IT MAY be gardening that brought him to the public eye, but Alan Titchmarsh has had just as much success cultivating best-sellers.

Alan Titchmarsh, famous for Gardener’s World and Groundforce amongst many other TV programmes, held a signing yesterday for his latest novel, The Haunting, at Waterstones Castlepoint.

With more than 40 gardening guides, three instalments of his autobiography, and his latest book making eight novels, it seems that there is nothing more than Alan Titchmarsh enjoys than writing a good book.

He said: “The thing is, a story is a story and we are always finding things to write about after centuries.”

He added: “I’ve had someone who has researched my ancestry for me back to the early 1700s. This is about a man who wants to find out about his past and it follows all the things he finds out and the coincidences that crop up and that sometimes things in life are meant to be.

“All I have to do is garden, write books and present the TV show, so I love to write and I love what I do.

“I want to keep doing this as long as I’m allowed and whilst people keep reading it, I’ll keep writing.

“I’ve no idea where I find the inspiration for the novels. They’re just about people I quite like or care about.

“I don’t know what I will write about next but I quite like that.”

First in the queue, Andree Gumbrecht, 71, retired, from Fordingbridge, said: “I’ve not met him before but as for his gardening advice, I go by everything he says and I’ve got several of his books.”

She added: “I do go through his gardening books often and take so much information from that and I record all his programmes.”

Mother and daughter Hilary Skernatt, 66, and Claire Morton, 41, from Highcliffe, saw Alan the last time he did a signing in Bournemouth.

Hilary said: “I came to see him two years ago when he came to this store to get a book signed and he’s lovely, really nice.”

Claire added: “I’ve got one of his cue cards signed from The Alan Titchmarsh Show. We got it when we went to see the live recording about a month ago. In fact, we’ve been three times and we’re going again in January.”