Phil 'One Man And His Dog' Drabble leaves £1m fortune to the secretary he loved like a daughter

The presenter of cult TV programme One Man And His Dog has left the bulk of his £1million estate to his personal assistant.

Phil Drabble, who died last July aged 93, is said to have regarded Ruth Froggatt as the ‘daughter he never had’.

She has moved into his former home – a Victorian Folly – and is running a nature reserve he created.

Mr Drabble, known for his Black Country brogue, presented the BBC2 show for 18 years until 1993, becoming a Sunday evening institution in his trademark tweeds and flat cap.

In the programme’s heyday, his famously understated commentary would hold rapt an audience of eight million.

Mr Drabble and his wife Jessie, who died 18 months before him, had no children but grew fond of Mrs Froggatt, who served as the couple’s personal assistant for 25 years. She inherits most of his £1,013,523 estate.

Mrs Froggatt, 41, a married mother of two, said: ‘I knew Mr and Mrs Drabble from when I was a young girl as they were friends of my parents.

‘I really grew up with them and considered them part of the family.

‘As their personal assistant, I worked full-time for them, helping to run their home, doing their accounts, acting as a chauffeur and helping to cook when they had guests.’

Mrs Froggatt and her family now live at the Drabbles’ former home, Goat Lodge, near Rugeley in Staffordshire, and she is maintaining the 90-acre woodland nature reserve next door, which has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Inheritance: Ruth Froggatt outside Goat Lodge, the home Drabble left her

The Drabbles had turned down large offers for their land from developers and successfully fought off Center Parcs, which wanted to build a holiday village 25 yards from their boundary in 1988.

Mr Drabble, who started work as an engineer, bought Goat Lodge at the age of 47, when he became a full-time writer, and was proud to have always lived within 20 miles of his birthplace in Bloxwich, West Midlands.

He began recording country affairs programmes for the BBC in 1947 and first appeared on TV in 1957 in an item on a children’s programme about his pet badger.

There followed appearances on a number of shows, including Badger Watch, Animal Magic and My Favourite Things with Roy Plomley.

Mr Drabble also wrote scripts for The Archers and was a stalwart of BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions.

His forthright opinions included describing ramblers as ‘the woolly-hat brigade’ and Ministry of Agriculture officials as ‘monumental incompetents’.

Mr Drabble claimed the surprise success of One Man And His Dog was because it made ‘a refreshing change from the incessant sex, violence and politics spewed over our television screens’.

As competitors struggled to round up sheep, he kept viewers informed with expressions such as ‘The dog’s getting a little excited’ and ‘It’s going to be a close-run thing’.

Commentating on one particularly slow sheep run, he memorably said: ‘Oh no, they’re starting to graze. That’ll be points off for sure.’

Although Mr Drabble departed in 1993, the series continued until 1999 and a Christmas special is still broadcast.

A string of adverts, including one for Carling Black Label, added to Mr Drabble’s fortune.