Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Tim and Pru’s canal voyage is all the Raj
FEARLESS Prunella Scales has headed off to India to film a new series of Great Canal Journeys. Prunella, who suffers from dementia, and husband Timothy West explore the extraordinary Kerala backwaters for Channel 4. It features a 1,000-mile network of palm-fringed lakes, rivers banked by rice paddies – and some very familiarlooking British-built canals. They then head on to what will be one of their most challenging voyages, leaving behind the safe confines of the canals as they head out into the unknown waters of the Brahmaputra river in the far north east of India. A show source said Tim, 82, and Prunella, 84, were “adamant the illness would not hold her back” and have finished filming the two-parter. They previously toured the UK and Venice. Tim and Pru pass school bus-boats, laden cargo ships and fishermen whose only tools are their hands. They explore a canal built by a local ruler to boost trade, make offerings at a temple raised up out of the waters and, to Tim’s delight, Pru dusts off her dancing shoes to learn Kerala’s traditional Dance of the Enchantress. Indian travel has been a family affair for Pru, whose father served in the Indian Army and whose grandfather shipped cloth in Bombay. Now she has the chance to see India through their eyes, following in their footsteps along the old British trade route. We hear she and Tim enjoyed the trip and are now safely back home. The Canal series is a surprise hit with more than 2 million viewers and the India journey airs this summer. The pair picked up an award from magazine The Oldie last year for their work on the series. At the time Tim joked: “We think a lot of our happiness is to do with the fact we’ve spent so much time apart.” However he added they spend much more time together now they are older and work was “thinning out”. He joked: “It’s a choice God makes. He has weeded out a lot of people we used to work for – they aren’t alive any more.”