Kim Woodburn |
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Kim was born in Eastney, near Portsmouth. She first noticed the joy of cleaning while
watching her fastidious grandmother, who cleaned schools for a living, soaking clothes,
scrubbing the step and polishing like crazy. ‘She sparkled,’ exclaims Kim. However, Kim’s
first job after leaving school at 15 was in a high-class fashion shop, ironing the clothes
that would be displayed in the window.
She took up her first live-in cleaning job after moving to Liverpool, cleaning ‘from
breakfast time until the end of time’. A variety of jobs followed: at a toy factory, a
holiday camp, as a beautician, a social worker, even a model in the Littlewoods catalogue.
Kim also started knitting, and founded a handmade knitwear company. As a tall lady,
with a, shall we say, bigger than average bust, she couldn’t get anything other than
frumpy cardies to fit, so she started her own range. In 1983 Kim made her television debut
modelling her range on Pebble Mill At One, with Jeff Banks. It was 20 years
before television would redisover Kim Woodburn.
In 1979 Kim married her husband, Peter. They are so inseparable that they decided to
give up their shift working (he was a policeman) and moved to America, where they kept
house for the rich and famous. They returned to Britain eight years ago and currently look
after a sheik and his holiday home in Kent.
Before the How Clean is Your House? screen test, Kim was told she would be
meeting someone called Aggie. ‘I thought she was the presenter and I was the cleaner!’ Kim
recalls saying to the girl whose filthy flat it was: ‘You’re 26, but you won’t see 30
living in all this muck and filth.’ Needless to say she got the job on the spot.
When asked if she has ever employed a cleaner herself, Kim isn’t impressed, ‘Don’t
insult me!’ When she leaves her home in Pembrokeshire to go and care for the sheik, Kim
covers everything in plastic and vacuums herself out of the door. Asked if she isn’t just
a tiny bit obsessive about cleaning, she replies, ‘I don’t worry about being called
obsessive, as long as I’m clean, I’m happy – and I’m having the time of my life!’
» How Clean is Your House?
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