Anthea Turner

Life as a book reviewer, and especially autobiographies, often entails pretending you either like the person or find their dreary lives interesting. When I read Anthea Turner's tome, Fools Rush In, I found that it was far from dreary. However, I can make no bones about the fact that I loathe the woman, perhaps even more than I loathe Ulrika Johnson! After all the never ending media coverage of the Grant Bovey saga I was hoping to find that Ms Turner, ex-Blue Peter lovely and GMTV stalwart, was the unwitting third side of a triangle manipulated by her new husband. Instead I found her to be a scheming, self centred cow who deserves all the vilification that comes her way.
Born in 1960, Anthea's mother is an ex-teacher and her father runs a soft-furnishings company. She went to the local comprehensive in Stoke on Trent but was so unhappy her parents sacrificed financial comfort to send her to a Catholic Girls School (rather too late to instill too many morals, by all account). Gaining 2 A Levels Anthea then went to work for the local radio station before moving to Sky TV as a VJ and thence to Blue Peter. Two years later she moved to GMTV where her image in the public's eye was cemented as the girl next door.
Of course her adoring public had little idea of her bed hopping methods of career advancement and her subsequent rise to prominence. First there was Bruno Brookes (Radio 1 DJ and now dot.com millionaire) and then Peter Powell (Radio 1 DJ and now millionaire Agent) before currently settling for Grant Bovey. She dismisses Brookes as a dominating control freak but she still stayed with him for more than four years. I wonder if that had anything to do with the good he was doing her career, especially the introduction to her second big affair and first husband, Peter Powell, soon to be her agent/manager?
Married to Peter in 1990, a cynic may well have wondered how soon his usefulness would run out. The answer would be 7 years. Grant Bovey, Anthea's second husband, was one of Peter's best friends and he and Della, his then wife, were often seen out with the Powells as a foursome. At the requisite 7 years Anthea got the itch and Grant was the one to scratch it for her. The ensuing media circus surrounding the breakdown of the Powell marriage, Anthea's affair with Grant Bovey, their parting, reuniting and eventual marriage are recounted in uncompromising detail and it is glaringly obvious that Ms Turner is desperate to exonerate herself from the full brunt of moral judgement. However, with nearly half the book devoted to the ins and outs of her love affair with Grant Bovey, she only serves to stir the whole sorry mess up in the public's mind once again. She comes out of it as an insecure woman, desperate for children and a career who will lay down for the person who will give her what she wants. In the beginning it was career advancement and now it is children. One gets the impression that when Mr Powell wouldn't or couldn't give her offspring it was only a matter of time before she either got a turkey baster or a stud. Enter Grant Bovey. Whatever the merits of the man that attracted Anthea this time, once she got her claws into him it is obvious he will never get away until such time as he has outlived his usefulness. I'll give it 10 years.

Fools Rush In published by Little Brown (£16.99)
First published on Gay UK Net
© Paul Towers 16/11/2000