Differences plane to see

TELL me, are you a fan of BBC2’s documentary series Secrets Of The Museum? I can highly recommend it. Each week it takes us behind the scenes at London’s V&A, where we find some very gifted, very patient, dedicated people painstakingly restoring items from the museum’s vast collection.

Sadly, this show isn’t on at the moment, unless you count the old episodes on the iPlayer.

But I’ve found something new along similar lines, if that’s of any interest, and it starts this very night. It even has a similar title.

SECRETS OFTHE IMPERIAL

WAR MUSEUM (C5, 7pm) does feature slightly different exhibits, I’ll grant you that.While BBC2’s series might show us someone mending, say, a vintage teddy bear, or an old stage outfit donated by a showbiz legend, the first thing being fixed on Channel 5’s is a fighter plane, designed to drop nuclear bombs on Russia. It’s a

Handley Page Victor, to be precise, built during the ColdWar as part of our nuclear deterrent (Britain’s, that is, not the Daily Express’s).

At IWM’s Duxford Museum in Cambridgeshire, the plane’s being restored to its former glory at a cost of £500,000.

“Inside one of these aircraft,” explains curator CarlWarner, “would be carried a weapon many times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

In response to that sort of information, many viewers may well think: “Gosh, how utterly horrid. Don’t they have any of Shirley Bassey’s catsuits we can look at instead?” But the point, of course, is that the staff at these two very different museums actually have a good deal in common.

Indeed, they share a clearly defined purpose: to help us reflect on our history.

Even if it’s a warplane you’re restoring, it’s fine to admire the artistry and engineering genius that went into it.

It needn’t mean you’re saying: “If only they’d given it the chance to wipe out Moscow.”

Elsewhere this evening there’s one last chance to yell: “What in the name of God is she wearing?!” as Prue Leith makes a guest appearance on this year’s final episode of THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF: AN EXTRA SLICE (C4, 8pm).

Meanwhile, in THE WILD GARDENER (BBC2, 8pm), Colin Stafford-Johnson is thrilled with the result of his rewilding project, designed to lure as broad a variety of wildlife as possible to his patch in Ireland.

The sight of a group of red squirrels leaves him particularly overjoyed.

Personally, if I’d put two solid years of back-breaking work into this project, as Colin has, I’d be expecting a herd of zebra at the very least.