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From Young Victoria to The Boxer Rebellion, Stonehenge to the Ten Pound Poms, explore the past with Timewatch.

Wednesday 2 May

En route to Paris, we RV (rendezvous/meet) at Waterloo Station at the ridiculously early hour of 5.30 (meaning I’m up by 4.45). There I meet yet another crew (our fourth, if you include the BBC Sport outfit), Gary (camera) and Lawrie (sound), and our contributor (and the historical consultant for the film) David Crouch, Professor of Medieval History at Hull University. David is the foremost authority in the country on both tournaments in general, and William Marshal in particular, and his books were the inspiration for the programme. He’s also a future colleague of mine – in September I begin a year’s appointments as Visiting Professor of Military History at Hull – and I’m looking forward to working with him. We’re let on to the train first by Tom, Eurostar’s press officer, so that we can film some establishers, and once on the move I do a couple of pieces-to-camera (PTCs), much to the amusement of the American tourists in the seats opposite. It’s never easy filming in public: people are always curious, and either hang around watching or deliberately try to put you off. Either way they’re a distraction.

Dom, David and I pick-up a hire car in the Gare du Nord (the crew get their own people carrier, driven by a huge ex-Tour de France press motorcyclist called Lulu) and head north for a village near Compeigne, a popular location for tournaments in the 12^th Century. After an excellent lunch in the village of Gournay – with only Lulu drinking wine – we make for a site that Dom has previously recce-ed (checked out) in the middle of the old tournament site. There David and I are filmed talking about the make-up of the original tournaments: their purpose, duration and sequence of events. It’s sunny but cold, and when not on camera I take refuge in the car. Lulu, meanwhile, is having a nap. I finish off by doing some PTCs, including one for the top of the programme that involves Gary pirouetting round me with Laurie and Dom in tow (otherwise they’d be in the shot). Not easy to keep a straight face and remember my lines.

We wrap at 6.30 and, tired and hungry, we’re not impressed when Lulu forgets the way to our charmless hotel in a business park on the edge of Compeigne. Oh the glamour of filming! We get there in the end. Dom has a bad cold and goes to bed early. The rest of us have a mediocre dinner but excellent wine (my choice). Gary regales of with tales of how Simon Shama, who he’s filmed with, always insists on the best wine.

Thursday 3 May

We RV in the café at Gournay at 6 a.m. to film my second chat with David on the significance of 12^th Century tournaments: training for war, teamwork, a way to raise money through ransoms etc. Endless interruptions by local tractors, dogs, vacuum cleaners and friends of the owner dropping in for coffee. But we eventually get it done and spend the next couple of hours getting driving shots of me: PTCs, up and passes and POVs (points of view – ie my view through the windscreen). We’re now running late and, with no time for a sit-down lunch, eat a sandwich en route to our next location: the Biblioteque Nationale in central Paris.

We arrive half an hour late and, are met by our next contributor, Dr Richard Barber, the co-author of Juliet’s book on tournaments. Richard is an expert on chivalric literature and is going to be talking to me about the way the work of 13^th Century writers like Chretien de Troyes helped to transform the tournament from a dangerous mock-battle to the formalized acts of jousting gallantry that we know today, thanks to Hollywood films and theme parks like New Jersey’s Medieval Times. We say goodbye to David (who catches a taxi to the Gare du Nord) and carry the kit inside the BN to light and prepare for the next sequence.

The staff at the BN couldn’t be less helpful. Just about every request is met with an implacable "non", including one to film from a balcony and another for a power cable (Dom gets round this by asking a handyman). We’re told not to touch the de Troyes manuscripts we’re filming and not to make a noise because it will disturb the readers. How they expect us to film a conversation without making a noise is anyone’s guess, and inevitably we do (make a noise that is), though it’s not easy trying to speak in a normal voice in a library. Yet more interruptions: this time mobile phones. Dom puts it down to THWART, the mysterious organization devoted to disrupting film crews.

With no time for any PTCs, we finish with a couple of establishers (me arriving at the BN) and wrap at the unusually early time of 6. We head back to our hotel, in the Opera district, and all meet for a beer at 8. Dom is meeting a friend and makes the mistake of giving me the float for dinner. We use it all (or almost all) on an excellent steak dinner with wine thrown in. A final nightcap in a bar on the way back to the hotel, then bed.

Friday 4 May

Our luck runs out. First our booked taxis fail to show and we set off for the Gare du Nord a good 45 minutes late. Then we discover our tickets have the wrong date. Eurostar’s press office has issued us tickets for 6 June, not 6 April, and Dom’s forced to use his credit card to buy new ones at a cost of 920 euros! We grab a sandwich and a coffee and pile on to the train with just minutes to spare. I love making documentaries. But it’s physically and mentally exhausting, and I wonder for the umpteenth time how anyone can do this full time.

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.

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Blogging about

Timewatch

From Young Victoria to The Boxer Rebellion, Stonehenge to the Ten Pound Poms, explore the past with Timewatch.

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.

Subscribe to Timewatch's posts

 

Blogging about

Timewatch

From Young Victoria to The Boxer Rebellion, Stonehenge to the Ten Pound Poms, explore the past with Timewatch.

Monday 19 March

Having flown up from Bristol, I meet Dom and James, the Assistant Producer, at Glasgow Central train station and we use my sat-nav to guide the hire car to our hotel in Irvine, Ayrshire. Apart from one slight glitch, when we’re taken down a road that doesn’t exist, the sat-nav performs well and Dom promises to buy one. The hotel, with its faux Moorish architecture and huge indoor pool with palm trees, has to be seen to be believed; apparently it’s popular with flight crews from nearby Prestwick Airport! There we meet our enthusiastic contributor, Karen Watts of Leeds Armoury (who’s going to be talking on camera about the famous mock Medieval Tournament that took place at nearby Eglington Castle in 1839), and our two-man crew, Paul (camera) and Dudley (sound). We’d been expecting a sound recordist called Duncan and it takes a while for everyone (bar Paul) to remember Dudley’s name. I’m in bed by 11, having spent the previous hour reading the script and mugging up on my three pieces to camera. As at Bath, one is quite long, but I’ve had plenty of time to prepare and I feel reasonably confident.

Tuesday 20 March

Up at 5.15 to make the call time of 6.30 a.m. (which means in the lobby ready to leave). The one golden rule in telly is don’t be late, for the obvious reason that time is money. I shower, dress casually in jeans, shirt and sweater (my ‘uniform’ for the programme), but with thermals underneath. I’ve learnt through painful experience always to wear plenty of layers if I’m filming outside in low temperatures. The forecast (correct as it turns out) is sunny but very cold. I meet Dom, James and the crew for an early breakfast (6 a.m.). No sign of Karen. She appears shortly before 6.30, sprightly as ever.

We spend the morning filming chats between Karen and I at various locations in and around Eglinton Castle. I’m well wrapped up in puffa jacket, scarf and gloves. Karen is not so well insulated, and begins to feel the cold as does, less excusably, Dom who’s wearing what Paul describes as a pair of dancing shoes. Once the chats are filmed, I knock off the pieces-to-camera (PTCs), though one, the shortest, has me inexplicably struggling to pronounce the words ‘William Marshal’. I put it down to the cold weather! Dom takes pity on my last, sub-standard effort, and moves on to the next item.

Karen leaves to catch a train back to Leeds and at 3 p.m., after a quick picnic lunch, we set off in two cars for Lincoln where we’re filming the next day. We arrive at Lincoln’s Castle Hotel (all its rooms are quaintly named after castles), at 8.45 p.m. after a nightmarish journey, to be told we’re too late for dinner. We head for a nearby Italian restaurant and have a surprisingly good meal. Paul is knackered and goes straight to bed.

Wednesday 21 March

Up at 6.15 for a call time of 7.30. It’s cold again and I wear thermals. After filming various PTCs in the beautiful castle (one with me walking on sheet ice around a high tower with hardly any parapet!) we meet our contributor, Professor David Carpenter, who’s come to talk to me about the famous – for Medievalists anyway, I’d never heard of it – Battle of Lincoln that was won by William Marshal and his troops in 1216. David is fizzing with energy, particularly when he describes the course of the battle, and very good on the similarity between the tournament and real war. But his enthusiasm knows no bounds when Dom tells him he’s welcome to join us in the afternoon when we go to the offices of the local council to film the Lincoln copy of the Magna Carta (the nobles who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta in 1215 had used an earlier tournament to hatch their plot). It’s normally kept on display in the castle, but is about to be sent to an exhibition in America which is why, luckily, we’ve got the opportunity to film it outside its protective case. David has never had the chance to examine it, and is anxious to see what’s written on the back. It turns out to be the word ‘Lincolnia’ and was obviously penned by a scribe at Runnymede shortly after the momentous meeting of King John and his nobles in 1215. We all realize how lucky we are to get access to such a famous historical document – the privilege of making TV.

We wrap at 5 p.m. and, having delivered the battered hire car back to a rather bemused local agent (all becomes clear when we tell him we’re from the BBC), Dom, James and I catch the 6.17 train to London, arriving at King’s Cross at 8.18 p.m. Another short day.

Saturday 24 March

I take the evening train from my home near Bath to London. I’ve got an early start (a taxi’s booked to pick me up at 6 a.m.) and get to bed in my mother’s flat near Ladbroke Grove by 11 a.m. The clocks are going forward and, even with this relatively early bed-time (for me), I’ll only get about five hours sleep. As it happens, the neighbours decide to hold an all-night Reggae party and my actual sleep is considerably less.

Sunday 25 March

Up at 4.45 a.m., feeling very groggy. The first bit of filming is indoors, at the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square, but I know museums can be cold and put on my thermals just in case. Taxi arrives early (as ever) and gets me to the Wallace Collection by 6.10! Fortunately the crew (Paul and Dudley) are waiting in their car and I join them while we wait for Dom to turn up. He’s there by 6.30 and we all troop in to Hertford House, the beautiful building which houses the collection, to set up. Dan Walsh, a work experience student from New York University, has brought breakfast, but I’m hardly through my first cup of coffee when I’m called for the first item: an establishing shot of me arriving at the building. That done we film my chat with Dr Toby Capwell, the curator of the Arms and Armour collection and a champion jouster in his own right, who explains how knights in the early days of the tournament (12^th and 13^th Centuries) would have worn mail rather than plate armour (which came later). He then invites me to try it out and I’m filmed being dressed from head to foot in a suit of mail by a ’squire’ who’s had even less sleep than I have. It’s incredibly heavy and very claustrophobic to wear, but gradually my body gets used to it. To think people actually fought (in both tournaments and war) in this stuff is mind-boggling. All kitted up, with mail, helmet and sword, I have another on-screen chat with Toby, and finish off with a couple of PTCs.

We wrap (wrap up/finish) the location at 10 (it’s opening to the public) and head for Dom’s house in Camden for a late breakfast. After tea and toast we film some more PTCs in Dom’s study, and then break for lunch.

At 2.30 we head for location 3 – the Millennium Bridge where we planned to film a couple of PTCs and some GVs (general views) – but it’s too busy and, running out of time, we cut our losses and make for our fourth and last location, the Temple Church in the Inner Temple, the site of William Marshal’s tomb. When not chasing off fans of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code who are trying to get access to the church which, normally at that hour on a Sunday, is closed to the public – we film exteriors and PTCs. Then we enter the church and film a chat with Robin Griffith-Jones, the Master of the Temple, about the controversy surrounding the identification of the Marshal’s tomb. Apparently they’re no longer sure which one it is! Griffith-Jones looks splendid in his red robes, and my final PTC about the death of the Marshal, as darkness falls, is very atmospheric.

We wrap at 8.30 and I take a taxi to a friend’s house in Wandsworth where I’m staying the night. A very long day (14 hours) and not a murmur from the crew.

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.

Subscribe to Timewatch's posts