Near-death experience as a kid meant I had to battle my biggest fear to take part in celeb shark show, says Helen George

The Sun

11 hours ago

SHE'S best known for ­playing glamorous nurse Trixie Franklin on hit BBC drama Call The Midwife, but fans are about to see a very different side to Helen George.
The actress, 41, will battle her deepest dread of putting her head underwater as she takes part in a radical new ITV reality show, Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters.
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Speaking to The Sun on Sunday ahead of the first episode on ITV1 tomorrow night, Helen reveals that she developed the fear, known as aquaphobia, after experiencing a ­horrendous near-death experience in a swimming pool as a child.
Helen said: 'I was terrified of ­putting my head underwater. I have a real deep-rooted fear.
'I used to love the water when I was really young, but I went to a swimming party when I was six.
'They put those weird Nineties foam mats down. They're massive yoga mats, really.
'I just remember this moment of being stuck underneath one and not being able to get out. There was that fear of being trapped. I finally made my way up to the surface.
'But I remember no one noticing that I'd gone, and no one really believing what I said, because no one had seen it. From then, I got it in my head about not putting my head underwater.
'I have a really strong image of looking up to the top of the swimming pool and the mats were on top and no one knew I was down there.'
Helen confronts her fear head-on in the new five-part series, in which celebs plunge into the ocean and learn to swim with man-eating sharks, without a cage, off the island of Bimini in the Bahamas.
'It's not safe'
She is thrown in at the deep end with comedian Lenny Henry, Countdown's Rachel Riley, McFly bassist Dougie Poynter, stand-up comic Ross Noble, Amandaland actress Lucy Punch and TV presenter Ade Adepitan.
Mum-of-two Helen was spurred to push herself as she ­realised her kids Wren, seven, and three-year-old Lark were becoming more confident in the water than she was.
Call The Midwife actress looks nothing like her character after glam transformation and very sexy dress
She also opened up to her property developer boyfriend Dan Innes about her fear, which he had not noticed on their holidays.
Helen explained: 'My kids know that I am scared of the water, and my seven-year- old is more confident in the water than I am, and I realised I've got to do something about that as it's not safe.
'I hadn't even told Dan how scared of the water I was, and he was like, 'But you got in the sea on holiday in Cornwall with me. I didn't know you were so scared'.'
It's the first reality TV show Helen has been in since BBC's Strictly ten years ago.
She is stepping back into the limelight two years after splitting from actor Jack ­Ashton, the father of her two children, who she met on Call The Midwife when he played ­ Reverend Tom Hereward.
Soon after, she grew close to her co-star Olly Rix, who was cast as her businessman ­husband Matthew Aylward.
My kids know that I am scared of the water and my seven-year-old is more confident in the water than I am. I realised I've got to do something about that
When the offer to swim with sharks came in, Helen explained that she felt ­compelled to take part, even if it did leave her feeling exposed.
She said: 'I'm an actor, I play other people's vulnerability, so playing my own and being vulnerable on screen without make-up was
hard. It's so scary. I play a character known for ­wearing lots of make-up, and that's her thing — so not having that to hide behind was new.
'There's no hair and make-up. I've not done reality since Strictly, which is obviously a very different beast. So revealing yourself on screen is being vulnerable.'
Helen was fortunate that producers at Call The Midwife, where she has worked for 13 years, let her finish filming a week early so she could jet out to the ­ Caribbean last autumn to tackle her fear.
Helen said: 'I get asked to do all sorts of things, but no one's ever asked me to do a show with sharks. I realised it was probably never going to happen again. It did sound like an amazing premise for a show, so I couldn't turn it down.
'Hearing how mad an idea it was, I thought I had to do it.
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'I had to get some time off from Call The Midwife. They kindly gave me a week off so I could make it out.
'For me, putting my head under- water was the scariest thing I could do, so the idea that sharks would be involved made it even scarier.'
Before filming began, Helen confessed she almost pulled out, but she forced herself to conquer her inner critic, revealing: 'I had that feeling you get before a funeral — you know, that something bad is about to ­happen and you've got to face it.
'I had a few moments before I flew out where I thought, 'Oh my God, am I actually going to do this?'.
'Before our first day ­filming, I knew that something big was happening, and I didn't know we were going to be cage-diving with sharks on the first day, just to really throw us in at the deep end.
'I did wake that night in a panic thinking, 'What am I doing here?'.'
'I burst into tears'
In the first days of the show, Helen struggled so much to immerse herself underwater that bosses almost gave her a separate snorkelling challenge.
She said: 'When we were doing the training in the swimming pool, I said to everyone, 'I haven't put my head underwater for 15 to 20 years. I'm really scared of swimming'.
'I hadn't realised how bad it was and I burst into tears. It felt like everyone else was really progressing and I wasn't. So at one point, the producers were going to put me on a junior snorkelling course, instead of the actual deep-sea diving experience.
'And then I thought, 'F**k this, I want to join in with everybody else'.
'It wasn't a big, beautiful moment that I'd imagined, where I saw a beautiful fish and I wanted to swim.
'It was more I felt like I was being left behind and I wouldn't have the same experience as my friends.
'When we were training in the swimming pool, I said to everyone, 'I'm really scared of swimming'. I hadn't realised how bad it was and I burst into tears'
'I had to put my big girl pants on and get on with it, or I was going to miss out on these incredible ­experiences.'
Helen added: 'We kept hearing gossip from the crew that we might swim with dolphins, but I think they were dangling a carrot. We never saw a single dolphin!'