Wish You Were Her?

‘THE bitter pill that is Noel Edmonds’ return to radio after a 20-year absence receives a massive dose of sugar in the news that Anthea Turner’s TV days are over.

Uday and Qusay Bovey are now thankfully no more

The woman described by the Mail as ‘the former golden girl of the small screen’ says she is now happy to stay at home with husband Grant Bovey and concentrate on charity work.

It is news that will no doubt inspire delight and dread in equal measure – delight among the TV-watching public and dread among wives near the homewrecker’s Surrey mansion.

‘I have absolutely no television plans at the moment and that’s the way it’s been for some time,’ Anthea tells the Mail, as she tucks into a bar of the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate.

‘Reports that there were several projects in the pipeline were false – I have nothing going on right now.’

Hardly an unequivocal statement of intent (or lack of it), but rather an admission that there is no longer any call for her unique talents.

After all, for all this talk of retirement, do we really believe that a woman who volunteered for Celebrity Big Brother would really turn down a TV role if it were offered to her?

But whether this is a break (‘Have a break, have a Kit-Kat,’ as Grant and Anthea will say – for the right fee) or a permanent state of affairs (a subject close to Anthea’s heart), it is clear that TV is no longer the most important thing in the 43-year-old’s life.

‘I think one of the worst things that could happen would be that, if in ten years’ time, I looked back on the best moments of my life and they were all about television,’ she says.

With a career that has encompassed Blue Peter, GMTV, National Lottery Live and Wish You Were Here?, that would indeed be one of the worst things that can happen.

But luckily she found her very own Milk Tray man (dark brown on the outside, white on the inside) to help her to realise that there is more to life than double-sided sticky tape.

‘Finding love is much more fulfilling,’ she says, ‘and Grant helped me realise that.’

And so we hope the two live happily ever after like, er, two sticks of chocolate cosying up inside a Twix wrapper…

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Posted: 25th, July 2003 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink