Alan's Ramblings - countryfile tag

Me and Andy Warhol

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 12:05:14 GMT

Well, it looks like I'm going to get my Andy Warhol moment - except in my case it's going to be four minutes instead of fifteen. My video diary is going to air on Countryfile on BBC 1 next Sunday. 11:30am, and I'm the top story on glossop.com who call this blog "Fascinating" - I wonder if that is "Fascinating" as in "Interesting and informative" or "Fascinating" as in "The oddest thing we've ever seen" ;-)

I also did a phone interview with the Tameside/Glossop Advertiser today - If anyone has a village fete or supermarket they need opening, my rates are very reasonable ;-)

Filming finished

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:16:11 GMT

Well I've finally finished the filming for my video diary for the BBC Countryfile programme, and the courier came today to take the camera and tapes down to BBC Birmingham. After two failed attempts (due to the weather) I finally got some footage of the Moors For The Future airlift onto Bleaklow. When I turned up yesterday morning at Windy Harbour the cloud was down over Higher Shelf, so it didn't look like we'd get onto Bleaklow. We shifted over to Kinder to see if it was any better, but in fact it was even worse, so about 11:00 we got back to Windy Harbour, and the cloud had lifted just enough - a couple of hundred feet - above Bleaklow Head so we set to and drove up to Glossop Low and were helicoptered up from there to Wain Stones - thankfully I didn't need to leg it onto the moor carrying the BBC kit this time! There were plenty of us there so I got to wander around filming the helicopter, plus a very cooperative hare that sat still for me for long enough to get some good shots. The weather was pretty marginal and quite windy - in fact when I was filming with the camera at right angles to the wind I had to hold it down as the wind would have otherwise have blown it over. However it held off and only started to spit with rain as we were lifted off at 3:45, so at last I managed to get the last part of my video diary completed.

I spoke to Rachel yesterday to arrange for the kit to be picked up, and asked her what would happen next. The slot is only 4 minutes long so she's got to edit the 2 1/2 hours of footage I've taken down to fit - hopefully there will be enough that's useable to fill the time ;-) I don't know when it will be transmitted, but I'll post something as soon as I know. I enjoyed making the diary, and it's given me an insight into how much effort is required to fill even a short amount of airtime. On the other hand I won't miss lugging all the kit around with me, it got a little wearing towards the end, lugging a camera in my hand, festooned with the microphone cable around my neck and the tripod strapped to my rucksack.

Human donkey

Sun, 06 Feb 2005 10:57:18 GMT

As I posted earlier, I'm doing a video diary for BBC Countryfile, and as I've also posted the Moors For The Future project is also airlifting several thousand bags of heather onto Bleaklow as part of the effort to repair the damage to the peat, so it seemed an obvious thing to do to try to combine the two and get some footage of the helicopter. I was going to film last Thursday, but as I've already said we were fogged in. MFTF were flying again yesterday, so I thought I'd do a normal patrol and walk over to the drop site to do some filming. I popped in to Windy Harbour to find out from the MFTF team where they were going to be before heading off to the briefing centre. They were going to be working around Wain Stones and Hern Stones so Bob and I drove up to Snake summit to walk across.

It was looking a bit murky as we drove up to Snake and just as we got togged up and ready to go Fiona radioed us to say that due to low cloud they'd moved the drop site to Lawrence Edge on the opposite side of the Bleaklow plateau. We got back in the car and drove round to Woodhead dam and parked up. We could see the helicopter as we walked up Bradwell Sitch, and as we got to the bottom of Lawrence Edge I heard over the radio that the helicopter was going to refuel. The weather was looking a bit dodgy on the north side of Bleaklow as well, so I staggered up Lawrence Edge as fast as I could, weighted down by the camera, tripod, batteries etc.

I got to the top edge and spotted the ground teams just as I heard the helicopter coming back. As it appeared through the murk I saw that it didn't have a load on, which was a bad sign. Sure enough it landed and the team nearest the edge piled in and it took off and dissapeared. Bugger! Having hauled all the kit the 800 feet up from Woodhead dam in double-quick time I was less than thrilled to see them being taking off the hill.

I mooched over to the second team to share my woes. They were hoping for the helicopter to come back to pick them up, but then the weather dropped right in so we all sat there while they waited for radio confirmation of whether they needed to walk off or not. 20 minutes or so later we heard the helicopter off in the distance - the weather hadn't perceptibly changed, so it didn't seem like there was any way he could get in. A message came over the radio asking the team to get as close as possible to Lawrence Edge, and as they were moving the rotor disk of the helicopter appeared up through the murk from under the edge of the crag, smack bang where he'd picked the first team up. The wind was blowing along the valley, so he came up from below the edge and across the moor sideways to the landing site and everyone piled in whilst I tried to get some footage on the camera. Once everyone was aboard he took off and crabbed sideways across to the edge again, about 20 feet above the ground before dropping back down below and very quickly out of sight into the clag. I was chatting to Fiona later on and it appears that the cloud base was a few tens of feet below the edge of the plateau, and he'd flown along the valley edge below the cloud level before popping sideways up the face to pick them up - a very slick piece of flying. It would have been impressive enough if the pilot had done this as part of a rescue, but was really staggering was that he was so matter-of-fact about it - he even offered to come back to pick myself and Bob up! The helicopter firm are based in Scotland so I suppose they are used to these sort of conditions, but still - way to go, PDG Helicopters!

Bob and hung around for a bit and had our lunch in case the weather lifted and they could resume the lift, but when I checked with Fiona they'd scrubbed for the rest of the day. Bob and I did some shots of the peat erosion and the steps being taken to try to stabilise it by the MFTF folks before carrying along to Wildboar Clough and off down White Mare where I managed to get some more shots of hares, although they were being distinctly uncooperative and kept running away before I got close enough to get a really good shot - most thoughtless of them ;-) We dropped down onto the Longdendale trail just above Torside car park before heading back to the car at Woodhead dam, taking a few last shots along the valley before we headed back to the briefing centre and then home.

Me on the telly

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 05:48:19 GMT

About 18 months ago I got in touch with the BBC Countryfile programme with the aim of doing a video diary on the mountain hares on Bleaklow. As I hadn't heard back from them I assumed that nothing would come of it, but late last year they got in touch again to ask if I was still interested. We agreed that early Feburary this year would be the best time to do the filming as the hares are still mostly in their white winter coats and are more active during the day as it is the start of the breeding season. Rachel from the beeb at Birmingham came up a week yesterday to give me a camera and a run-down of how to use it and what they were looking for in terms of footage, e.g. "Plenty of GVs" (General Views) and "Always explain what you are doing to camera"

John, Bob and myself went out last Saturday up Yellowslacks to get some footage of the hares. There were plenty around, but the camera only has a 12x zoom, which means you have to get really close to get a decent shot, and the hares aren't known for being cooperative! After a lot of skulking around rocks and cursing of both the microphone lead and the tripod we did get a fair amount of footage.

That evening when I got home I thought I better check through the tapes to make sure they looked OK. I checked the first tape, them moved on to the second when disaster struck - the damn tape got jammed in the camera which then started beeping and flashing various cryptic error messages at me. A glance at the manual revealed that I should eject the tape and try again, but the bloody camera refused to eject the tape - and it was the one with the hares on it! I eventually managed to get the tape out after about an hour of trying, however I was intending to do more filming which was going to be difficult without a camera. Fortunately I was going down to Hampshire for work on Monday, so after a frantic series of text messages between myself and Rachel I arranged to swap the camera on my way past Birmingham on Monday.

Last Thursday I was supposed to be doing some more airlifting, but do to the fact that we were fogged in it didn't happen, and as a result I couldn't film anything save the helicopter on the ground (a Lama) sharing a field with a real live Llama. John and I went off to Snake Summit for a wander around Bleaklow in the murk - visibility was down around 50m, and the only person we saw was one of the full-time National Park staff cutting channels in the peat to try to get some of the water to drain off the first section of the Pennine Way - the path is slowly sinking into the bog, as it's one of the earliest bits to be done, now they use stone flags to lay causey paths. In the early days they tried out all sorts of stuff including geotextiles, split paling fencing and even polystyrene blocks! The causey paving works best because it floats on the surface of the bog, and doesn't need anything laid underneath it, so all the paths are done that way now.

I'm off out tomorrow as they are supposed to be airlifting again, but the weather forecast isn't good so it remains to be seen if I'll actually manage to get any film of the helicopter before the BBC want their camera back! As soon as I know what the transmission date of my 4 minutes of fame is, I'll be sure to post it here, so keep checking back :-)