By Chris Clayton of Acorn Farm
My wife and I bought a small farm in Spreyton three years ago and in order to make a living, apart from the sheep and a few pigs. We have built ourselves, from scratch, two unusual glamping sites, which we now rent out very successfully.
A few months ago we were contacted by company called Curious films who were looking for a quiet off-grid holiday site to place a celebrity and their parents. They explained to us that they were an independent film company that had worked with Channel 4 and the BBC before.
This time they had approached Channel 4 with the idea for a television show that would place a celebrity (Charlotte Church) and her parents into a remote place with no outside interference to see how they interacted with each other for four nights as celebrities have a slightly different upbringing than the rest of us and this was to be the pilot show. Would we be interested? So we said yes.
They wanted to find a space that was comfortably big enough for three people with extra space for spreading out (different filming views), useable in the rain, completely remote from prying eyes, off grid, with easy access for the crew and most importantly out of the families normal comfort zone
Prior to filming three people from Curious films came to visit us and view our space. They loved it and agreed that it would be the perfect place to film.
On the day Tracey and I also showed them around our area as they also wanted to take the family out on some local, day excursions. (Shilly pool on Dartmoor, Castle Drogo,)
Nearer the filming week Curious films visited us again to work out the logistics of filming off grid and where to accommodate twelve crew members.
Which ended up with a medic on site in our other space (Fairfield), two people in a camper van on the farm and the rest of them in our local Tom Cobley pub.
Finally on the 16th June after a manic change over for us to get TURNERS WOOD ready and looking amazing. In they came. 12 crew, 5 or 6 cars, a camper van, a generator man and a caterer. Plus it had been raining for ten days and we are on clay ground so it was very slippery.
We were not allowed to meet Charlotte during the week or when she first arrived. The idea was to film their surprise at where they were staying and to watch how they coped with it.
The film crew were all lovely and despite the weather, they said that they had some fabulous filming shots of the family in our space, including filming the family bottle feeding a week old piglet runt, which was very sweet. So sweet in fact that I had a lot of trouble dissuading Charlotte’s mum not to take it home.
We did meet the family at the end of the week. They were all very nice and said that they had had a lovely time staying with us. Charlotte also asked if she could come back in August with her kids. Unfortunately, we had to tell her that we were fully booked but hopefully she will come back another time.
The show was aired on the 17th October on Channel 4 at 9pm
