Hey everyone. I hope you’re well and in good mental health, and I hope you’re looking forward to the weekend. Today I’m going to talk to you about the film premiere of ‘The Return of Happy Times’, a documentary film about the Burgh Castle Almanac project which I’m involved with. If you want to find out more about the project, then just take a look through my blog, where I’ve posted reports on things we’ve been up to.

So, because of this stupid blooming virus, we had to scale down our premiere, which meant two screenings in one day, for which the BCA group was split in two. For me was this a good idea, as in the interview and question and answer session following each screening, there were different questions from Robert Fairclough, the interviewer, and different reactions from the director, Julian Claxton. It was also nice that some of the people who came to the premiere were the same kind souls who’ve been opening up Burgh Castle village hall for us for the last two years.

At the beginning of the premiere, Robert gave us an introduction about how the screening would unfold. The film started and… well, I didn’t expect me to be near the start of it. I was also in the rest of the film a lot more than I expected to be, so Julian has a lot to answer for! When he was filming, I felt safe with him, to the extent that Julian gave me the nickname ‘Big Man’, and not because I ate all the cakes, ha ha. I felt that he listened to all of us in the BCA, respected our opinions and listened to our ideas.

Getting a film made about our activities was always part of the aim of the project. We interviewed several filmmakers last year (we must have put some of them through hell, as there’s no Wi-fi in Burgh Castle village hall, so they had to make an impression on the interviewing panel without showing us their work). There were so many different approaches from the people we talked to, but we had one more interview to do a week later – with Julian, ironically. For me, he gave the best interview and came across as very confident and professional, so my decision was an easy one – I wanted him to make the film.

I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who made ‘The Return of Happy Times’ happen: the funders, the professionals who came in and did workshops with us, and all of the BCA group for taking part and making me feel welcome.

Please find the film here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODVpf0bwVQI&t=41s . It’s 28 minutes long. I hope you enjoy watching it, and please leave a comment if you can.

Thanks you for reading this blog. I wish you all good mental health, and remember: take some time whenever you can to recharge yourself.