Girl Guides appear on Waterworld TV programme
The new series Waterworld just starting an 11 week run on ITV on Thursday evenings will show 4 of Wilnecotes girls working hard, learning and enjoying themselves by one of the Midlands waterways. They recently spent a day with a film crew and now eagerly wait to see which parts of the days filming have made it into the TV series.
Chris their Guide Leader took them along to an open weekend on the canal at Lapworth as part of their Guiding programme. Keith Wootton the series producer and his crew filmed the girls at various intervals learning the necessary skills needed to work the locks and the logistics of moving boats up and down a lock flight.
The weekend of the filming took place during a fundraising effort towards a new boat and some of the Guides came to help. £95,000 is needed for a new boat as Tuptonia will soon come to the end of her life. Tuptonia is used to take groups of youngsters out onto the canals to experience life on the narrowboat, respect the rural countryside and learn how to safely use and work locks. All on board get to experience maintaining the engine, steering the boat, working the locks, catering for a large group in a small kitchen and generally living in a confined space. Many youngsters don’t get to experience life on the canals unless its something their parents choose as a holiday maybe. The Girlguiding boat therefore plays an important role in giving them the chance to engage in such activities not normally offered elsewhere.
During the days filming Chris was wired up to a microphone so the film crew were able to record all the conversations and activities going on. It included explaining to the girls how the locks work; explaining to passers by what was going on that day and general conversations with other skippers about the latest gadgets for boats such as satellite navigation systems. Chris remembers one conversation in particular and told us:
I was having a discussion with skippers about the new sat nav systems for boats and how useful they would be. I commented that really on a canal who needs sat nav as you go that way, or that way and pointed to my left and to my right. Having forgotten I had a microphone attached I realised the conversation was being filmed. I can just imagine now how it will be edited for use in the series!
Chris said: “the girls thoroughly enjoyed the day with the added excitement of being filmed and interviewed for TV. They, along with others will be spending a holiday aboard the boat this summer so it was a good introduction into how to use and enjoy the canals safely. Many youngsters lead stressful lifestyles, roam the towns’ streets getting into trouble and generally suggest there is nothing useful to do. Far from it, there’s no better way to unwind and forget about the hot topics such as bullying, personal safety, gangs and general stress than spending time on the waterways. The youngsters learn to respect each other, the rural countryside and other canal users. With all the talk of cutbacks on the waterways recently it will be a great shame if youngsters were to loose out on such valuable experiences. The Guides and myself are now looking forward to watching the TV series and to our forthcoming holiday aboard Tuptonia.”