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Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

The Timewatch Team diary about the making of the Wreckers programme.

Tuesday 24 April

Today is our London archives day. We meet at the Public Record Office in Kew and are taken up to the repositories for our filming. This is where all the actual documents are stored in long moveable shelf stacks. I have already ordered up the boxes with the relevant documents in them but when they arrive I have the unenviable task of sifting through hundreds of handwritten documents, trying to decipher writing to find the exact sentence we want to show on camera. These boxes are a treasure trove of private correspondence, formal documents and government papers all bundled together in no particular order. One of the things we have come to film are the questionnaire documents relating to the establishment of the rural constabulary in 1839, among which are questionnaires filled in by the local coastguards about wrecking pursuits in their area. They are wonderful pieces of history, all with elaborate swirling hand writing and giving some very colourful descriptions of wreckers, written by local authorities clearly coloured by the Victorian sensibilities. We film as much as we can in our allotted few hours before making a dash across London to the Parliamentary Archives. At the Houses of Lords, we are ushered through security and taken up several staircases and along twisting corridors into the tiny but crammed Archive Room. Incredibly in here are hundreds of years worth of Acts of Parliament that govern our country, all in their original parchment form, rolled up and stacked one on top of another rather like rolls of carpet. The one we have come to see is the slightly obscure Act of 1753 but which holds special resonance for us as it is contains a clause on false lights. As we take it off the shelf and unroll it, I cannot help but wonder if anyone has opened this particular parchment since it was placed here more than two centuries ago. It’s always such a privilege going behind the scenes in these places and getting access to such unique documents.

About the author

Timewatch is the world’s longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC’s flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Monday 16 April

We are now in the Outer Hebrides filming for the section of the programme on Whisky Galore. Whisky Galore is an Ealing comedy film based on the true story of the Politician (or Polly, as it is more affectionately known) – a ship carrying 264,000 bottles of finest malt whisky which was wrecked off Eriskay in the war, much to the islanders’ delight. Through the local museum, we have tracked down an islander who remembers the event. Not only does he remember his teacher turning up drunk to school but his father was one of those arrested for taking cargo off the wreck. We interview him in a very appropriate location – the one and only pub on the island.

About the author

Timewatch is the world’s longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC’s flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Wednesday 12 April

Another part of Bella’s book that we knew immediately had to be covered in our documentary was Stroma, the uninhabited island in the Pentland Firth just south of Orkney. When we were here on our recce, Chris and I had been bowled over by the island’s mysterious atmosphere with its dilapidated crofters’ cottages gazing out to sea. This island is right in the middle of one of Britain’s most dangerous stretches of water – a small channel between the Orkney islands and mainland where the Atlantic ocean meets the North sea, causing whirlpools and ferocious currents. In its time, the island of Stroma was notorious for its lawlessness – and wrecking. We have permission to film from the top of the lighthouse which gives us a good vantage point over the whole island and surrounding sea and then we film Bella by a campfire reading the passage from Robert Louis Stevenson that first inspired her to write her book.

About the author

Timewatch is the world’s longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC’s flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

The Timewatch Team diary about the making of the Wreckers programme.

Tuesday 3 April

We’re at the start of our second leg of filming – on the East coast. One of the people we want to bring to life in the programme is William Stanton, the infamous Deal pilot and boatman. In Bella’s book, she quotes some passages from Stanton’s autobiography where he gives a good insight into the life of a boatman in the C19th. In his writings, he talks about how dangerous the boatman’s work was but that there was little payment for this work leading many of them to cross the line into illegal salvage. It’s a frank account and gives a vivid picture of coastal life a hundred and fifty years ago. When we came to Deal on our recce, we discovered that the tiny museum here had the original Stanton manuscript in an old battered box in its library. It is this book that we have come to film. Bella is entranced to hold this original in her hand and we all admire the beautiful writing and lovely hand drawn illustrations – it’s a real treasure.

Thursday 5 April

Yesterday we went out to the Goodwin Sands to film the “ship swallower” as the treacherous sand banks that rise out of the water twice a day have become known. There are more than three thousand known shipwrecks on these banks so it is an important story to cover in the film and an eerie place to film. Today we have come up to the Norfolk coast to interview an ex-RNLI man who has some surprisingly frank admissions to make about his ancestors – for he candidly admits that before his forefathers saved life, they saved property. In other words, they were wreckers before they became lifeboatmen. It’s refreshing to hear someone talk so openly about wrecking and place it firmly in the context of its time, without trying to make apologies for it according to today’s values.

About the author

Timewatch is the world’s longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC’s flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Monday 2 April

At 8 we RV (rendezvous/meet) with the crew and head for the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan, the home of the only surviving copy of the 13^th Century biography of William Marshal. The staff of the museum couldn’t be nicer, and let us film in the legendary J.P. Morgan’s suite of rooms, including his study, library and strong room. They draw the line when Dom asks if he can shoot me coming through the main door. It’s locked, they tell us, and as the last person to use it was Gianni Versace I’m not about to insist. Instead I’m filmed chatting to Bill Voelkle, the museum’s curator, about the significance of the biography. Bill is bemused (as rookies often are) by the number of times we have to film each sequence (to cover all the angles), but remains cheerfully cooperative nonetheless. That done, I do three pieces-to-camera (PTCs), one very long which, sleep deprived as I am, I find hard to remember. I get it in the end and we troop out for lunch in a typical NY diner.

After lunch we flag down a yellow NY taxi and ask him if, for a price, he minds us filming in the back. He agrees, and we do a couple of PTCs with Dom as sound man (here’s no room for Greg). We also spend a few minutes rigging a smaller camera on the bonnet of the cab to get some windscreen shots of NY’s skyline. Then it’s back to the hotel to pick-up our luggage and on to the airport. Fortunately the flight is half empty and we both get a row of four seats. I sleep most of the way.

Tuesday 3 April

The flight lands at 10 a.m. (an hour late) and, after the usual delay trying to find our BBC driver, I drop off my bags in Ladbroke Grove and continue on to the West End. Dom says he’s going to get a couple of hours sleep, but I don’t have time. I’m due to sign copies of my new paperback, Victoria’s Wars: The Rise of Empire, at bookshops all over West London and arrive half an hour late. No matter. The shops seem to have plenty of copies, and say it’s selling well. Later I attend a book party in the city, but with an early start I leave at 11 and am in bed by 12.

About the author

Timewatch is the world’s longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC’s flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Historian and author Saul David’s diary about being the presenter of Timewatch’s Tournament programme.

Monday 26 March

RV (rendezvous/meet) at St Mary Le Bow Church on Cheapside (the site of the famous Bow Bells) at 7.30 (so up at 5.45). We’ve come here because Cheapside was a popular site for tournaments in the 14^th Century, by which time they’d transformed from the melee to simple jousts. After establishers, I’m filmed chatting to Dr Juliet Barker, the author of a book on the medieval tournament, on the church balcony. Dom asks Juliet to stand very close to me during our chat (it looks better on camera, he insists) and poor Juliet tries not to look too awkward. She’s also suffering from the cold, and once again I’m glad I’ve worn my thermals.

I’m wrapped at 10.30 a.m. and head back into town while Dom and the crew film a talking head interview with Juliet, extracts of which will appear throughout the programme.

We reconvene at 3 p.m. to film the missing pieces-to-camera (PTCs) on the Millennium Bridge. It’s a little quieter than the day before, but busy nonetheless. I’ve filmed on the bridge once before, and the same old issues rear their ugly heads: interruptions by squeaky suitcase wheels, helicopters, boats and Bolshie teenagers shouting "Hello Mum" as you try, for the umpteenth time, to deliver your PTC. We eventually get it done and head for our final location at the nearby College of Arms. I’m filmed chatting to the Richmond Herald, Patrick Dickinson, who explains how the tournament was largely responsible for the development of heraldry. He shows me some earlier 13^th and 14^th Century examples of heraldic arms, one of which, by coincidence, is that of the Count of Flanders, a noted tourneyer in William Marshal’s day. We wrap at 6.30 and I head straight for Paddington to catch a train home. It’s my birthday on the 27^th and Dom, bless his heart, has given me the day off.

Friday 30 March

Dom and I fly to New York, arriving at 4 in the afternoon after a 7 hour flight. We’re staying at the painfully hip Hudson Hotel on West 58^th Street and have dinner in Soho with Dom’s sister and various friends (some of whom, apparently, are famous New York models). Jetlagged, and with an early start, we make our excuses and head back to the hotel. In bed by midnight (5 a.m. British time).

Saturday 31 March

After a leisurely breakfast, we RV with the American crew – Mark (camera) and Greg (sound) Molesworth at 9.15 – and drive to Medieval Times in New Jersey where they hold regular dinner jousts for paying guests (1,300 at a time). The point of going there is to underline what we think of as a tournament today: gleaming knights, splintered lances and well-dressed ladies; the triumph of good over evil, the ritual displays of arms at a joust.

En route we pass the time chatting about military history (as you do), and Greg tells me he fought with Custer’s mob in Vietnam (he was lieutenant with the 7^th Cavalry and served during the Tet Offensive in ‘68). I’m interested but wary. Vietnam vets have issues, to say the least, and laugh in the face of political correctness. Greg’s no different, and tells me the solution to the British hostage crisis in Iran is to go in hard!!

Suddenly we come across the turrets and battlements of a medieval castle in the middle of a New Jersey mall. We’ve arrived at Medieval Times, but it’s far less hammy than we expect, and very professionally run. Ricardo Salazar, the Marketing Manager, shows us round, and says he’ll do his best to get his knights to cooperate with our filming requirements, but they’re like a cross between ‘film stars and sporting celebrities’. He’s not wrong. We were told they would be available to film close-ups of the joust at 11 a.m., but they don’t appear until 2 p.m., which hardly gives us any time as the first performance begins at 4. But Dom and the crew make the best of it and we film the afternoon performance with two cameras from the back of the auditorium.

At 7 our extras arrive: Tiffany, who did work experience at the BBC the year before, and four of her friends from NYU. Dom wants them to sit on either side of me during the evening performance, so we won’t have to disturb the real a punters. We’re filmed being served ‘medieval’ food and drink (chicken, spare ribs and no cutlery) by a host of serving wenches. One asks me which channel we’re working for. When I tell her the BBC she says she’s never heard of it!

All goes well until I have to deliver my PTCs. The music’s so loud I can hardly hear myself speak, and we do numerous takes. But Greg is happy, and assures us the sound will be okay.

We finally wrap (wrap up/finish) at 11 and, having had a drink or two with the ’stars’ of the show, head back into New York. Unperturbed by the time – the locals assure us the city really does ‘never sleep’ – we head out for a drink or two (including one in Soho House, still as hip as ever) and return in the early hours.

Sunday 1 April

A day off, thank God, so I stay in bed until 10.30. Then a run in Central Park, some shopping at Bloomingdales, and a quiet dinner with Dom in Soho. Bed by 12.

About the author

Timewatch is the world’s longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC’s flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.