The visit of the Hairy Bikers to High Levels WI at Charity Farm.
Thursday 28 October 2010
In August 2010 an information sheet about the Hairy Bikers 'Mums Know Best' TV programme was sent to all WI's in the South Yorkshire Federation. The article was asking for Mums to send in their favourite Christmas recipes for a 'Hairy Bikers Mums Know Best Christmas Special' programme to be shown in December. One of our members, Tammy Bramhill, decided that she would like to write to the programme giving them some of the favourite recipes that she has used through the years at Christmas time feeding her large family at the farm where she lives.
Following Tammy's letter the Assistant Producer of the programme, Gareth, rang her up and during that first conversation Tammy spoke about High Levels WI members and the wealth of recipes and cooking experience that the members had but on the second phone call Gareth wanted to find out more about one dish she had mentioned -' Cow Pie' which she always made at Christmas time when the family returned home from their lives in other parts of the country. That seemed to be the deciding factor for the production team a 'Cow Pie'! The idea of including the WI was still an unknown as the Hairy Bikers had had a rough ride at Denman College when their Victoria Sandwich cake was criticised for not being made to schedule!
Arrangements were made for the Producer, Francois, and Gareth to come north from Birmingham to visit Tammy in her home and to visit the home of High Levels WI which is a converted garage in the home of a long standing member, Lucy Barker.
Francois and Gareth arrived at Tammy's on 11 October, had lunch there including the now famous Cow Pie and talked through other dishes they would like her to cook on the programme - so she was definite for the Christmas Special. She has a very bright, bubbly, chatty personality so would be an asset to the programme.
The next part of the visit was to meet Lucy Barker, myself and another member, Phillippa Barker at Lucy's house. As our conversation went on it was obvious that Francois was thinking on his feet and weighing up the possibilities of the venue and the advantages of filming the making of one particular dish - 'Galette du rois' in Lucy's beautiful farmhouse kitchen. By the end of the conversation Francois was telling us what they would want for the filming, as he had obviously decided that he could work with us and the house was perfect. There was plenty of space outside for the production crews vans and for the Hairy Bikers to roar up on their bikes, the kitchen was spacious enough for the lighting and cameras and I think he thought we were quite a jolly lot! We had a few questions for them about the filming. eg. Would it be possible for our members to come on the day? It was agreed that 20 could come but no-one would be allowed in the kitchen when the filming was taking place. Would we have to pretend it was Christmas by putting up decorations ? The answer was 'Yes, please'! Francois and Gareth said they had to go back to Birmingham and talk to the 'powers that be' at the BBC and would let us know within a few days whether or not the filming would take place at High Levels WI.
After a few anxious days waiting for the answer Tammy had the phone call to say that all the suggested arrangements had been agreed and that the filming would take place in ten days time on 28 October at about 5.00pm as they would be filming another bit for the programme earlier in the day at a nearby farmhouse. The filming at Tammy's house was to take place the next day. We could hardly contain our excitement! The next step was to tell the High Levels members at the next meeting that 20 of them could come on the day but we may have to have draw names out of the hat if there were more than 20 names on the list. Remarkably exactly 20 names went down including our two oldest members, Ivy Hasselby and Madge Robinson, both in their 90's.
There were a few phone calls between Gareth and ourselves before The Day regarding the Christmas decorations and the possibility of food being needed for the crew and Si and Dave (Hairy Bikers). On both counts we were told we did not need to provide anything they would bring all that was needed.
At 2.00pm on 28 October Lucy, Phillippa and I waited for the arrival of the Hairy Bikers and the crew and as agreed 'the boys' roared into Lucy's courtyard at 2.30 followed by a number of vans with the lighting, cameras and crew members. The first part of the filming was Lucy going out to meet Si and Dave and welcoming them to the house, which had to be done twice as the story line was that they were going to make a cake in her kitchen while the WI members were in the meeting room discussing their forthcoming Christmas dinner. Lucy set off towards her kitchen with Si and Dave when she was supposed to be going to join the members through another door. How easy it is to forget what it is you are pretending to do!
Over the next couple of hours there was a lot of unloading of equipment, setting up cameras, lighting etc, decorating various rooms with tinsel etc. most of which had seen better days - Gareth admitted that he had never put up Christmas decorations before ! We wished that we had been allowed to decorate the rooms before they came but they didn't look too bad on the final programme.
During the afternoon two Home Economists who work with the Hairy Bikers were preparing all the ingredients for the filming. The senior Home Economist, Sammy Jo works with many of the top chefs on TV preparing the food for the final finish by the Big Names! Sammy Jo does have her name on the list of credits for the programmes but only very small in comparison to the work that she does backstage. The Home Economists also feed everyone when they are out on location hence the reason why we were not needed to prepare food for them. During this time Lucy, Phillippa and I were able to sit and chat to Dave and Si who were extremely pleasant and were interested in what the WI was all about and why we were members. I think they learnt quite a lot during the time !
Eventually the kitchen and the ingredients were ready for them to be filmed. We were banned from the area but I sneaked back to take a few photographs of the filming through the door! Fascinating! Sammy Jo was watching a monitor of the filming and stopped the boys if they said anything or did anything that was not correct, Francois had a small monitor hung round his neck so that he could see what it would look like on the screen and would shout out 'Action' when everything was ready to go after various stops. The Galette du Rois (Kingy Cake) was finally produced out of Lucy's Aga and it was 'a wrap'. During this time the 20 WI members had been arriving and and gathering in Lucy's drawing room ready for the call to 'action'! They had to be very quiet as the main filming was going on nearby - not the easiest thing to keep 20 excited WI members quiet!
At 5.00pm the members had the call to go into the WI Room and sit down as if it were the normal meeting to discuss the Christmas Dinner with the President and Secretary taking notes and then suddenly there was a knock on the door and the Hairy Bikers appeared to tell us that the' Kingy Cake' (Galette du Rois) that they had been making while we were having our meeting, was ready for us to taste! All this was filmed three times from different angles after extensively rehearsing the storyline with Francois before the filming. What a collection of accomplished actresses we were !
The next part of the storyline was that we all walked through to the conservatory where the Kingy Cake was ready to be cut up and tasted by everyone. Si and Dave, bless them, took the arms of Ivy and Madge to lead them through in grand fashion. The tradition connected with the Cake is that a bean is cooked inside the cake and whoever gets the piece with the bean is King or Queen for the day and surprise, surprise the bean was in our oldest member Ivy's piece! She was crowned Queen for the day and Dave was crowned King.
After we had all enjoyed tasting the cake, which was very good, and final photographs taken it was time for the boys to get on their bikes and roar off into the night. They were filming at Tammy's house the next day and that is another story!
We shall always remember with pleasure the day that the Hairy Bikers visited High Levels WI in South Yorkshire. Come again Si and Dave !
The programme was shown on BBC 2 at 8.00pm on Sunday 19 December 2010
Catherine Watson
Secretary
High Levels WI
