I have been a fan of the Channel 4 series Time Team for more than ten years so it was a relief to find one of my heroes was the same in real life as he is on the small screen.

Jocular, 'earthy' and a bit of a hippy, Phil Harding was completely at home as he talked the 300-strong audience through a selection of slides from digs over the years.

He had just driven up from Salisbury where he is working on an excavation at Stonehenge and getting the long-haired, hat-wearing archaeologist with a penchant for flint-tools to give a talk seemed a bit of a coup for Kineton and District Local History Group.

It is currently celebrating its 21st anniversary and the Time Team contact came through John Kliene whose Northamptonshire garden was invaded by the programme some years ago and is a friend of one of the group's organisers.

After an introduction by Mr Kliene, who said Phil only drinks whole pints not halves and refuses to use new-fangled gadgets such as digital cameras, Phil took to the floor with an old-fashioned projector to hand.

He started out in his humorous and self-deprecating way by explaining how many people confuse him with others off the telly: betting man John McCririck and Noddy Holder!

He then explained the working behind the programmes - which follow a controversial three-day only dig structure.

Talking in his Wessex burr, he said he was amazed at how Time Team took off and has fired the nation's interest in archaeology - as seen by the number of people who crammed into Kineton High School hall for the talk.

Afterwards - when the lights were finally turned on and we could actually see TV's scruffiest but best-loved archaeologist - he walked up through the audience for a question and answer session.

He defended the three-day format, saying the programme has invested a lot of money into British archaeology and each dig contributes information about sites that we would otherwise know nothing about.

He also revealed why he wears a hat and it has a feather in it - something to do with birds and a fear of flying! Holly Whitmill

Verdict: What a guy.