Location, Location, Location star Phil Spencer returns to work with Kirstie Allsopp three
Location, Location, Location star Phil Spencer has returned to work three weeks after losing both his parents in a car accident.
The presenter, 53, announced last month that his parents David, 89, and Anne, 82, had died in a crash on their family farm in Littlebourne, near Canterbury, Kent, as they were making their way to the pub for some lunch.
Phil was seen for the first time since their passing in a video shared by his co-host Kirstie Allsopp on Tuesday, as she revealed the pair were back on set of their much-loved property show.
Kirstie began the video by explaining: ‘So we’re back at work filming on Location, Location, Location and I didn’t quite know what my next post on Instagram should be.
‘My last post was about Phil’s mum and dad and you all sent such lovely lovely messages and Phil was so grateful…’ prompting Phil to interrupt and confirm: ‘Very grateful, and I haven’t put anything on Instagram either, but I do appreciate peoples’ lovely comments.’
Back at it: Location, Location, Location star Phil Spencer has returned to work with Kirstie Allsopp three weeks after losing both his parents in a car accident
Heartbreaking: Phil’s parents, David, 89, and Anne, 82, both died last month after their car careened over a bridge and landed upside down in a river
Kirsty added: ‘You see, he’s English and he’s a man, he’s just done really really well so round of applause to Phil for doing that and thank you, you’ve all been so kind.’
She captioned the clip: ‘He’s back at work, and was very, very touched by all your messages, I even managed to get him to say it on insta. Bless him.’
Last week, Kirstie revealed that despite the recent heartbreak that took place at Garrington Farm, Phil’s family are still going about their lives as best they could.
She told BBC‘s Newscast podcast: ‘[Phil’s] got a lovely, lovely family and they’re very, very close and they’re all together.
‘In fact, his sister was married yesterday, which they went ahead with and today they’re all going to the pub for lunch. The same pub that his parents were on the way to when they died.
‘He’s very stoical and pragmatic, and he feels very strongly that it was the right thing that his parents went together.’
Flowers have been left at the remote spot Phil’s parents who both died after their car careened over a bridge and landed upside down in a river.
Despite the best efforts of paramedics and Phil’s brother Robert, who fought to save his parents’ lives by cutting their seatbelts using a penknife and pulling them from the river, the elderly couple were unable to be revived.
Anne, who was given clearance to drive after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, is understood to have been behind the wheel at the time.
Brave face: Phil was seen for the first time since their passing in a video shared by his co-host Kirstie Allsopp on Tuesday, as she revealed the pair were back on set of their property show
Dream team: Phil and Kirstie have worked together on Channel 4’s Location, Location, Location since May 2000 and are firm friends as well as co-hosts
Her husband was in the front passenger seat and a live-in carer – an agency nurse – was in the back seat and managed to scramble out of the car via a window and summon help.
Despite the devastating news, Phil said in the Instagram post announcing his parents’ death that he and his whole family are glad they were with each other at the end.
He wrote: ‘Very sadly both of my amazing parents died on Friday.
‘As a family we are all trying to hold onto the fact Mum and Dad went together and that neither will ever have to mourn the loss of the other one. Which is a blessing in itself.
‘Although they were both on extremely good form in the days before (hence the sudden idea to go out to lunch), Mum’s Parkinson’s and Dad’s Dementia had been worsening and the long term future was set to be a challenge.
‘So much so that Mum said to me only a week ago that she had resigned to thinking ‘now it looks like we will probably go together’. And so they did.
‘That was what God had planned for them – and it was a good plan.’
David and Anne met at a New Year’s Eve party in the early 1960s, around the time he ended a short career in finance and instead bought Lower Garrington Farm.
The couple’s daughter, Helen, described it as a ‘step into the unknown’ as she told how David showed Anne the farmhouse before asking her to marry him.
The happy couple then married at Canterbury Cathedral on November 4, 1964, before raising their children alongside running the new family business.
Robert told KentOnline: ‘It was a mixed farm back then with a bit of everything going on, so Dad had very little downtime and was grateful for all the help he got from fellow farmers when he was starting out.’
He explained how David’s passion was growing hops, and was sad to give it up in the 1990s when it was no longer financially viable.
The father-of-four had studied engineering at Loughborough University, which came in handy for repairing machinery and buildings around the farm.
Shocking: Flowers have been left at the remote spot Phil’s parents, David, 89, and Anne, 82, who both died after their car careened over a bridge and landed upside down in a river
Retirement plan: David bought Garrington Farm, where the couple lived for decades, shortly after leaving a career in finance
Robert added: ‘They gave us an idyllic life as kids growing up on the farm. They would have never left the farmhouse, which will always be the hub of the family.’
Anne was a lover of horseriding and for many years was a member of the East Kent Hunt and a volunteer for the Cobbes Meadow Riding for the Disabled Group at Chartham.
A trustee for the charity told how Anne was a ‘hugely popular instructor’ amongst the children they helped, and she was ‘always cheerful and smiling’.
David’s best friend, Stephen Twyman, had known the 89-year-old since childhood and said he was a ‘lovely man, quiet and considerate.’