Life Through a Lens

 

Well, it has been another surreal week at Betley Court and Gardens. Sunday marked the first anniversary of the fire, and our local press and media wanted to come and see what has happened in the year since. On Saturday, Nigel ended up doing a phone interview with Radio Stoke from our kitchen at home, whilst the kids emptied the dishwasher. We listened for an inadvertent plate crash in the background of the interview clip they used in the broadcast, but luckily no domestic sounds spoilt Nigel’s positive piece.

Shining a torch up into the tree canopy in the dead of night

We camped again in the gardens on Saturday with our grown-up children. It was a time to reminisce about the night of the fire, and remind ourselves of how far we’ve come in a year. I’d forgotten in the trauma of the night that when our youngest accompanied me on the night of the fire, to collect Prof Brown, a young police constable had asked us to describe him. She promptly replied, “Father Christmas!”. Instantly, the constable’s face lit up, “yes, I’ve seen him, he’s having a cup of tea with one of the neighbours.”

Filming views of the house

On Sunday morning, Midlands Today had arranged to come and film the house and talk to us about the garden project. This was a daunting prospect, to say the least! We’re not the kind of folk who seek out the camera on the best of days. Peter Plisner, one of the presenters arrived with Mark, the cameraman. We were in the hands of professionals, and they guided us through the process. Peter wanted to know the details, and quickly extracted the points he thought would tell the story. Mark was very courteous, apologising for the need to repeat camera shots from different angles, explaining, “it’ll feel a bit artificial, but it works in the edit.” For two minutes of news item, it took two hours of filming! Quite an eye-opener on this whole news production business!

Mark sets up a shot the front of the house, whilst Peter works out what to do with the boom mic

You can find the video HERE whilst the BBC iPlayer are showing it (not available outside the UK, unfortunately).

Up at Emes View. Mark drew the short straw, carrying huge amounts of kit around

Nigel said in his radio interview that the first anniversary had been a good opportunity to look back and see how much we done in a year. And it was. We’ve been so busy and we’re confronted with such a mammoth task, we don’t have time to take stock.  We made a point of making time to walk around the grounds this weekend, to enjoy the neatly mown paths, the flowerbeds, the new wildflower areas, the restored dam and…well the list goes on.

Fittingly, the planning application for the first phase of the rebuild (reinstating a roof over the whole building) was submitted to the local authority on Monday, a year and a day since the fire. Fingers crossed, the planners will approve!

All best wishes

Ladybird Su