Inside Tommy Walsh’s life off-screen including feud with Alan Titchmarsh

Ground Force star Tommy Walsh appears on Pointless Celebrities

For two decades Tommy Walsh was a telly favourite after getting his break on Ground Force with Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock in 1997.

The builder, who lives in Hackney with his wife Marie, who he has been with for over 40 year, admits the role wasn’t something he had pursued as he told Express.co.uk in 2017.

“I had no intention of becoming a TV personality but in the mid-1990s, one particular client, a TV producer who lived in Hampstead, who I’d done some building work for, asked me to have a look at a pilot she was working on.

“She was keen for me to consider a role on the show, but I wasn’t convinced at all. Eventually one of my daughters persuaded me to have a go.”

The show ran until 2005 and made Tommy and his co-stars household names but with just two days to turn around a garden makeover tensions could run high, which once led to a brief falling out with Alan.

Ground Force’s Tommy Walsh was the master of the makeover show for two decades however his happy personal life and blossoming career have been overshadowed by two cancer dramas.

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While sawing timber during one makeover Tommy accidentally covered the flower beds in sawdust, which left Alan irate with him.

“Call me picky if you like but I like my Ground Force gardens to be pristine when we finish them,” Alan later told Radio Times. “I do not get a thrill from seeing them covered in dandruff.”

“For a while it did get a bit hairy,” Tommy admitted to The Independent in September 2000. “But when we’d both calmed down we actually kissed (yes) and made up.

“What made me cross was that I was working flat out to get everything ready and here was Alan moaning about a bit of stray sawdust.”

The pair have now put the drama behind them and manage to catch up a couple of times a year.

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“I normally see Alan at Chelsea [Flower Show] and Christmas parties,” Tommy has revealed. “We talk occasionally on the phone. We’re such good old pals that it’s like picking up from yesterday.”

However, while the dad of three grown children Charlotte, Natalie and Jonjo, and grandfather of one, has enjoyed a happy career and personal life he has suffered from some health issues.

In 2002, Tommy suffered a breast cancer scare when he found two lumps on his chest. He sought medical advice straight away and was sent to have the lumps investigated.

He told The Mirror at the time: “I was being a bit of a bloke about the whole thing. I just buried myself in my work and then went along for the day surgery where the lumps were removed under a general anaesthetic.

“It was only then that it sort of hit me that this could actually be serious and I could have breast cancer, like my relatives.”

Thankfully the lumps were benign, but he confessed it was “a bit of a wake-up call”.

That wasn’t to be the end of his cancer journey however as in March 2022, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with, and recovered from, throat cancer, as he lent his celebrity status to raise the profile of an NHS campaign encouraging cancer checks.

He recalled: “I went to my GP about an unrelated issue and while I was there, he discovered this lump in my throat that he was a bit concerned about.

“He said it may be nothing but that he would rather I went and got it checked and, unfortunately, it turned out to be cancerous.

“I had to go in straight away and have surgery to remove it. I am now fully recovered and even back playing football!”

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