One cold rainy morning in January, filming started at Nicholas Varley Community School, cars, a mini-bus, and large vans full of equipment arrived, people poured out, most were just standing about chatting, one or two looked very busy. Then two horses with riders arrived, It was thrilling to see them in this built up area, and even more so to realise they were being ridden bare-back! Alas I didn’t have my camera with me, those horses and bare-back riders would have made a lovely picture.

The programme in the making was a comedy drama called Stan the Man starring John Thompson and Joe Absolom, it is to be shown in six parts and is intended for our Television screens in May, though it may be broadcast a little later than that, the film unit was from Granada Television.

I was kicking myself for missing the opportunity of photographing those bare back riders. However the same evening the film crew were at the local shopping area Queensbury Parade, filming more scenes, so off I went taking my camera with me! I was lucky enough to get photo’s of John Thompson, Joe Absolom and Gaynor Faye. It was after this that I discovered there was a fault with my camera! The photo’s were developed and they were really dark, I could have cried! A couple of weeks later I saw the film crew again in Queensbury Parade, I was determined to improve on the photo’s so off I went again with another camera, patiently waiting paid off as I managed to photograph George Costigan, John Thompson, and Gaynor Faye.

The film crew spent a lot of time in Miles Platting and Ancoats and I missed many more opportunities for photographs. Eric Sykes was one of the people I missed but maybe I’ll catch him next time.
Nosy Nellie