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11

Oct

Last Updated: 11/10/2025
Harrogate
Harrogate

Chris Tarrant on Harrogate pub prices and his love of bears

by Flora Grafton

| 11 Oct, 2025
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0

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Chris Tarrant on an expedition for his new book, 'For Love of Bears'.

“I remember handing the barman 10 quid and he looked at me like I was trying to buy the pub”, Chris Tarrant says.

He’s recounting one of the very few times he’s visited Harrogate in his life and, surprisingly, he hadn’t heard of Bettys.

But the 78-year-old, famed for presenting Tiswas and ITV’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, might just be spotted queuing for a fat rascal when he visits the town for the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival next week.

It’s there Tarrant will discuss his new book, ‘For The Love of Bears’, and how his decorated broadcasting career led him to become a wildlife author.

The Stray Ferret caught up with Tarrant ahead of his talk at the Harrogate festival, which started on Thursday. 

“I’ve been to Harrogate… it’s nice, I liked it”, Tarrant says.

He admits he hasn’t visited the town for many years, recalling the last time he came here was after filming a block of Yorkshire Television's Through the Keyhole episodes with Sir David Frost.

We used to do about five a day. I used to shoot up there from London, do four or five a day, then make it a kind of Yorkshire long weekend. That’s when I went to Harrogate last.

Unlike Toyah Wilcox and Robert Fripp, who described a Bettys cake as “the nectar of paradise”, Tarrant wasn’t quite so familiar with the institutionary tearoom.

“Is it just a nice pot of tea?”, Tarrant asks. Something like that Tarrant, something like that.

But he does have fond memories of Harrogate’s drinks prices:

I’ll tell you what I did do in Harrogate was go to several pubs. And I noticed that large amounts of change went into my pocket, which never happens in London.

I gave this guy 10 quid and he looked at me like I was trying to buy the pub! He gave me so much change, I’ve always remembered that.

Tarrant is headed to Harrogate next week, when he will talk about his latest book ‘For The Love of Bears’ at the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival on Wednesday (October 15) evening.

He told the Stray Ferret he has done a number of literary festivals before, but never the local event. So, why now?

I think they invited me, to be honest. That’s how it works; the publisher says ‘right, Chris is talking about his book between now and Christmas, who’s doing a festival?’

I enjoy them, actually. I quite enjoy just chatting to people… I suppose what’s nice is people saying: 'I really like your book'. 

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A photo from Chris Tarrant's book 'For Love of Bears'.

‘They’re awesome, in the real sense of the world’

Tarrant’s new book draws on his love affair with wildlife and nature, which was sparked by regular trips to the zoo as a child.

But seeing bears cooped up in enclosures in England saddened Tarrant as a child and prompted his dream of seeing his favourite animal roam freely in the wild. 

He told the Stray Ferret:

I know a lot about bears, I’ve seen a lot of them around the world… but I suppose the word is – and it’s such a trite word, so misused, mainly by my own children – awesome. They are awesome in the real sense of the world.

They’re huge, they’re beautiful. They emanate so much power and danger. They’re bloody terrifying, but they’re also not.

After a 50-year career in broadcasting, Tarrant said his recent retirement has given him the time to write. 

His recent book stemmed from a conversation about bears at his local pub in Berkshire:

I was sitting in the local pub one night and one guy there was going fishing in Yellowstone. We started talking about bears and I was telling him about my experiences with bears and he said: 'You want to write a book about that, Chris, a good old book that would be!'.

So, I just started jotting down things I'd done with bears and where I'd seen them, and I said to myself: 'Well, there's probably about 70-80,000 words there'.

‘For The Love of Bears’ looks back on Tarrant’s trips to the Arctic Circle, Canada, Russia, Alaska and Scandinavia, when he came face-to-face with bears in their natural habitats.

But, thanks to some Russian vodka jelly shots, things didn’t always quite go to plan on Tarrant’s expeditions. He said: 

I had a bit of a hangover in northern Russia. They drink this vodka jelly over there. It’s bloody good, but it doesn’t half give you a headache.

I felt a bit rough one morning and we had this long walk. It was quite hot, and I thought, ‘bollocks to this’, so I just lay down in this bit of wood and went to sleep. When I opened my eyes, I went: ‘oh, there’s a bear there’. This great big brown bear was just looking at me.

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A brown bear in Alaska. This photo is taken from Tarrant's new book.

The brown bear – the first Tarrant had ever seen outside of a zoo – stood around ten yards from Tarrant and watched him.

But Tarrant said he wasn’t scared, thanks to the hangover, and was more amazed by the creature.

The bear wandered off and Tarrant eventually got up from his slumber, when his guide came running over. Putting on his best Russian accent, Tarrant said:

He says: ‘Chris, Chris are you alright?’. I said: ‘Yeah, I’m fine I just had a little sleep'.

He told me there were bear traps in the area and I told him I’d just seen the bear. Then he kept saying: ‘you are a stupid, you are a stupid’. 

Looking back, Tarrant admits getting eaten by a bear wouldn’t have reflected particularly well on the tour guide.

Cough, cough…

Perhaps one of the most scandalous moments in British TV history was the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? coughing scandal.

Former British Army major Charles Ingram took home the show’s £1 million jackpot in 2001.

The catch? Ingram cheated his way through the competition with the help of accomplice Tecwen Whittock and his wife Diana, who coughed when the correct answer was read out.

Tarrant presented the show at the time, and the Stray Ferret asked him if people tend to cough when they see him.

Scoffing, he said:

No, what they do around me all the time – almost every day of my life – is say: ‘phone a friend’.

There was one this morning; I pulled up at a petrol station down the road to fill up and this bloke says: ‘hello, Chris, phone a friend’.

The comments don’t bother Tarrant – in fact, he said people often “go bright red” after blurting them out – but he did say people often get the phrase wrong...

People sometimes say: ‘hello, Chris, phone the audience!’. You just think: ‘How the bloody hell does that work?’.

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