Lights, Camera, Action ...

This one needs a bit of background explanation ...

A few weeks ago, Mother came over with a DVD given to her by my cousin, S. She had found an old film projector and film taken by my Grandfather between 1938 and 1953 and had transferred it to disk. Not knowing who was actually featured in the film, she asked Ma to have a look at it.

So Mother dutifully brought the DVD to us and with the words "you might find this a bit boring" screened the most fabulous, historical footage of Adelaide in the 1930's, the Voluntary Defence Corps (our version of Dad's Army) training down at West Beach, the Davis Cup (1952), the aftermath of the great Glenelg storm (1948), ANZAC Day march (1942) and much, much more. It even contained film of a tiny Mother competing in her school sports day circa 1939.

Stunned and open-mouthed, my Betrothed and I immediately agreed - this has to be made into a documentary. What film-maker could resist?

So my Betrothed has been spending every spare minute editing the footage, adding still photographs and soundtrack to make what promises to be a fascinating look into life over that period. So fascinating that a local TV program "Stateline" were immediately interested in doing a feature story on the finding and making of the documentary with interviews with my Betrothed and Mother.

The time was set and Ma and Pa dutifully arrived for the Big Day. While we're waiting for the Stateline team to arrive, my Betrothed casually comments that he hopes Q will be good and not bark at the camera.

"What camera?" says Mother.

"What do you mean, what camera?" says I. "The camera that the Stateline team will bring to film your interview, of course!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" is the frightened response. "I can't possibly go on camera! Oh, no ... they'll have to do something else."

After a moment of stunned silence my Betrothed asked the obvious question. "Well, what did you think they were going to do?"

"Well, I thought they'd look at the footage and ask me questions about it" says Mother, in ever more panicked tone. "You never told me they were going to put me on camera!"

The assembled company then got straight into reassurance mode. "You'll be great!". "You look lovely". "It's just like having a chat with someone - pretend the camera isn't there". "Don't worry, nobody watches the ABC!"

All of which, of course, fell on deaf ears. I suppose it is a big thing to have your screen debut at age 80 - but suggesting there would be no need for a wedding as our funerals would come first was going a bit too far.

At that point the TV crew arrives and Mother, by necessity of background and breeding, goes into 'welcome' mode. Fortunately, the cameraman spent quite a lot of time shooting various photographs for the setup and Mother had a chance to chat with the Presenter for quite some time. I still don't think she was completely reconciled when the dreaded moment came and she was led to her beautifully lit spot in front of our red curtain ... and that imposing camera. The comment "now I know how Anne Boleyn felt" sort of gave it away.

Of course, she did fabulously well and looked great on the small screen I was watching. But she still needed a large brandy to recover from the ordeal and was muttering dark curses on all of us all the way to the car ... Will she ever recover?