Doc Martin walks with the animals

SOMEWHAT topically, Martin Clunes begins his latest documentary journey, somewhat topically, in Nepal, where the cow is sacred, and in the countryside virtually every household has a cowshed. He meets Shubaka Chowlagi, a farmer who supports his entire family with just eight cattle, which provide not only milk, but also dung for gas-production, and urine, which is used as a pesticide.

Due to their status though, they will not be killed or eaten, and Clunes visits a shelter where elderly cows are cared for in their final years.

He then travels on to Ko Yao Noi in South East Asia, where pigtail macaque monkeys have been trained to pick coconuts, and then heads on to Japan, to meet one of only six imperial fishermen in the world.

Clunes dines on his catch, but will he be as keen to tuck into the one of the traditional dishes of the ancient Matagi tribe of northern Japan, namely black bear casserole?

For the actor, it's certainly all been very educational. "I learnt that it does us no harm to remember that we share the planet with all these animals and that it is a two-way thing. Of course we shouldn't be doing half the things we are doing to animals.

"We could all relate more, it wouldn't do us any harm. It wouldn't do our perception of ourselves and our planet any harm to remember it is not ours to administer, but we just share it, even though we generally seem to be in charge of these relationships."

The Doc Martin star is surrounded by four-legged friends off-screen as well, as he shares his Dorset home with a menagerie of dogs, cats, chickens and horses.

"All through my life I've been fascinated by animals. Almost every day, it seems, I acquire more of them. My dogs have always been my constant companions," Clunes says.

However, not all of his animals are pets – he also raises sheep and beef cattle for market. "I have a number of relationships, one of which is taking animals to slaughter and another is bringing them up for slaughter. Another is spoiling them with baskets, or hay nets. I am also aware there are some contradictions within that, but they don't cancel out in my mind," he says.

While Clunes may feel a duty of care to all his animals, whether they are pampered pets or livestock, in this new two-part documentary, he's out to find out whether that is true elsewhere in the world, asking how humans balance our apparent love of animals and ability to work alongside them with our desire to hunt and eat.

"I am quite clear about my relationship with my animals, so I wanted to go and see other people's relationships with animals. I find it so interesting how we relate and can coerce animals to do things," he says.

Mary Berry's Absolute Favourites (BBC2, 8pm)

THE veteran cook draws on her wealth of specialist knowledge to share a selection of her favourite recipes, each inspired by a much-loved place. In the first programme, she draws her inspiration from childhood trips to the seaside, preparing goats cheese and shallot tarts with an innovative walnut pastry, considered ideal for a picnic hamper. She moves on to a family favourite – royal crab and cod fishcakes with tomato salsa, followed by a dinner party classic of sea bass with brown shrimp and caper sauce.

Britain's Greatest Generation (BBC2, 9pm)

THE Second World War saw men from all classes unite to fight the Nazis, and this programme meets some of the last surviving pilots of the Battle of Britain as part of the 1,500 people who were interviewed. Women, who had been excluded from many jobs, worked in everything from anti-aircraft gun batteries to steel-making factories. The Blitz saw rescue workers risk all to save those trapped in bombed buildings. For many of the era's last survivors, the defiant spirit that brought the nation together remains one of their proudest moments.