Happy Campers

Lee (fourth from right) and Richard (third from right) at camp.

Leicester window cleaner to appear on new TV show 'Hello Campers' - A window cleaner from Leicester is hoping to climb the ladder to success on a new TV show. Lee Burbidge and his pal Richard Clues are aiming to win £1000 on the ITV challenge show 'Hello Campers'.

Lee, from Skeffington, who runs his own window cleaning business, said the show is a cross between 'Coach Trip' and 'Come Dine with Me'. The 45-year-old said: "Basically what happens is that five pairs of people - be they married couple, or friends or relatives - are taken off to another country for five days camping. "They take it in turns to cook and to provide the entertainment and they get marks. "At the end of the week the pair with the most marks wins the £1,000."

Lee said he and pal Richard, from Northampton, also a window cleaner, had a great time on the show. He said: "I am not a happy camper in fact I am not a camper of any description. "I am not good under canvas I am a hotel room man every day of the week. "The whole experience was a great laugh. We had a ball. "Everyone on the show was great. The other contestants, the crew, the producers. "I can't cook - I can burn an egg but when it came to your turn to prepare the food it was.

Lee, whose business is based on the Gorse Hill industrial estate in Leicester, is sworn to secrecy about whether they won the £1,000. He said: "People will just have to watch the series to see."

An ITV spokesman said: "Hello Campers is a new series for ITV Daytime this summer. Weekdays on ITV. "With a sprinkling of light-hearted competition, the series will see five new couples head out to a different European campsite each week, with the aim of winning a £1000 prize.

Over six weeks, the show will travel to Spain, France, Italy and Portugal with a new group of 'happy campers' arriving each week." Hello Campers starts on Monday July 27 on ITV. It will run between 4 and 5pm Monday to Friday.

A window cleaner from Northampton will star in a new reality show on ITV next week which pits campers against each other to try to win £1,000. Richard Clues, owner of R C Window Cleaning Services, admits he did not really like reality shows and that he needed a lot of convincing to take part. The show, Hello Campers, started on ITV on Monday and Richard’s episodes will be shown next week. Five pairs are sent to a European campsite and compete against each other in a series of challenges.

Mr Clues, 36, was persuaded to take part by his friend and fellow window cleaner, Lee Burbidge. “They were after window cleaners to take part and they contacted Lee through the Master Guild of Windowkeepers. He phoned me up and told me I was doing it! “I was gobsmacked, it was something that was well out of my comfort zone,” Mr Clues said.

The pair were flown out to a campsite in Tuscany. “We met up with four other couples who were either friends, husband and wife, or partners. We had activities to do in the morning as a team effort and then we had in the afternoon three groups went off for a challenge, while the other two either planned the evening’s entertainment or cooked,” he said.

“They were all different people from all different walks of life. If you judged a book by its cover you wouldn’t think that any of us would get on, but once we got talking we all got on really well. “I am still in touch with them and have been since the show was filmed - but we’ll see what they say about us next week on the show! It might all change,” he added.

The experience was one that Mr Clues says he may not want to repeat. “I was nervous all the way through. I didn’t really want to do it at first. My partner, Caroline, and I are not really fans of reality TV and I am not used to being in that situation, it was all new to me,” he said.

Lee Burbidge, behind the camera.