Great Canal Journeys returns to our screens

On Sunday 15 March at 8pm, the second series of ‘Great Canal Journeys’ begins on Channel 4, starring self-confessed ‘canal nuts’ Timothy West and Prunella Scales.

Last year, to mark their golden wedding anniversary, they let the world in on their secret and were filmed travelling along four different canals for the first series of ‘Great Canal Journeys’.

It proved to be an entirely charming insight into their hobby, but also their longstanding love affair and thankfully they have returned for more!

Timothy West, who has just entered his ninth decade, said in a recent article in the Daily Mail about the new series, “We’re both getting on a bit now,” and Pru added, “We are determined to make the most of what we love while we can.”

This time the couple are filmed undertaking four new journeys, the first of them along the Oxford Canal (aboard a Drifters boat), where they took their very first boating holiday as a family nearly 40 years ago.

As well as meeting up with their elder son, the actor Sam West, and the author Philip Pullman, Pru looks for tell-tale signs of water voles on the Oxford Canal with the Berks, Bucks & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.

The second episode, on 22 March, will see them travel through London by canal, again on a Drifters boat. For the third, on 29 March, they will be in France, and for the fourth and final episode, on 5 April, they will be in Scotland.