Something magical happened in Wigtown last Friday. It was one of those serendipitous moments.

Here’s how the story began . . . .

BBC Country File had come to film and we were all very excited to meet their presenter Matt Baker (also of Strictly, Blue Peter and The One Show fame).

They wanted to re-create the festival atmosphere that would be prevalent throughout the weekend and the producer had phoned us earlier in the week to see if they could film Zoë singing in the background of some of the shots. We were all delighted especially as the filming would be in the early morning and wouldn’t clash with the ‘live’ radio interview Zoë had in the afternoon.

But things rarely go to plan with these things and as the week went on the time slot for Zoë moved from 9.30am to 10.30 am and then 11.00. By the morning of the shoot we had realised that it was improbable that Zoë was going to be filmed, but we went along anyway at our allotted time to wait patiently for the call.

We would have to leave Wigtown by 11am if we were to get to the studio in Dumfries in time for her ‘live’ interview on time. Mid morning, the producer came with the sad news that they wouldn’t be able to do the scene until 12 noon and she was so apologetic – but Zoë took it all in her stride and said she totally understood. I was very cheeky and asked if we could have a quick photo with Matt as a little compensation for not getting on the show. No problem! Yipeeeee.

This is where things got a bit exciting . . . .

Matt had just finished filming in The Book Shop and was waiting around while the crew packed up all the equipment to move onto the next location and he was happy to spend a couple of minutes shaking hands and having pictures taken. He was really lovely with everyone but was especially taken with Zoë. I took a quick picture and was about to leave when he started chatting to Zoë asking her about her ukulele and her new song. I grabbed my wee camera and started filming . . .

What happened next was amazing . . .

He asked Zoë to sing . . . and as she started, Matt and the whole crew seemed more than interested and the camera man went out to the van to get his equipment out so they could catch her on film. It was such a lovely moment and I’m so glad I had my video to hand.

Who knows, they may even use a bit of it in their finished piece. We’ll have to watch CountryFile on Sunday 20th May to find out.

 

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