Internet fans turn on to Charlie's blooming assets

Comments | Sunday Mirror, Apr 4, 1999 | by LEN READ

THOUSANDS of fans of Charlie Dimmock are logging on to a new Website devoted to the TV gardening star...and it's not her green fingers that are causing all the interest.

The BBC's makeover gardening show Ground Force has been pulling in audiences of more than 11 million thanks to bra-less Charlie's free and easy way with a spade and fork.

And the Website has gone one step further by missing out all the bits about John Innes compost and leaf mulch to concentrate on what many armchair gardeners see as the show's main assets.

In loving colour, a complete picture gallery of Charlie's every appearance in a skimpy, tight- fitting T-shirt has been assembled on the Website.\

There's also a gushing introduction from the site's creator, who identifies himself only as The Webmaster.

He says Charlie, 32, "brings a spark of sexual interest" to Ground Force, adding rather obviously: "Her body is not overlooked by the camera crew who seem to constantly focus on her chest when her mouth is speaking. There is ample subtle sexual innuendo on this otherwise most innocuous of gardening shows."

He says Ground Force co-presenters Alan Titchmarsh and Cockney builder Tommy Walsh are not slow to exploit the situation.

"For example, on a conversion of a garden into a mini racetrack in Series One Alan Titchmarsh named a series of bends 'Dimmock's Curves' and made up a sign to immortalise this," says the Webmaster.

But he adds: "Charlie is the undisputed star of the show."

And Charlie, who still works for a garden centre in Romsey, Hants, and lives nearby with long-term boyfriend John Mushet is to get her own BBC show. It has the working title Charlie's Army and will feature her and local volunteers transforming patches of derelict wasteland into gardens.

She has laughed off suggestions that she only got the job because of her skimpy tops.

"Apparently the reason they chose me was because I like to get my hands dirty," she laughed. "I take all this stuff about me being a sex symbol with a pinch of salt."

But why no bra? "It's just a comfort thing when she is lifting and bending all day long," her agent Debbie Shiesser explained.

If you want to check out the Charlie Website, you can find it at: www.macabre.demon.co.uk/ charlie/thumbs.html