MY HAVEN – BILL TURNBULL

The former BBC Breakfast presenter, 60, in the dining room at his Suffolk home

1 OFFICE ROMANCE

My wife Sarah, or Sesi, and I moved here nine months ago – it’s two houses knocked into one – and now we couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I met Sesi when I was a reporter and she was a producer on the Radio 4 Today programme in the 1980s. We had an office romance which we tried to keep quiet, but when we went public it turned out everyone knew anyway! Here we are with our three children Henry, Will and Flora, who are now 28, 27 and 25, at the top of the World Trade Center in 1997.

2 KING OF THE SOFA

This marzipan figure was on top of the farewell cake I was given when I left BBC Breakfast after 15 years last February. Sesi had the bright idea of spraying it with hair lacquer to stop it falling apart, and it reminds me of many happy hours spent on the red sofa. I don’t miss the early starts – I used to tumble out of bed at 3.30am – and people tell me I look better now. But I do miss the friends I made. Together we made the show more watchable and warmer and we had a lot of laughs.

3 DEAR DOGGIES

Our two black Labradors – Nina who’s ten and Bonnie who’s six – are cousins and, very unusually for Labs, they both have little white flashes on their chest. They’re great company and very well-travelled. They must have clocked up 50,000 miles on the motorway over the years. I’ve always loved dogs – both Sesi and I had dogs when we were children – and we’re getting another in the spring because Bonnie would be bereft if she’s left alone when Nina moves on, so to speak.

4 THE BEES’ KNEES

I’ve been making honey for the past 15 years and my bees usually produce about 40-50lb of the stuff each year, although one year they made an astonishing 250lb. I give away jars to friends and sometimes auction them off for charity – the record for one jar is £10,000, so you can see it’s precious stuff! Like every beekeeper I’ve been stung plenty of times – on the ear, the eye, the hand, the arm, all over – but believe me, it’s worth it: there’s nothing more delicious than your own honey.

5 FOOTBALL MAD

I have happy memories of playing Subbuteo as a kid, and being a Wycombe Wanderers fan I particularly treasure this figure dressed in their colours. I’ve been going to see the Blues since my two boys were in their teens. The mighty Wanderers had an amazing FA Cup run in 2001 when they reached the semi-finals but there hasn’t been a great deal of glory since then, to be honest: we’ve been promoted twice and relegated three times, but as we say, ‘Wycombe ’til I die!’

6 WAUGH STORIES

I’m a big fan of all Evelyn Waugh’s novels, and I particularly treasure this copy of Scoop – about a fictional foreign correspondent in the 1930s – because it was given to me for my 50th birthday by a very good friend. A lot has changed since the book’s hero William Boot’s day, but when I travelled abroad with a TV crew in the 1980s we still had to take around 20 cases for all the equipment. I remember in Panama once a wheel came off the taxi we were in, and we had to flag down a passing truck. As told to York Membery. The album Bill Turnbull’s Relaxing Classics is out now on Sony Classical. His Classic FM show is on every Saturday and Sunday, 10am-1pm

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