August 2014 and I’m sitting on a London sofa with Robson Green.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve interviewed him.
We seem to have been meeting up for decades to discuss his various TV projects.
And it’s always a pleasure to talk to a canny lad who was born not far away from me.
Someone who has done much to put something back into the place he came from.
With a real heartfelt appreciation for his homeland and how it shaped him and his family.
Which brings us on to the new eight-part series of Tales From Northumberland.
Or rather now styled More Tales From Northumberland, returning to ITV at 8pm next Monday (Feb 16).
On that day last summer Robson was on a flying visit to the capital.
Having been out in a boat seeking dolphins off the Northumberland coast the day before.
And about to head back on a relentless schedule in time to meet the dawn skinny dippers of Druridge Bay the next morning.
As it happens, both items feature in the first episode of the latest series.
“When you do Tales From Northumberland, it’s a history and culture lesson for me,” he says.
“I’m a great believer in social history as opposed to something like the history of the royals.
“I’ve had enough of Henry VIII. Give me the Jarrow March, George Stephenson or Grace Darling.”
Robson was still reflecting on his meeting with white-beaked dolphins out in the North Sea just hours before.
“I didn’t know there were these incredible creatures there. They’re huge and they were leaping about the boat. It was amazing.
“Tomorrow at 3:30am I shall be going with the skinny dippers of Druridge Bay.
“And then I’m kayaking to Warkworth and then casting a line at Brinkburn Priory and talking about the monks. It’s fabulous.”
I’ve seen the first two programmes in this new series and they are a joy to watch.
Revealing yet more about one of England’s best kept secrets – the majestic and haunting county of Northumberland.
As Robson says at the start of each edition:
“I thought I’d seen and done it all. How wrong I was.”
The first programme also sees Robson travelling to Cragside, once the pioneering home of Victorian industrialist and inventor Lord Armstrong.
To help with a moment of history as hydro-electricity is again generated for the estate.
“Armstrong should be revered as Brunel and Stephenson because he was way ahead of his time,” he tells me.
Episode two finds Robson at the Powburn Show, trying his hand at Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestling.
“That, again, tells us something about our heritage and history. It was a type of combat brought over by the Vikings.
“And also with the Vikings came our accents and sense of identity. Every Northumbrian probably has a trace of Viking in them.”
I won’t spoil the result of Robson’s wrestling matches.
Or his encounters with red squirrels, Chillingham cattle, College Valley Estate and much more.
In truth, Robson’s heart and home has always been in Northumberland.
“I never moved away from it. People always say I moved down south. I had a place in Surrey…but that’s not the case.
“I still commute down south for work and spend about 30 per cent of my time down here. It’s always been the same.
“But most of my work now is abroad – for my fishing series and series like Strike Back, which filmed in Budapest and Thailand.”
With series two of ITV’s Grantchester subsequently confirmed, we can look forward to more of Robson as Cambridge detective Geordie Keating.
But no prizes for guessing in which direction he will eventually return.
More Tales From Northumberland. ITV, 8pm Monday Feb 16.
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