DIGGING DEEP INTO HER PAST CAROLINE QUENTIN ON FINDING PEACE IN NATURE AND THE JOYS OF AGEING

There are a few surprises in Caroline Quentin's beautiful new book- her first ever - about gardening.

Among the practical tips and anecdotes, recipes and observations are deeply personal and self-revelatory passages exploring what she calls the "darker times" in her life, particularly as a child growing up with a mother who suffered from bipolar disorder.

"I've chosen not to speak about these things [in the past], but because I wrote about it, I had agency over it. I chose what to say, how to say it, and how to talk about it when people asked me questions," she tells us during our exclusive shoot and interview.

She's already getting messages from friends saying: "I didn't know that about you." "Usually, a person like me is seen through a prism of people's experience of me, whether that's a character, or the way someone writes about me."

During her acting career, Caroline, 63, has largely been associated with strong or funny women - from Dorothy in Men Behaving Badly to Maddy Magellan in Jonathan Creek and Kate Salinger in Kiss Me Kate. From her first professional job at the age of 16, her work has spanned the chorus of Les Misérables, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Strictly Come Dancing.

Throughout it all, gardening has been her solace and comfort, helping her to silence the "inner critic" and teaching her to "forgive ourselves and our failures".

A GARDEN RETREAT IN DEVON

"Listen, I have a very good life and I'm not moaning about it," she says, firmly. "But being mindful of the moment is good for all of us. You can't be on your mobile phone whilst you're potting. You can't hear the noise of the world in your head whilst you're dealing with an overgrown bramble patch."