For over two decades and for more than 200 episodes, designer and presenter Kevin McCloud has guided adventurous home builders through their ambitious projects on Channel Four’s Grand Designs, offering advice, pointing out pitfalls (to the participants, as well as us armchair experts at home) and acting as kindly counsel as marriages are tested, plans go awry and budgets are exceeded in the pursuit of a dream home.

“It’s my job to be a therapist,” laughs McCloud, when asked about his role as a calming influence to frazzled grand designers in the series. “You know that when you go to a therapist they never give you any advice, all they do is ask you questions so you come to the conclusions yourself? Well, it’s the same with me. I try and say, ‘You should do this, you should ring up that person, why don’t you do this as it would be so much easier,’ and for nearly 25 years now, no one has ever taken my advice. They completely ignore it.

“They say, ‘We know you have seen hundreds of projects, and we have heard you say things again and again but we are going to ignore all that because we think this is going to be perfect.’ And what I love about that response is that it embodies hope, it embodies optimism, that zealous position of ,‘We are right, we are doing the right thing.’ And of course, then it goes wrong. That’s human nature. Because hope is this terrible emotion which takes you to the brink of a cliff and then it pushes you off. It can be very destructive and we have seen some really powerful projects where those drives have led to chaos in the end.”