Out-bling the mayor? You have got to be kidding

Councillor Jon Tandy, Mr Mayor, The Mayor of Shrewsbury – call him what you will: he's a force for good.

I met Mr Mayor when I was asked to open the Shrewsbury Food Festival a couple of weeks ago.

We lined up, along with the world's tallest town crier, Martin Wood, at the blue gates to The Quarry Park on a beautiful, sun-kissed day.

The organisers had thoughtfully strung an orange ribbon across the entrance gates and provided me with a pair of blunt scissors, thereby ensuring plenty of laughs when I was unable to cut the ribbon. Not that I played up to that, of course, Boycie would never do that.

Mr Mayor was right beside me, celebrating the launch of the event. He gave a speech about the importance of the event and congratulated the organisers on risking their own money to put on the event.

But that's not the thing that impressed me most about him. I've met MPs, civic dignatories, ministers and all sorts of famous and important people during my 49 years in showbusiness.

But I've rarely met a man as passionate about his town as Mr Mayor.

Every utterance was designed to reflect well on Shrewsbury, its businesses and its people.

A few days before I opened the show, I received a few tweets asking whether Boycie would try to out-bling Mr Mayor by wearing one of his gold chains. I thought better of it, of course.

Much as I like a laugh, I thought it might have been disrespectful.

The Shrewsbury Food Festival was great fun; it's one of many events that I've attended this summer. Mr Mayor, the Town Crier and I visited plenty of stalls and enjoyed a few samples from the traders. Once we'd said hello to everybody, I popped into Waterstones to sign copies of my autobiography before visiting The Golden Cross for a delicious lunch.

Of course, the summer's not all about gallivanting around the county doing 'nice stuff'. I've also been busy writing two new books.

The first is my debut novel, REGGIE. A Stag At Bay, which tells the story of a wheeler-dealer who gets into all sorts of scrapes. You might recognise a few traits there from my own character, Boycie, from Only Fools And Horses and The Green Green Grass.

I've been working on the project with a writer friend. We work together well. He edited my first two volumes of autobiography and is a good taskmaster. I send him an unedited manuscript and he makes suggestions. The end result, hopefully, will be a best-seller. It should be in your book shops in a couple of months' time.

I've also been working on a book that is very dear to my heart. It focuses on Wigmore Abbey, which is our home, and the gardens that surround it. I've loved gardening for many years. Back in 1976, I even went so far as to launch my own garden centre – the only trouble was, it was the hottest summer on record and there was a hosepipe ban.

Happily, Wigmore Abbey is surrounded by beautiful grounds and I lovingly tend them. My wife, Carol, and I, moved to Wigmore Abbey many years ago.

We found a beautiful, spooky old grange and we fell in love with it. Remarkably, my wife had an ancestral connection to the place – her relatives had lived there hundreds of years before.

So we've decided to collate all of that information in a new book. It's a labour of love. I'll celebrate my 50th year in showbusiness next year – but I show no signs of slowing do

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