Alan Titchmarsh has revealed a horrific ordeal as a child where he was tied to a chair, which was then set on fire.
While playing with his friend Mickey in his youth, the 75-year-old gardener was pretending to be a captured cowboy.
The fun and games took a turn when the boys got real flames involved in their make-believe world.
Mickey had tied Alan’s feet to the legs of a chair and bound his hands behind him, with the TV presenter helpfully shuffling forward into the hot ashes.
The Gardeners’ World star has shared this traumatic memory in a new autobiography, Nobbut A Lad.
‘I pretended to struggle as the newly fuelled flames licked around the chair legs,’ he wrote in the autobiography, according to the Express.
Alan continued: ‘The rope did catch fire, and so did the legs of the chair, but because the timing had not been orchestrated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the rope didn’t give way and within a few minutes the flames were spreading to the broken cane seat and licking round the seat of my pants.’
The heat was so intense that the soles of Alan’s shoes even melted as he struggled to break free of the bindings.
He continued: ‘I tried to move, but realised that if the chair toppled, I would fall headlong into the flames.
‘I had to be hauled from the fire by Mickey, who grabbed the back of the chair just as the broken leg collapsed, but mercifully before my trousers were alight. He beat out the flames with an old curtain that he found in the hedge bottom.’
It’s unclear where either boy’s parents were when this dramatic fire was happening but Alan confirmed his mother never found out.
He blamed the smokey smell on a barbeque and admitted he was relieved to have gotten away with the ordeal without worrying his mum.
Now, he realises he was in fact lucky to get away with his life, more than just a worried and upset parent.
Alan wrote: ‘It never occurred to me that I’d actually been lucky to get away with my life. But more importantly, Mum never did find out.’
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