Some of you may have noticed local celebrity, Julie Plumley, on ITV the other week (tongues wedged firmly in cheeks). For those who missed it the Western Gazette has been kind enough to provide a summary. Our friends at ITV have now sent us the recording, which will be uploaded in all its glory very shortly. In the meantime, enjoy:
Founder of project which works with disadvantaged children in the Sherborne area appears on ITV’s Surprise, Surprise.
Julie Plumley with Lucy Frampton on the set of ITV’s Surprise Surprise.
Western Gazette, 8 November 2014: The founder of a project which works with disadvantaged children in the Sherborne area recently appeared on ITV’s Surprise Surprise.
Julie Plumley was invited onto the show for her work setting up care farm project Future Roots at Rylands Farm in Holnest near Sherborne.
She has been a qualified social worker for more than 20 years in community mental health and young people’s services. She helps educate and rehabilitate youngsters who struggle in mainstream education, including children from The Gryphon School and Sherborne Learning Centre.
Ms Plumley also runs the Countryman’s Club which offers opportunities to older gentlemen with farming backgrounds.
She said:
“Although being on national TV was really scary because it wasn’t planned, meeting Holly Whillouby was just like being with someone you knew she was a natural person that tried to put everyone at ease even though eight months pregnant and must just be wishing the filming was over.
“The opportunity to try and get funding to support Future Roots was very valuable and seeing the young and older participants take part in the filming was quite emotional. I felt really proud of all them, the young people said on TV that they might have made more poor decisions had they not come to the farm but the majority of them are now the sort of people any business should employ, great work ethic, team player, motivated with a great deal of common sense.”
She was filmed at the farm for the show after a former learning centre pupil, Lucy Frampton, nominated her.
When the ITV film crew arrived, Ms Plumley was said to have been initially disappointed that the show was not about the farm and instead focused on her.
Surprise Surprise aims to celebrate the nation’s most deserving people, often people who run charity projects, by fulfilling one of their personal wishes.
Ms Plumley was rewarded with tickets for her and six volunteers to attend the opening night gala of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats in December.
She was also gifted with Wellington boots and pitchforks. She joked that “another 50 pairs of wellies was exactly what we needed”.
