14 : Home Entertainment Bargain for Flog It! Presenter TALKING BEES WITH PAUL MARTIN


Home Entertainment Bargain for Flog It! Presenter


Stephen Fleming W


hen BBC’s Flog It! presenter, Paul Martin, and his partner,


Charlotte, moved into their nineteenth-century cottage nine years ago, they’d found the lifestyle they’d always wanted. The plot, set in a secluded 29 acres alongside the Kennet and Avon Canal in Wiltshire, already had a small arboretum and Paul set about planting an orchard with heritage apple trees. Charlotte, from a farming family in Peterborough, was used to having animals around and a few seasons ago she decided she really ought to keep bees. Little did she realise that in her first season she would be in front of the cameras for BBC One TV’s Countryfile but, as a television production coordinator, she was better prepared than most to handle that.


‘I’d been thinking about keeping bees for a few years’, explained Charlotte. ‘Buying the smallholding gave us a growing awareness of insects and their habitats. And we felt that even more when we had children. So I went looking for a basic beekeeping course. Unfortunately, I missed a season because I didn’t realise the course had to start in winter, but I was ready to start this year.’ Paul added: ‘We are smallholders, but have daytime jobs as it’s the only way to survive. You could call it our piece of the Good Life, but I think ‘learning the hard way – by experience’ might be more accurate!’


Paul and Charlotte Martin www.bee-craft.com Apimondia Gold Medal for Popular Beekeeping Journals, 2007, 2013 and 2015 September 2016 Vol 98 No 9


Photos by Stephen Fleming


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