As one of the seven man ‘digging team’ who was offered the chance of taking part in the making of Mondays programm, I think it would be right to go back to basics and review the offer made by Wildfire Productions through the auspices of Andy Saunders, who was ‘in charge’ of the detector and digging team.
I was delighted to be asked in the first place, and it was explained that all travel, hotel and food bills would be covered by expenses. That was a pretty good start!! Again it was clearly explained, that any recovered A/c parts would be designated as belonging to Wildfire productions. A)for further possible filming. B) because they had paid for expensive digger hire and for land owners permissions to search (often fruitlessly) many acres of their land.
To a long time enthusiast (36 years), this offer, with its conditions, was a great chance to be involved in a piece of history for better or for worse. I was lucky enough to take time off and accepted.
Time away in France was 5 days and I was rewarded with a fascinating week of cold morning starts, tired evenings, and in the middle, hours of excitement and dissapointment tinged with good companionship, lots of laughs and the finding of wartime aircraft.
I got what I expected and more. We found and dug two good sites out of many duff trial holes and in reality, we led the TV crew a merry dance in mud and false hopes, but in those few days we were able to dispel many ‘old stories’, and give the programm some ‘watchable’ bulk.
Some of the postings on this site are made up of unsubstanciated drivel written by non participents who have not even seen the programm. They know little and write much. They cross wires between researchers and programm makers. Critisize them for previous films they were not involved in,and think that Channel 4 actually made this film. They represent the percentage that like to knock other peoples efforts, probably because they are unable or unwilling to make any effort themselves.
Unfortunately,there are also those who hide behind pseudo site names who have decided to attack leading characters involved in the programm, not because of the programm itself, but because of a personal grievance. Not content with the original invitation, paid expenses and conditions, they were expecting delightfull chunks of Spitfire to bring home, clean, and then even, at a later date, deal in or sell on through the usual well known channels.
Well that was not the deal!!! That was made clear from the start. Hard to swallow it may be, but if that was unacceptable, then they should not have gone to France. Life’s a bitch and then you……….
I have not seen any preview except the usual newspaper comments made to sell newspapers, but I was slightly involved in the making of it. therefore I shall draw my conclusions AFTER Monday.
I suggest all of us do the same.
p.s. If a Spitfire has been reclaimed for rebuild, shouldn’t we all be pleased. Someone will spend an awfull lot of time and money to give us the delight of another flying icon. Could any of us afford to do that?
Peter Dimond
Peter you went for the same reasons as myself, which enthusiast would miss the chance? and I totally agree we mostly had a good time. But on the other hand the days were long and hard, the weather was bitterly cold and we did work very hard to make it a success, I’m sure Andy will have to agree with that. But I was NEVER told that the recovery team would return empty handed. If you were informed that was the case, you were obvouisly privvy to information that we weren’t. Quite simply, I wouldn’t have gone if I had known the truth from the start.
Vince Megicks ex team member.
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