TIME OUT by Sylvia Bull

As you all know the theme for the North v South (and our own theme competition) was "Tension". It was with some relief that we learnt that Arthur Trevitt had written a short story (script) that it was felt could be adapted to the theme - thus "Time Out" was born. Shooting locations are always a bit of a problem but this time we wondered if we would be able to find somewhere suitable because we needed inside and outside shots of a pub or bar and inside shots of an office. Norman and I wondered if we could approach our local pub to see if the landlord there would permit us to completely disrupt the running of the hostelry. The big problem is that neither of us are big drinkers so we hardly ever go there - consequently they don't know us so why would they let us use their premises? I know that Diggy and Ken also considered their locals but with the same reservation. And then I had (what I consider to be) a brilliant idea. When I was next at our indoor bowls club (King George Field) I cornered the Secretary Stan Ball and casually asked him what happened to the club premised during the summer (i.e. closed) season. Stan told me that this is when decorating and refurbishment work takes place. I asked him what the chances were of ECVS using the office and bar and lounge areas to make our film and to my astonishment he said that there would be no problem. As you can guess we were ecstatic. So a small team was formed - Norman, Bernie, John Gannaway and John Ellis and they went along when the club was still open to check out suitability and camera angles and stuff like that. The Club is looked after by Phil (who is a marvellous chef) and his bar manager wife Liz who live in the flat above the bowls club and they were also only too pleased to be able to help us. (this was going too well I thought - watch this space!) So a date (11th July) was made with the actors - Sarah- Jane Vincent (Ken's very talented daughter), Matt Marshall (star of last year's production 's all over), David Young (star of "Star sign") and newcomer Louise Drewett. The crew consisted of John Ellis and John Gannaway as cameramen, Norman as producer and sound man, Arthur as Director, Cilla was clapper board and continuity plus I was there along with Barbara and John, Jack and Gwynne and Ken Kendall as extras. My lovely niece Laura and her boyfriend Phil also played an important part. As you can see - there were quite a lot of people involved and because folk were jetting off on holiday at different times Norman made up a spreadsheet of all the above with their available and non available dates and came up with two dates that suited everybody - Sundays 11th and 24th July - the former for filming at the club and the latter for filming at our home. Everybody was emailed with the dates and everyone replied in the affirmative all we had to do now was wait for the first Sunday to arrive so that we could "get on with it."

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