S very unwholesome language!’
KATE HUMBLE’S fans have been asking her a particularly searching question. Kate, who has amously tousled, curly blonde hair eveals, “People on social media have been saying, ‘Do you think you ought to brush your hair occasionally?’
“I think, ‘You have no idea how busy my day is! I don’t have time o brush my hair. If you’re so worried about me having unbrushed hair, just go watch omebody who has a makeup artist!’”
The wildlife-and-more TV presenter, who jokingly describes herself as “wholesome”, adds, “It’s o not important.what’s important o me is the content. If you’re filming with people who have no nterest in being on telly, but who do have an interest in their story being told correctly, you’ve got to ook after them.
“If you have to duck out every 15 minutes to make sure that your ipstick hasn’t smeared or that you ook perfectly made up – well, that ust doesn’t fit into my world.”
This may well be the reason why Kate is so popular.although she has a natural beauty, she is not in he least concerned about how she ooks – which ironically only makes her more attractive. In an ndustry renowned for its vanity and prima donna-ism, he has a refreshingly traightforward attitude.
Kate, talking from her
117-acre working hilltop farm n Wales, is an enormously versatile presenter.
She has fronted everything rom Animal Park (which has been going for 20 years, and ounting), Springwatch, Autumnwatch,winterwatch and Lambing Live to Top Gear, Tomorrow’s World, Holiday, One Man And His Dog, and The Battle Of Britain: Three Days That Saved The Nation, which was on Channel 5 last week.
With characteristic selfdeprecation, Kate smiles and says,
It’s extraordinary that I’ve got away with doing this for so long!”
One of the most in-demand presenters in the business, Kate is o-hosting The Weekend Workshop, an entertaining and educational new eight-part TV series.
The show sees Kate and two ellow upcycling enthusiasts, Max Mccurdo and Zoe Pocock, work heir magic as they demonstrate how to undertake home estorations and mini-build projects.
Filmed in each of their homes – and, of course, observing social distancing regulations – The Weekendworkshop focuses on einventing familiar items. njecting much-needed love nto long-neglected objects in our homes, it is a very timely how with a strong “how to make the best of the lockdown” vibe.
The Weekend Workshop plays oo into our current fascination with crafting, which has also been howcased in such successful programmes as BBC One’s The
Repair Shop and The Fantastical Factory Of Curious Craft on Channel 4.
Kate, whose husband,tv director Ludo Graham, filmed her on their farm for Theweekend Workshop, brings the same grounded approach to this job as she does to everything.
Having bravely stripped off to skinny-dip in a freezingwelsh lake on BBC Two’s Off The Beaten Track two years ago, Kate, 51, simply refuses to buy into the idea that a TV host should look impossibly glitzy.
On The Weekend Workshop she gets her hands very dirty as she embarks on various arduous building projects, and explains why she sees no need to get dolled up for the cameras. “It’s just about feeling comfortable.
“I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve always felt very comfortable in my own skin. I’m knocking on 52! If I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin by now, it would be a disaster!”
She moved to the remote farm from London 13 years ago and hasn’t regretted it for a second, says, “Being on telly is an odd job. But I love it because I love sharing things I have found out and I love chatting to people. I don’t want to feel somehow that there’s a barrier between me and the audience.
“If I was wearing something that made me feel not me, and if I was made up to the nines, it wouldn’t fit for me. I would feel like I was faking it.and then there would be an extra barrier between me and them.”
Kate emphasises that her shows are not an exercise in “look at me!” egotism. “Most of the programmes that I’ve done over the years are not about me. If we are filming Animal Park at Longleat, for instance, it’s about the animals or it’s about the keepers. I’m just the conduit for that.
“Similarly, if I’m going to make a documentary called Living with Nomads, I’m going to go and live with nomads! I am not going to worry about what I look like because that’s not important. What’s important is that we tell their story properly.”
Ever self-effacing, Kate is quick to admit that while she is a huge fan of upcycling, she sometimes lacks the practical skills to do it herself on The Weekend Workshop. “The stumbling block is that I am literally the least crafty person. So all my ideas basically fall flat because I get really disheartened and cross and throw things and then give up.”
With a twinkle of mischief, she confesses that, “There are quite a lot of moments where the wholesome Kate Humble uses very unwholesome language! There are quite a lot of broken drill bits. Those are not pretty scenes, I can tell you!”
She remembers, for example, that as she was trying to remove the drum from an old washing machine to make a fire pit, “At one point, I did find myself shouting out into the ether, ‘I am not going to get a boy to help me!’”
So will the producers of The Weekendworkshop have to employ the beep machine? “More than that!” Kate laughs. “They’ll have to make the screen go black for five minutes and then return saying, ‘Right, everything’s OK now.’”
She goes on to make another confession. “My husband is much handier than I am. So I had to raid his tool shed and go, ‘What does this do?’
“When I sometimes got to the point of tears of frustration, he would put the camera down and say, ‘This is how you do it’. Then I would turn to the camera and say, ‘Look at me doing this.’ Oh, I’m a terrible fraud!”
Still, Kate did manage to make a splendid herbal bath and a superb pizza oven, which took an astonishing amount of care and attention to build – “I thought I was supposed to be the highmaintenance one.”
But the item Kate is perhaps most proud of producing for The Weekendworkshop is a turf sofa. “I made it all by myself in an afternoon and it is still there.
It’s under a tree with the most beautiful view, and I go and sit on it most days. It’s surprisingly comfortable.
“My pigs live in the field opposite, so I sit on the turf sofa and talk to the pigs.”
Even better, one evening Kate rigged up an outdoor cinema and sat on her turf sofa watching a film. But, she chuckles, when we tune into this scene in The Weekend Workshop, “You’ll just know in the back of your mind that there has been quite a lot of swearing to get there!”
Marvellous as it is, Kate discloses that there is one snag with the turf sofa. “Because it has been there for a month and a half, we’re wondering how we are going to mow it.we think we might have to let the sheep on to it.”
But what about the sheep droppings?
A pause, and then Kate lets out a final infectious laugh. “You can’t be too fussy in the countryside!”
● The Weekend Workshop, 8pm, July 20, on HGTV (dplay.co.uk)