Still open all hours: Why David Jason has no intention of taking things easy.

David Jason (above) tells Kerry Harvey about his new travel show and says he is far too busy to even think about taking it easy.

It’s fair to say at 80, most people are slowing down just a tad … but Sir David Jason is most definitely not one of them. “Hopefully, if you have still got grey matter inside your head and you are reasonably fit, there’s no way you should slow down,” says the beloved British actor who celebrated his 80th birthday in February.

“I’m as busy now as I’ve ever been. I don’t admit to age. Age can go sit on a log outside and wait for me to go and pick it up.

“I don’t even think about it. I get on with the job and everything that has to be done and I get out there and enjoy it. My advice is, ‘Don’t sit there worrying about everything. Get up and get out and do something.’ That’s my motto.”

If you don’t want to take him at his word, then watch his new series David Jason: Planes, Trains And Automobiles.

The five-part documentary follows

Jason on the adventure of a lifetime as he journeys from Seattle to Los Angeles, using the biggest, best, fastest and most expensive modes of transport that America’s West Coast has to offer.

From San Francisco’s 100-year-old cable cars and a helicopter trip over Mt St Helens to Amtrak trains and the world’s oldest motorcycle club, he does it all.

Don’t for one minute think the actor is just a passenger along for the ride. More often than not, the self-confessed daredevil is in the driver’s seat or, in some cases, at the controls of a range of vintage aircraft including a DC3, a Huey helicopter and a World War II fighter plane.

A fixture on British television since the 70s when he played Granville in the comedy Open All Hours, Jason went on to star as Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter in the 80s comedy series Only Fools And Horses and then as Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds Of May.

In 1992, he turned to drama and for 16 years investigated crimes

as Detective Inspector Jack Frost in the police drama A Touch Of Frost. However, Jason is also known to children around the world as the voice of Mr Toad in The Wind In The Willows and the title characters in Count Duckula and Danger Mouse.

While his shows have screened on different platforms in the US, he was a bit stunned to realise it is Danger Mouse that has the biggest following.

“That helped to speed my visa up. The guy I saw at the American Embassy saw my name and said, ‘Did you do Danger Mouse?’ and I said, ‘Yes’.

“Well, he couldn’t get me stamped quick enough. He wanted to shake every one of my limbs,” Jason says, laughing.

Before his acting career took off, Jason worked as a mechanic or, as he describes it, ‘a grease monkey’.

Even now, his garage contains two cars, three vintage motorbikes he has restored himself, and an electric motorcycle. A qualified pilot, he also has his own helicopter.

“The interest in how things work and how to make it work again just stuck with me and I’ve been taking things apart ever since.

“This show was a tremendous opportunity to go and do a little bit of that,” he says. “I was doing stunts, flying helicopters, driving huge trucks – I was so lucky to do things that half the male population of the world would want to do. I never found it a worry or a chore or considered it dangerous. I just loved the challenge.”

However, he is still smarting at being thwarted on that flight over Mt St Helens.

“It just goes to show, how can I say – I don’t want to be too rude – pedantic insurance companies can be,” Jason says. “I am a fully qualified helicopter pilot. In fact, I have my own helicopter that I fly whenever the weather is good.

“Having said that, we had to go up and look at a burnt-out volcano when we were filming. I wanted to fly it but oh, the fuss that it caused.

“They said, ‘No way. The insurance won’t allow you, no, no, no’.

“Then they said, ‘But you can sit alongside the pilot if you like and we can film you’.

“We did all the filming but they couldn’t understand the difference between me sitting next to the pilot and me piloting the helicopter. If it was going to crash it doesn’t matter who is sitting in the whatever.”

“My advice is, ‘Don’t sit there worrying about everything. Get up and get out and do something’.”

– David Jason