Post-war
In July 2014, Leigh found itself briefly in the international spotlight when a French television company arrived in the village to film an episode of a documentary series. The visit came together at short notice: A village historian, acting as guide for the crew throughout, received the email asking about the project just ten days before the cameras rolled.
The company behind the filming was planning an ambitious run of seventy documentaries covering Europe and the Mediterranean. Their subjects were history and landscape, and the unifying idea behind the whole series was how mankind has shaped and changed the geography around him. Leigh, it turned out, had been recommended in an unexpected way — a professor at Sussex University had mentioned George Devey to the producers, which brought the village to their attention. Before any filming took place, the producer and writer came to look over the village in person to see whether it suited their purposes. Apparently it did.
The crew spent two days filming in the village. The first of these fell on a Saturday, with the second following on the Tuesday.
One of the most striking pieces of equipment the visitors brought with them was their own drone, which arrived packed inside a smallish suitcase. Once unpacked, it opened out into a spider-like shape measuring three and a half feet across, complete with eight legs, each carrying a small propeller. The camera on the drone was worked by the main director and cameraman, while a pilot stood beside him to guide the machine through the air. It was an impressive piece of kit: the drone could climb to 1,500 feet within a few seconds.
Flying such a device over a busy village on a summer Saturday required some diplomacy. Mike Doggett gave advance warning to a wedding party so that the couple and their guests would not be caught unawares by the machine hovering overhead — the wedding in question being that of Emma and Lee, who were duly filmed. Martin Parfitt, the Secretary of the cricket club, likewise let the club know what to expect. The drone then filmed a cricket match in progress on the Saturday, and also captured footage of an oast house at Barbara Skinner's property. Among the most evocative shots of the whole visit was a meadow that has not been ploughed for at least 700 years — a remarkable survival, and exactly the kind of landscape the series was designed to celebrate.
When the crew returned for the Tuesday session, the focus shifted to the Green and its immediate surroundings. This day was given over largely to interviews about the architecture around the Green and the High Street. The questions explored when and why the various houses were built, and when Hall Place sold them off. Anyone who has taken part in filming will appreciate the patience required: each question needed roughly six to ten takes before the director was satisfied. The garden belonging to Joyce and Roger Field served as a background for the interviews, providing a suitably attractive setting.
The reporter for the programme was Raphael Hitier, and one of the lighter moments of the visit came when his local guide took it upon himself to teach him how to play cricket. Chris admitted afterwards that he had not bowled for more than sixty years, so it is to be hoped that the lesson went better than his own bowling.
The crew's work continued elsewhere in the region after leaving Leigh. Their next programmes were to cover Great Dixter and the allotments at Dartford, the latter dealing with plots originally provided for poor people. Leigh's own allotments, it seems, were considered too posh to fit that particular story — though Arthur Lewis and Colin S-B run them, and would no doubt have had plenty to say on the matter.
As for when viewers could see the results, the programme was expected to air in February, March or April of the following year. It was to be transmitted on ARTE, a channel available on SKY, and would be produced in French and German versions. Perhaps disappointingly for local residents, no English version was planned, though a copy of the finished programme was set to reach the village — meaning it would at least be able to see how it came across on screen.
This account of the visit was written up in September 2014, a few weeks after the crew had packed away their spider-shaped drone and moved on to their next destination.