Is Alan Titchmarsh dying? Gardening expert says time is "slipping through" his fingers
Alan Titchmarsh has opened up about how quickly life now seems to be passing him by - sparking concern among his fans.
The broadcaster and gardening icon, 76, has been a fixture on British screens and radio for nearly five decades.
He began as a gardening specialist on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours and The Today Programme in 1977, after years working as an editor of gardening magazines and later publishing his own books.
Titchmarsh traces his love of gardening back to his youth in Yorkshire. Summers were spent fishing, building woodland hideouts, or imagining himself as the Lone Ranger riding across the moors.
Writing in Gardeners’ World Magazine, he said: “The older one becomes, the faster the hours, minutes and seconds seem to slip through one’s fingers.”
Titchmarsh added that while a year feels vast to a seven-year-old - one-seventh of their life - for someone in their seventies it is just a fraction, and so seems to rush past.
The gardening guru has previously spoken about the loss of his father, who died of a heart attack at 62, and admitted fears of dying “at a relatively young age” himself.
In a past interview with Yours Magazine, he said: “The thing is, the men in my family have had a tendency to die from heart disease at a relatively young age.
“My dad, for instance, died suddenly in 1986 from a heart attack, aged just 62.”
His reflection on time “passing through” his fingers has worried fans, with a spike in people searching online for whether Alan Titchmarsh is dying. Fortunately, this is probably a load of rubbish.
There have been no public statements about his health and Titchmarsh continues to appear in good spirits when attending events.