Charlie Dimmock Up Close
Gardening goddess Charlie Dimmock has left fellow Ground Force pals Tommy Walsh and Alan Titchmarsh behind to backpack along the rivers of southern England.
The greenfingered presenter sets off to explore the architecture, wildlife and secrets of Englands greatest rivers in her series River Walks on UKTV Gardens. With a backpack packed with the bare essentials Charlie navigates her way across sections of river travelling to such destinations as River Itchen and River Medway where she discovers the beauty and ancient custom of river culture. Always up for the challenge courageous Charlie also tries her hand at rowing and white water rafting at the tidal head of River Itchen. The spring series River Walks provides fresh outdoor entertainment enough to inspire the most stubborn couch potatoes. We catch up with the Ground Force star to go to the root of her plant passion and to find out whether there or any possible future plans for River Walks to run up North. Hello Charlie, firstly we have to ask how did you discover your love for gardening? I sort of grew up with it really, very much lived in a rural area so everybody had vegetable patches and gardens. My grandfather was a gardener I used to hang out with him, then I got a Saturday job at the garden centre and its gone form there really. You dropped out of youre A-Levels to follow your passion for gardening. What did your parents say about this? My parents werent overly impressed when I stopped doing my A-Levels I sort of gave up after my first year it didnt go down very well!
On the Ground Force team you were mostly surrounded by guys did you feel you had to work harder or be louder to make your presence known?
No I mean were all quite gobby and opinionated, its just the way I am Im afraid!
You shot to popularity by banning the bra, were you aware of how much publicity it would receive?
Yes that was all a bit silly that was. It was all just a media thing that they just picked on and that was that. So Im now labelled as that.
Are you wearing one now?
Like all things if Im going out on an evening and wearing an evening dress that requires a bra I wear a bra.
On the Ground Force team you must have spent a lot of time with one another, did you play tricks on each other to pass the time?
We were normally working so hard because they were long days so we just didnt have the time to play tricks. But I can remember one time we were waiting for Alan to turn up and the garden we were doing, we were doing the back garden, the house next door the front garden it was up for sale and had been left for months and months and it was a complete disaster. So we stood in that waiting for him and pretended that was the garden just to watch his face. So that was quite funny! And the other time we played a trick it was when it was just Tommy and I, I took Tommys watch off him to keep an eye on the time and just every half an hour I just moved it on about five, ten minutes so by the end of the second day we finished at 4 oclock and Tommy thought it was six. He had his lunch at eleven rather than one oclock, I really dont feel very hungry he was saying and the reason why he didnt feel very hungry was because he had only finished his breakfast two hours before. So that was quite funny, and that was on the show, they incorporated that into the show.
For your series River Walks you go backpacking around Southern England what are the essential items that you always carry with you?
I always got a raincoat, always a bottle of water in there. Normally got sunscreen because it gets very very hot on some of them and a bit of money, not a lot! They were only day walks, we didnt walk the whole river only sections of it and just really meeting people along the way who worked on the river or just used it for recreation.
You must have met a lot of interesting people, are there any particular characters that stand out in your head? There was all sort of people, we did an interview with a moth and butterfly expert so that was quite interesting talking to him but we had also met people who have been based on the river Hamble and quite a lot of rivers were used to practise D-day landing so we spoke to this guy hes been based on the river Hamble in this village they made up where they practiced D-day landings and training but nobody in the area knew this place existed because of course it was top secret, so that was interesting talking to them.
Was the River Walks series your idea?
No it wasnt my idea, the production company Cloud One approached me to do it and the first series thats going out is literally on the South and South East coast but we done two more series since then and we have gone further a field to Norfolk, weve done 15 programmes in total.
Do you think youll go from Southern to Northern Rivers?
Itll be very nice to because theres some beautiful rivers further away and also down to the West countries. The thing is the programme covers four or five different sections or topics in the program so you just got to make sure its all well and good having a beautiful river but we want a bit of contrast in the programme so we may be talking about the history, the recreation and then what you find along the way so theres got to be a bit of interest there.
Youve been white water rafting on the River Itchen, were you scared at all?
I did quite a lot of white water rafting when I was out in New Zealand, the River Itchen is fast but it was good fun. Going into the River was interesting because they have a steep ramp and all you get on the raft and you slide into the water the film crew were worried because we got the one chance to do it so we had to set it up well!
You do a lot of work for charity. What charity campaigns are you working on now?
I just became patron of Dream Flight and that takes 197 children each year out to Orlando for a ten day holiday, the children are normally either severely disabled or got diseases. Im also involved in a lot of conservation charities like BTCB British Trust of Conservation Volunteers and also Ground Works that wants us to be aware that any small green spaces that are about are worth keeping so getting people to look after their community spaces and make them places that they can use and tidy the place up. Even if its not a garden as such its an open space where you can walk the dog. Its good to have those spaces especially in towns or cities. We did a garden out in New York which was the same sort of thing, it was only a very small space, it wasnt a big space it must have been done five years ago and its looking fantastic. Its the tiniest lawn ever; its probably only about ten foot by sixteen literally this little green with plants around it theres two girls sunbathing on it! They said its the bit of lawn anywhere around them. There are people who maintain it so the junior children can go up there and grow vegetables during the summer so its made a huge difference.
Besides gardening do you have any other hobbies you like doing in your spare time? No not really Im really quite boring! I tend to do the gardening, take the dog for a walk and just see friends and family and just to a lot of socialising. I got no hobby hobbies as such. Perhaps I should get some!
You appeared on US TV presenting a gardening slot on The Early Show. Did you find it any different from presenting back home?
Totally and utterly! It was totally different because it was all the done on set, although the plants were real they were set up in two inches of soil that was covered in bubble wrap, you only put lots of soil where you were going to dig and it was right on the corner of a junction got traffic going by, the anchors were always so glamorous beautiful hair long nails and then theres me. It was great fun and they were lovely but it was bizarre so different from what Ive done at home, Ive done a bit of live TV because Ive been on Alans chat show a few times and that was similar I suppose, but American did seem so different.
In 2000 you also appeared in a channel 4 reality show The Game. Would you ever do a reality show again?
No, it wasnt a bad experience I enjoyed all the sports and training, it was alright but living in the house was so boring the first series they didnt do that they just kept them as though you were an athlete and you got to live in a village but they didnt make it as bad. You werent allowed to read newspapers, you werent allowed to do any work or write articles or anything like that you werent allowed to do anything you just had to interact with the people there. Which was fine but if you dont do anything theres so much you can talk about so it just got so boring. Then when we came out and I saw the press coverage and the production company and the stories they made up! It was one per cent truth and ninety nine per cent escalations! Never again!
Female First- Claire Williams River Walks with Charlie Dimmock Series One begins on 3rd April at 7pm on UKTV Gardens.