EVERY woman wants a hubby like Harry!
That’s JAN MOIR’S verdict on the jungle Romeo who won I’m A Celeb fans’ hearts
HE was named the king of the jungle last night, but the crowning glory of this year’s series of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here has been, hankies out... the meltingly tender, romance-soaked, long-distance love story between Harry Redknapp and his wife Sandra.
Their enforced separation by his three-week sojourn in the reality show jungle camp – the longest estrangement in their 54-year marriage, found the soccer manager talking candidly about how much he loved his wife.
‘Back home I call her about ten times a day. She is my life,’ he told his campmates. ‘I only want to be with her. I can never wait to see her.’
Anything else? Yes. ‘I won the lottery with Sandra,’ he would say, before cheerfully going off to clean the camp dunny. Ever the gentleman, Harry had volunteered for this onerous task because he has ‘no sense of smell’.
Yet elsewhere, the jungle air was drenched in Eau de Passion à la Redknapp, which he sprayed about at liberty, at absolutely every opportunity.
Sitting around the campfire with fellow contestants, he’d tell anyone who would listen that throughout his life, Sandra had always been ‘the only friend I have ever needed’.
In most households, female viewers would sigh and dream of having a hubby like Harry: someone who would love you through the good times and bad; someone who would look beyond the wrinkles and indignities of encroaching old age; someone who would gaze at you across the breakfast table and still see the fresh bloom on the sweetheart of his youth.
The Harry who revealed himself in this show was clearly the kind of faithful, adoring partner who was in it for the long haul, and I for one adored him for it.
After all, how often do we hear men so sweetly and unselfconsciously talking about women in such a beautiful way – on reality shows or elsewhere? Hardly ever, I am afraid. And it was particularly moving when these words were spoken from the heart by a 71year-old with true love beaming from every tragicomic fold on his dented, bloodhound face.
If this wasn’t enough to have viewers reaching for the Kleenex, emotions were cranked up to the max over the weekend, when the I’m A Celeb’s producers astonished the remaining four campmates with a surprise visit from their loved ones.
Oh my God. When Harry Met Sandra in the Australian Bush, it turned out to be one of the television highlights of the year.
In fact, it could have been a miniseries all of its own.
Millions of us wept buckets when the loved-up oldies fell into each other’s arms.
Including Harry himself, who broke down in tears of happiness. ‘I can’t help this, it is not like me, I don’t normally cry, I’m pretty old-school. Are you pleased to see me?’ he asked his wife, holding her tight.
His need for her, emotionally and physically, was heartrending.
It was the way he held her that was so touching; that need to be close that was so obvious. It was how he hugged her, patted her and smoothed down her hair so she looked nice.
Most of all it was the way he looked at her; the distilled adoration of a man who has loved his wife for over 50 years, who is unstinting in that love, who loves everything about her, and always will. Call me soppy, but it was quite beautiful to behold. ‘How are you, darling? Are the kids okay?’ he whispered in her ear and wiped away his tears.
Some (mostly men) disagreed, saying it was like watching one of those videos of a family dog being reunited with its soldier owner after the latter returns home following a long tour of duty. Woof, woof, get down, Harry!
Others (mostly women) could only feel the love, perhaps admitting to themselves how much they secretly longed to have a man love them the way Harry loves Sandra. To be the single most important person in someone else’s life? It is a highly seductive prospect, even for the most determined and independent careerist. We live in a highly emancipated age, when women are strong and self-reliant, without the support of a partner.
One never got the sense that Harry entirely understood how I’m A Celebrity worked, or the burning ambition of many of his co-stars to make themselves popular and attract viewer votes.
In the end, he triumphed by just being himself, and not being afraid to speak about his wife, the most important person in his life. He loved to love her – and we loved him for it.
‘The only friend I ever needed’