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Step forward Paul O’Grady to help try to evacuate and re-home more than 80 animals before lockdown took full effect. Would he and the team be able to find permanent families or temporary foster carers in time?

Of course, Paul, who has been making the award-winning For The Love Of Dogs for eight years, was unlikely to leave empty-handed. Despite already having five dogs at his Kent farm, every series he struggles not to take more back with him.

“Who am I going to take home?” he excitedly asks. “I feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Don’t know where to start.” We asked him all about his latest challenge…

I promise the special episode is not doom and gloom. It’s still a Cinderella story. The dog comes in, usually from a sad situation, Battersea is like the fairy godmother and gets them sorted and then it goes off to a new home with a happy ending. This is just on a new level, finding loads of homes at record speed before the place shut down.

I literally walked in the gate and they said, ‘Battersea’s closing’. It was all so sudden. Next thing we were in a meeting discussing what would happen with the home, the staff, the fact there could be no visitors, no adoptions, nothing. The world turned upside down and it was very odd.

There was lots of ringing round, to all