As a child, TV comedian Rory McGrath would have done anything to get out of history lessons.

But this week he discovered a latent interest in the past when he came to Brighton to uncover the secrets of the town for a new show.

The celebrity, known for his antics on the BBC sports quiz show They Think It's All Over, is the star of a new history programme being filmed in Brighton.

History Quest, on BBC cable TV, attempts to solve historical mysteries by trying to find out what life was like in the past.

Rory's goal was to investigate how injured Indian soldiers were treated when the Royal Pavilion was converted into a temporary hospital during the First World War.

Interviews with academic experts and some residents revealed the town wasn't really ready to receive the visitors.

Rory said barbed wire surrounded the Royal Pavilion to keep the soldiers in - and others out.

Inside the grounds, makeshift temples were set up to cater for the soldiers' different religions.

Rory, who lines up with former England footballer Gary Lineker on his regular sports slot, said: "I wasn't interested in history at school because it all just seemed like dates of battles and kings that had nothing to do with life.

"But the stories featured on the programme are actually really interesting.

"I'm not Sherlock Holmes in the programme, more like the other one who asks the questions.

"The soldiers had good medical treatment, but we wanted to find out how they were accepted into the community.

"They were all different castes, so they had to put them in separate wards.

"They built different portable temples in the grounds for them to worship in."

The comedian knows the grounds well, having performed there at a festival on one of his first visits to Brighton in 1993.

Since then, the former radio and television writer, who penned acts for performers such as Frankie Howerd and The Wurzels, has returned to the town many times to visit friends.

Some of the people who recognise him in the street are friendly, but others just rub him up the wrong way.

He said: "Some do assume that they can come up and be rude to you."

For History Quest, the 44-year-old Cambridge graduate is glad to shrug off his zany television persona and try something a little different.

He said: "You have to take history and its content seriously, but my approach is still a little light-hearted.

"It is quite nice in a way to do something different because you can get labelled."

Yesterday, the History Quest cameras were trained on Cripp's Corner, near Hastings, where Rory was trying to unravel the mystery of why so many defences were built around the village in the Second World War.

History Quest will investigate more than 40 stories across the country and is scheduled to be shown on the cable channel BBC Knowledge in the autumn.