Last July we had a visit from Drew Pritchard and the Salvage Hunters team!
It had been a long time coming to be honest and we had always wondered why we had never been featured so, after a few false starts, it was nice to get the call saying that they would be coming down to film.
I am not someone who naturally wants to be on camera (even after a decade of gigging at festivals when I was in a band!) so once the initial buzz of knowing that my yard would be on T.V had died off the nerves started to kick in!
We spent the weeks before they came having a bit of a tidy up and trying our best to make the place look as good for the cameras as possible. It was hard to know what they would be interested in filiming/ buying so we just tried to make the whole yard look as good as possible....well we tidied the main area of the yard, I wasn't expecting them to film around the roof tiles etc which is a real mess and, of course, they did!
The night before they came I had tickets to see the Who play at the Eden Project so I had had a very late night and not much sleep but I made it in to the shop bright and early to make sure any last bits were tidied away and the kettle was on!
Thankfully it wasn't raining as the most photogenic parts of the yard are the outside areas. I was a bundle of nerves and endlessly trying to remember what I wanted/needed to say etc but when the team came they were all very friendly and obviously well used to calming peoples nerves and getting the best from a place which definitely helped me!
They set up their gear and did a lot of pre filiming around the yard for general shots before Drew turned up. Tee wasn't with him for this series which was a bit of shame as they have always been a good team on T.V but I was mostly worried about coming over well on camera and the yard/ shop getting the best exposure it could get really.
The new co-host, Viki Knott, was very friendly and it was nice to have someone else around who was also reasonably new to the film crew etc.
I used to watch Salvage Hunters years ago when I first took over running the business but it was so close to my day job that I soon realised that I couldn't spend the day driving around in my Luton van buying stock then go home and watch someone else doing the same thing so stopped watching it (he also tends to get some very cool items which used to make me get 'stock envy'!). But obviously Drew is probably the most famous reclaimer out there so I was a little worried about meeting him and hearing his thoughts on my yard and stock,
Thankfully he was a really nice guy and very generous with his time and happy to chat with me about items and the business in general. He was also very good at putting me at ease every time the camera was turned on me!
Filiming took all day from about 10am right up until we closed at 5pm with some interviews with me, some buying and Drew and Viki doing some straight to camera pieces around the yard too.
We had a fair amount of slightly bemused looking customers coming and going throughout the day but I think most peole enjoyed seeing some T.V being made at the yard and all the equipment and gizmos involved.
As well as some buying I also had some time to pick Drews brains on a couple of pieces of stock that I was unsure on throughout the day. They didn't buy a huge amount but did take a few pieces (there was a cool old sign that they wanted to buy but I said no to that as I have owned it since my brother found it in skip when we were kids!).
Drew picked out a pair of lovely 19th Century fire fronts from on eof outdoor sheds and a Cattle sign that I had recently bought from my uncle and aunts antique shop up near Oxford. I don't normally sell our signs as they make the place look so interesting and are so hard to get but obviously I made an exception for Drew! Vikki picked out a rather lovely chest that we had bought from a local house and then some Candy bricks from the top of the yard which was an interesting buy and not at all what I expected to be selling that day!
Anyway, it was a great experience and nice to see the yard on televsion again - even if it was a bit nerve wracking!