Faith, Hope And Charity

‘LIKE Nathan Jones, Anthea Turner has been gone too long.

‘Celebrity Homewrecker? Yes, put me down…’

The former TV golden girl – the girl next door (to your soon-to-be-ex-husband) – has seen her career disintegrate after she ran off with chocolate-coated Grant Bovey.

So we are glad to read today in the Mirror that 44-year-old Anthea is keeping busy, so busy in fact that she hasn’t even got time for charidee work.

News is that the Douglas Macmillan hospice charity has sacked Anthea as a fundraiser after she failed to raise even enough money to buy a delicious Cadbury’s Snowflake bar.

The Mirror says hospice organisers were furious when Anthea pulled out of an important fundraising dinner last Christmas at which 200 guests had paid to hear her speak.

They later found out that she and Grant had jetted off to Dubai to film Celebrity Place In The Sun for Channel 4.

And the pattern was repeated on a number of subsequent occasions, as Anthea filmed shows such as Celebrity Homewrecker, When Husbands Turn Orange! and Flaking It.

Fundraising chief Karen Rose said: ‘We are very disappointed with Anthea.

‘When she agreed to become a patron, she knew the commitment it would bring and at first we thought she was really keen.

‘But she has pulled out of a number of events that have taken a great deal of time to set up and people have actually bought tickets to attend these events to see or hear Anthea.

‘We have tried to rearrange events to fit in with her schedule, but she has never come back to us with any alternative dates.’

The former Blue Peter presenter agreed last September to help bring in cash for the hospice in her home town of Stoke-on-Trent.

But she has now been replaced by Denise Leigh, the blind singer who won Channel 4’s Operatunity show last year, and local chinaware tycoon Lord Wedgewood.

Anthea is on a well-earned holiday at the moment and so was not available for comment.

But a spokesman said TV work ‘had to be her priority’ at the moment.

‘Anthea is a patron of a number of charities and does a lot of work for them,’ he said.

‘She cannot be expected to contact them, but if any requests for charity work come in and she can do them, she will try.’

How about this, then? Anorak will donate £1 to a charity of Anthea’s choice for every day that she does not appear on our TV screens…’

Posted: 24th, August 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink