Forty years of the Beechgrove Garden.

The Beechgrove Garden has been a perennial fixture on the mantlepiece of Scottish life since 1978. To celebrate, we have dusted off old tapes and unearthed treasures from the past 40 years to create a one-hour special programme that takes us down the garden path of Beechgrove's growth.

In this special programme, we return to Beechgrove's humble beginnings in the back garden of BBC Aberdeen, when the garden was a small, difficult to manage patch of land. This reflected a familiar scenario faced by many first-time gardeners in 70s when they moved out of multistorey tenements and flats.

The down-to-earth knowledge and banter of Beechgrove's first presenters Jim McColl and George Barron helped take the programme to phenomenal success. Jim and George's use of their own dialects particularly endeared them to a huge Scottish audience, attracting one million viewers in those early days.

The programme also looks at how Carole Baxter broke ground by becoming the first woman to co-present a TV gardening show in the UK, as well as revisiting the hilarious antics and expert makeovers of the Hit Squad.

There are embarrassing audition tapes and stories of presenters past and present, all mixed with a good dose of Beechgrove's gentle, good-natured humour.

This special programme is introduced and narrated by Elaine C Smith, who also visits the garden at Beechgrove and meets today's presenters.

The Beechgrove Garden, 40 years and still growing. Show less