ONE of East Lothian’s most famous sons will feature in an episode of a popular BBC programme next week.

Tuesday’s episode of Escape to the Country follows a mother and son wanting to escape South London and relocate to the Lothians.

Host Sonali Shah attempts to find them a rural retreat complete with art studio.

Along the way, she learns about Dunbar-born John Muir, who emigrated to America, where he is known as the Father of the National Park.

Duncan Smeed, of Friends of John Muir’s Birthplace, was on hand to welcome the presenter earlier this summer.

He took to social media highlighting the event in May and said: “On behalf of the John Muir Birthplace Charitable Trust, I had the privilege of awarding a John Muir Way Completion Certificate to Christi Leman, a graduate student studying creative nonfiction at Brigham Young University in the US state of Utah.

“Christi had got in touch with the trust and also the Friends of John Muir’s Birthplace back in February with the hope that she could meet up with fellow John Muir fans whilst walking the John Muir Way.

“She walked the last leg from North Berwick to Dunbar today and I arranged to meet up at Belhaven Bay and walk the clifftop trail to the birthplace with her and her husband Peter.

“Our arranged meeting time and place coincided with a more recent request by the creators of the BBC’s Escape to the Country programme to film a segment about John Muir, his importance and legacy, as part of an episode for that programme.

“So both Christi and I were interviewed by presenter Sonali Shah – quite the afternoon for all concerned!”

The episode of Escape to the Country is screened at 3pm on BBC One.