. It is the stuff of movies. Our
:07:05. > :07:08.super sleuth Gyles is here. We do not know all there is to know yet?
:07:08. > :07:13.And we will not necessarily know the whole truth for 100 years,
:07:13. > :07:17.because there is a rule about government papers. Most of them are
:07:17. > :07:22.released after 30 years. But in the case of national security, that is
:07:22. > :07:29.extended to 100 years. National security, things to do with the
:07:29. > :07:32.Queen, are not revealed for 100 years. For example, we recently had
:07:32. > :07:37.some state papers published which did not include anything about the
:07:37. > :07:43.Falklands. There was material in there about the Falklands, still
:07:43. > :07:47.deemed to be security sensitive. We did learn things about Liverpool.
:07:47. > :07:57.Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, was advised to let
:07:57. > :08:01.Liverpool sink into decline. Jeffrey Howe denies it. There was
:08:01. > :08:07.controversy about it at the time. They did not take that advice, but
:08:07. > :08:13.it is fascinating. Other things were revealed as well? There was a
:08:13. > :08:19.big diplomatic row in 1981. It involved this country, the US,
:08:19. > :08:25.Lebanon, Saudi Arabia. It was to do with a Mecca Bingo Hall in Glasgow.
:08:25. > :08:29.The Muslim countries objected. They felt it was an insult to the Muslim
:08:29. > :08:36.faith, because Mecca is their holy city. And they did not want this
:08:36. > :08:40.Mecca Bingo Hall being called after matter. But Glasgow won. Other news
:08:40. > :08:43.about Margaret Thatcher? It turns out that The Iron Lady was the
:08:44. > :08:47.ironing lady. There was a government paper saying, we have
:08:47. > :08:50.spent this much on refurbishing your apartment at Downing Street,
:08:50. > :08:55.including a certain amount on an ironing board. She put in the
:08:55. > :09:00.margin, I will pay for my own ironing board. We do not need this.
:09:00. > :09:05.You are spending too much. So she was a good housekeeper in private
:09:05. > :09:10.as well as in public. I interviewed her a couple of times. The last
:09:10. > :09:15.time was in 1994. It was a fairly tedious interview, because she had
:09:15. > :09:22.done so many of them. We were not getting very far, so I threw her a
:09:22. > :09:27.curve ball. I said, do you remember the time he became a grandparent?
:09:27. > :09:31.Used it to the cameras, we are a grandmother. It sounded like Queen
:09:31. > :09:41.Victoria. The press said, she thinks she is the Queen. She gave
:09:41. > :09:46.me a funny look and then gave me a fantastic explanation. She said,
:09:47. > :09:51.that basically, her husband hated the limelight. He never went near
:09:51. > :09:56.the cameras. On the day that their grandchild was born, she prevailed
:09:56. > :10:00.on him for 20 minutes to come out with her onto the pavement, because
:10:00. > :10:05.it was a joint moment. But he would not, so she came out determined to
:10:05. > :10:12.make it a joint moment, and found herself saying, to her horror, we
:10:12. > :10:15.are a grandmother. I believed her. It is a charming story.
:10:15. > :10:19.Now, our consumer man Dom Littlewood has come across some
:10:19. > :10:23.dodgy companies in his time, but one that sells you a useless will
:10:23. > :10:26.and then disappears has to be up there. Dom explains how a couple
:10:26. > :10:29.from Nottinghamshire ended up with wills that literally are not worth
:10:29. > :10:34.the paper they are written on. If you live in England, Northern
:10:34. > :10:38.Ireland or Wales, and you fancy setting up a business, you have had
:10:38. > :10:45.no training or qualifications and no industry recognised certificates,
:10:45. > :10:50.I have just the job for you. Will- writing. You see, there is nothing
:10:50. > :10:55.stopping me, you or anybody making money out of writing wills, because
:10:55. > :11:00.it is an almost totally unregulated industry. But some roads have been
:11:00. > :11:06.jumping on the bandwagon. Who would like they are well written? You,
:11:06. > :11:11.would you like your well written? One thing you cannot complain about
:11:11. > :11:16.when choosing how to do your will is lack of choice. Some choose the
:11:16. > :11:21.more traditional method and go to a lawyer. Others get these off the
:11:21. > :11:25.shelf do-it-yourself kits for between �10 and �20. Others use
:11:25. > :11:29.professional will writers. But unlike lawyers, both the DIY kits
:11:29. > :11:36.and professional will writers are not regulated, so if there is a
:11:36. > :11:39.problem, there is no safety net. Patricia and Jim Hodges were caught
:11:39. > :11:42.cold by a will-writing company. Impressed by the sales patter of
:11:42. > :11:49.what they thought was a trustworthy company, they handed over a large
:11:49. > :11:52.sum of money, only to be left with wills that were totally useless.
:11:52. > :11:57.am not one for accepting people coming to the house from telephone
:11:57. > :12:02.calls. He rang several times, and each time I said no, but I
:12:02. > :12:09.eventually agreed to have an appointment. It seemed good. He was
:12:09. > :12:13.very informative. Two hours later, we paid them a cheque for �1,830.
:12:13. > :12:18.We looked at each other and thought it was a bit strange that they were
:12:18. > :12:22.asking for the money there and then. But we gave them a cheque, and it
:12:22. > :12:25.was cashed five days later. couple noticed that there were
:12:25. > :12:32.mistakes in the Wills, and they even named the wrong sun as
:12:32. > :12:37.executor. The wills were not legally binding. They tried to get
:12:37. > :12:44.in touch with the company, but they stopped answering their phones.
:12:44. > :12:50.this time, Hu had gone by, -- a year had gone by and we went to
:12:50. > :12:53.find them, only to find that the company was no longer there.
:12:54. > :12:58.their story reflects a bigger problem. If a solicitor writes a
:12:58. > :13:03.will you are not happy with, he or she is automatically regulated and
:13:03. > :13:07.you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to investigate. But if you use a will
:13:08. > :13:12.writer, there is no one to turn to. We are not just talking about
:13:12. > :13:16.problems with the will writers, there are bad lawyers out there?
:13:16. > :13:20.There are bad lawyers, bad will writers and people who just make
:13:20. > :13:24.mistakes. If something goes wrong with a will you have had written by
:13:24. > :13:29.a solicitor, you have the right to come to somebody like us. But that
:13:29. > :13:33.is not the case for Will writers. Even the industry itself is calling
:13:33. > :13:38.for safeguards to stamp out the bad practice of the minority. Brian
:13:38. > :13:41.McMillan is the boss of the Society of Will writers. He has gone
:13:41. > :13:47.through rigorous training, but despairs that other independent
:13:47. > :13:54.will writers are not qualified. He confirms that Patricia and Jim's
:13:55. > :14:00.wheels are a mess. You went over a year with documents that are
:14:00. > :14:04.worthless. None of them have been completed or executed properly. And
:14:04. > :14:08.the information was either missing, incomplete or non-existent. So what
:14:09. > :14:13.can you do to protect yourself? Firstly, ask your will writer if
:14:13. > :14:17.they are qualified. If you use a solicitor, make sure they are
:14:17. > :14:21.competent in will-writing. Make sure whoever you use has
:14:21. > :14:26.professional indemnity insurance. Then if there is a mistake, your
:14:26. > :14:31.beneficiaries might be compensated. Patricia will get no compensation.
:14:31. > :14:38.I did not think I was a vulnerable person. I thought I was quite
:14:38. > :14:48.astute. But we made a mistake. They obviously missold us, and cost us a
:14:48. > :14:52.
:14:52. > :14:57.The makers of the DIY kit in the film wanted to point out that they
:14:57. > :15:01.really do try to give the best advice, but if you cannot
:15:01. > :15:04.understand it, take it back for a refund.
:15:04. > :15:09.Richard was on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. You weren't with him.
:15:09. > :15:14.He got one answer wrong, book- related. If you had been with him
:15:15. > :15:20.would you have got it right? Hand on heart, no. Ways quite cross with
:15:20. > :15:22.Chris Tarrant, not he compiles the questions. It was, do you happen to
:15:22. > :15:28.know from the statistics from public transport lost property
:15:28. > :15:34.offices over the last year which was the most commonly handed in
:15:34. > :15:40.object? I did think it might be books I would have gone forum brel
:15:40. > :15:44.las. Thank you, darling. The Book Club is launched once more. Eight
:15:44. > :15:48.books and you've chosen them all. How many books did you have to go
:15:48. > :15:54.to? We get sent between 20 and 30, from the long list compiled by our
:15:54. > :15:58.partners. We have to pick eight. It can be a little bit like homework
:15:58. > :16:02.but because they are such good reads... We had fantastic news
:16:02. > :16:07.today that one of our authors, the first one in our launch for spring,
:16:07. > :16:13.has just gone straight to number one. Shot to number one, within
:16:13. > :16:18.days of the launch we were thrilled to bits. It is called Before I Go
:16:18. > :16:22.To Sleep. It is by a man, SJ Watson. Tall way through I read the book I
:16:22. > :16:27.assumed it was a woman, because the way he for trace his main character,
:16:28. > :16:33.who is a woman who has lost her memory is so brilliant. But no,
:16:33. > :16:38.it's a man and he's done a brilliant job. It is at number one.
:16:39. > :16:45.It is great. It is so great to get debut authors like that. When you
:16:45. > :16:49.are at home, is it the same room with slippers on? I to be really
:16:49. > :16:57.quiet, whereas Richard likes to have the radio on. I can read in a
:16:58. > :17:02.cafe. Twittering. I read standing up a lot, which is weird, in the
:17:02. > :17:09.kitchen. I can imagine you reading and being on Twitter. Judy, you
:17:09. > :17:13.seem to be OK not being in the limelight, but Richard is on radio.
:17:13. > :17:19.100,000 people following on Twitter. Are you a little bit worried that
:17:19. > :17:23.you are not there to rein him in? Good God, no. I can't criticise
:17:23. > :17:28.Twitter, because he loves it. think it's wonderful. And it does
:17:28. > :17:33.provide us with a lot of stimulating conversations at home.
:17:33. > :17:38.She's a full-time writer now. I'm hopping about, freelanceing, and
:17:38. > :17:46.writing, but she is a full-time writer with a two-book deal. Which
:17:46. > :17:53.we will get to in a little while. Don't worry. I guess you hust have
:17:53. > :17:57.-- must have had conversations about the two cars... Yes,
:17:57. > :18:03.Hampstead garden suburb, it is like being in Beirut, twice in the last
:18:03. > :18:11.month two separate drivers reversed into my. One was a people carrier.
:18:11. > :18:16.They are not apologetic. Once might be a coincidence but twice... We
:18:16. > :18:20.have made you something. What do you think about that? A lot of
:18:20. > :18:29.people would agree with that sentiment. I think shoe be allowed
:18:29. > :18:35.out with that. You may well be more of a target! Who knows? Some of our
:18:35. > :18:39.most touching One Show films come from famous names taking us to
:18:39. > :18:45.their childhood homes. Fay Weldon visits the streets where her family
:18:45. > :18:55.lived after the Second World War. This is my street where I used to
:18:55. > :18:55.
:18:55. > :19:02.live, in the hard, colt winter of 1946- 47 -- cold winter. So this
:19:02. > :19:06.street to me just seemed terribly exciting. It was where the world
:19:06. > :19:11.was beginning again. In spite of the cold and the grey and the no
:19:11. > :19:17.paint and the no food, it was just enormously exciting. That's what I
:19:17. > :19:22.remember most. # When the lights go on again... #
:19:22. > :19:30.We were alive. Everybody around you was grateful to be alive after the
:19:30. > :19:34.war. We had five or six years of bombs falling down on you and
:19:34. > :19:44.people being killed and families disrupted. This is the house. I'm
:19:44. > :19:48.
:19:48. > :19:53.about to go in and revisit the past. Goodness me. Strange to be back.
:19:53. > :19:58.Whatever, who would have thought that all these years later one
:19:58. > :20:08.would come back this these circumstances? It is all rather, if
:20:08. > :20:11.
:20:11. > :20:18.my friends could see me now, what would they think? Well, goodness me.
:20:18. > :20:28.It wasn't like this. It was bigger for one thing. It was one big room,
:20:28. > :20:30.
:20:30. > :20:35.two windows, same view from the window. And my mother was Margaret,
:20:35. > :20:40.my sister was Jane. She was my big sister. My parents were divorced.
:20:40. > :20:44.My father was a doctor, living in New Zealand. But I do remember
:20:44. > :20:48.leaving New Zealand and waving goodbye to him and seeing this
:20:48. > :20:54.figure as the boat went out, and seeing him get smaller and smaller
:20:54. > :20:58.and knowing you will never see him again. And I didn't.
:20:58. > :21:06.But anyway, there with this great adventure in front of us, so we had
:21:07. > :21:11.the great adventure. It was bitterly cold winter. It went on
:21:11. > :21:15.longer. It went on for about three months. No coal, no fuel, hardly
:21:15. > :21:20.any food. When the power went off, we just went to bed and stayed in
:21:20. > :21:24.bed until the power came on. There was nothing else to do, was so cold.
:21:24. > :21:30.No television or anything like that, remember. No mobile phones. It was
:21:30. > :21:35.just you and the world outside and how you would manage in it. There
:21:35. > :21:39.had been a war. People were lucky to be live. Lots of people had died.
:21:40. > :21:44.One didn't voice one's anger. You didn't say to your mother, "You
:21:44. > :21:49.should never have brought us here." That wouldn't occur to you to
:21:49. > :21:57.behave like, that because the world was too fragile. My mother managed.
:21:57. > :22:02.She became a housekeeper for a time and cleaned for other people. I did
:22:02. > :22:11.sometimes wonder quite why one's friends lived in these quite
:22:11. > :22:15.comfortable houses and we were living in one room in the cold.
:22:15. > :22:21.This tiny little kitchen. It is bliss isn't it? It has cupboards.
:22:21. > :22:25.Everything is the same height. Not like what we had - a table in the
:22:25. > :22:29.corner of the radio. Cooking smells, with rationing you were lucky to
:22:29. > :22:35.have anything to cook! Everybody was starting again, starting afresh.
:22:35. > :22:41.There was very little to cling on to from the past. So, you just
:22:41. > :22:45.lived in the present. A very fine present it was.
:22:45. > :22:49.And we are delighted to say that we've got Fay with us in the studio.
:22:49. > :22:55.Fay, that was such a moving film. It's the first time you've seen it.
:22:55. > :22:59.How did it make you feel watching that? Well, I think I was rather
:22:59. > :23:06.impressed. You should be. I thought I dealt with my words rather well
:23:06. > :23:09.and managed to tell a story. That's an accomplishment. You told that
:23:09. > :23:13.story with the most beautiful turn of phrase. When did you start to
:23:14. > :23:18.realise that you had that art of telling a story and you went into
:23:18. > :23:23.writing books? I think probably when I was really quite small. I
:23:23. > :23:30.could just use words. I could use language. I didn't have to do much
:23:30. > :23:34.work at school. I could just manage to pull the wool over everybody's
:23:34. > :23:40.eyes. It seemed as if I knew anything. I knew very little but
:23:40. > :23:46.always manage today seem as if I knew a lot. You've written 30 books
:23:46. > :23:50.over a 40-year career and your new book, Kehua, is a ghost story?
:23:50. > :23:55.other side, if you might call it that, keeps surfacing in all of
:23:55. > :24:03.them, I find. If you are a writer it is quite hard to believe in the
:24:03. > :24:09.here and now. One prefers to live in a mildy fictional universe.
:24:09. > :24:16.Judy, is it a story you are writing? Don't stand a chance next
:24:16. > :24:23.to Fay! Mine's a ghost story set in Cornwall, where we have a house and
:24:23. > :24:30.which we love very much. It is a story of a woman who is haunted by
:24:30. > :24:33.her best friend, who has just died, in seemingly perfectly normal,
:24:33. > :24:38.unsuspicious circumstances. But gradually she becomes aware the
:24:38. > :24:42.heroine of the book, Kathy, that something very bad has gone on and
:24:42. > :24:46.it affects her friend and her family. It is her trying to
:24:46. > :24:50.convince people that what, including her own husband who
:24:50. > :24:57.doesn't believe her, that she is being haunted by this woman with a
:24:57. > :25:01.story to fell. I love a good ghost story. Is it finished? Not quite. I
:25:01. > :25:07.have to say to my publishers, don't worry, I am working on it. I've got
:25:07. > :25:12.a deadline at the end of this month and I'm sincerely hoping I will
:25:12. > :25:16.have finished it. Did you find writing easy and disciplined now,
:25:16. > :25:21.Fay? No, it is really hard work die too have a deadline at the end of
:25:21. > :25:25.this month. Oh, God! I'm slighting wondering what I'm doing here.
:25:25. > :25:29.Didn't I say exactly the same thing? You feel as if you should be
:25:30. > :25:35.at home. It is the guilt. A lifetime of guilt. And Richard
:25:35. > :25:41.you've only got five chanters of your book down? Six. She will be
:25:41. > :25:47.finished on time. All writers in ply experience have no faith in
:25:47. > :25:54.what they've written. She gave me her to read and I said, "This is
:25:54. > :25:58.great" and she said, "No it's not." It's a great ghost story.
:25:58. > :26:02.hopefully she will beat new I will be happy for her to come first.
:26:02. > :26:05.That's good to hear. At the start of the show we asked
:26:05. > :26:09.for pictures of your early- flowering daffodils. Christine
:26:09. > :26:14.Walkden has been popping up around the country to see the signs of
:26:14. > :26:20.spring for herself. The British winter. A rather
:26:20. > :26:25.depressing mixture of snow, ice and general chaos. For the green
:26:25. > :26:29.fingered amongst us it is the time of year we would most like to fast
:26:29. > :26:33.forward. For this winter for most of us things have been different.
:26:33. > :26:38.December's temperature almost six degrees warmer than the previous
:26:39. > :26:44.year, our gardens and plants don't know whether they are coming or
:26:44. > :26:50.going. Liz is President of a horticultural society and this is
:26:50. > :26:54.her neighbour's garden. Liz, early January and here we are looking at
:26:54. > :26:58.glorious daffodils. Is this usual for this part of the world? I think
:26:58. > :27:02.it is probably about three weeks early. You are going to have this
:27:03. > :27:06.glorious display but they are not going to last long. I would give a
:27:06. > :27:10.good application of general fertiliser so when they die down
:27:10. > :27:17.they are taking nutrients in and they bulk up against next year. Is
:27:17. > :27:22.there anything else in the garden flowering early? Rhododendrons.
:27:22. > :27:27.spring has well and truly sprung? think so. The mild weather hasn't
:27:27. > :27:32.just caused flowers to bloom early. Barry Newman is chairman of the
:27:32. > :27:36.National Vegetable Society and his rhubarb are behaving very oddly
:27:36. > :27:40.indeed. Normally you could expect to see a crown of rhubarb is a few
:27:40. > :27:44.undulations over it where the leaves are holding, ready to burst
:27:44. > :27:48.through. It is amazing to see it so red at this time of year. Are you
:27:48. > :27:53.hearing this from your members from around the country? Yes, everybody
:27:53. > :27:57.is ahead of the game at the moment. What are the downsides? These
:27:57. > :28:04.milder winter are encouraging pests and diseases. We are not getting
:28:04. > :28:09.that natural cull, particularly with aphids, a major problem with
:28:09. > :28:14.cabbage and Brussels sprouts. this garden in Wisley spring has
:28:14. > :28:21.arrived early for the experts too. This year the plants think it is
:28:22. > :28:30.spring and they are flowering early. Is there there a knock-on effect
:28:30. > :28:35.because this is happen sog soon? Plant that -- Happening so soon?
:28:35. > :28:43.There might be. The whole eco- system depends on the plants
:28:43. > :28:46.flowering at the right time. For me, this is every gardener's dream. I
:28:47. > :28:53.wouldn't expect to see such lovely colour in January. It is obvious
:28:53. > :28:58.that spring has started early. Let's now hope there isn't a cold
:28:58. > :29:06.snap just around the corner. It is time for flowering daff dils. A
:29:06. > :29:15.quick whip around the country. Lytham St Annes. This one is
:29:15. > :29:19.Glasgow! From Katie. This is North London. From Northern Ireland.
:29:19. > :29:26.Sneer Giant's Causeway. But the winner is here. Ellen in