Alan Titchmarsh has admitted he is “in denial” over his health and age after turning 77. The Gardeners’ World star was forced to make a big decision earlier this year, and sold his £3.5million Grade II listed Hampshire home to downsize to a smaller bungalow in Surrey with his wife Alison – with a much smaller garden.

Now Alan has confessed that he still expects to see himself as a 40-something-year-old, admitting in his Gardeners’ World column: “There is no doubt that I am in denial. I think of myself as 40-something. Ha! While I might be hale and hearty at the moment, I cannot count on such good fortune indefinitely.”

Alan considers himself “very lucky” that “nothing [in his body] has been replaced”.

He told The Times: “You don't know what's round the corner. My dad died of a heart attack at 62. It makes you aware that every day is a bonus, really. I've lived 15 years longer than my dad did."

But that doesn’t mean the horticulturalist hasn’t faced his fair share of health woes, as he was forced to undergo knee surgery in 2018 after spending so many hours crouching over gardens.

Surgeons removed damaged tissue and cartilage during the op, but didn’t perform a knee replacement. Alan told The Mirror at the time: “I had it all cleared out and they feel so much better.

"I've got bad knees as a result of a lot of kneeling over the years from gardening, and it has got a bit frayed in there, but I am a spring chicken again now."

He also faced a broken ankle during Covid-19 lockdown after “slipping on wet grass”, which left him needing crutches for six weeks and to gaining back pounds he’d worked hard to shed.