Robson Green: Walking Coast to Coast, review: hurrah - an enjoyable travel show not about Cornwall

Now I shouldn’t tell you this, because I don’t want you to go there and clutter up the place, but Northumberland is the best county. Beautiful beaches, great countryside, excellent kippers. You do need to wear a vest even in July, but that’s all part of the charm.

I’m not sure many TV bigwigs are familiar with it, though. I suspect they all have holiday homes in Devon or Cornwall. How else to explain Cornwall with Simon Reeve, Rick Stein’s Cornwall, Cornwall: This Fishing Life – and that’s just the BBC. On Channel 4 we’ve just had the second series of Devon and Cornwall, and ITV has Cornwall and Devon Walks with Julia Bradbury.

Channel 5 is doing Cornwall’s Most Scenic Railways, but redeemed itself in Robson Green: Walking Coast to Coast. Green set off on the 84-mile journey that will take him through Northumberland and on to Cumbria, along the path of Hadrian’s Wall.

Green is engaging, drawing us into his life story. He showed us the shipyard where he worked as a draughtsman, and had an emotional reunion with an old colleague. We learned that his dad taught him to swim by throwing him in a river, and that his parents joke about his fancy way of talking.

The Partridge-isms came thick and fast though. “So pack your corn plasters, fill your Thermos and join me for the walk of a lifetime!” “Ham and pease pudding – you can’t beat it. Well, you can, actually. Eton Mess is nice.”

After learning about the discovery of the Corbridge Hoard, a 2,000-year-old Roman chest containing a soldier’s armour, he decided to bury his own time capsule. It contained a Hadrian’s Wall fridge magnet, a postcard and a £20 note: “Twenty big ones.”

But Green is likeable and it did seem that he was in on the joke. The history sprinkled throughout was informative. But more than anything, you could tell this was a subject close to Green’s heart. He still lives in Hexham, where he was born, and his enthusiasm was infectious.