On the weekends and Day's off I used to drive over to the Holmfirth area on the off chance of catching them filming, then on one Sunday morning there they were outside Auntie's shop, I got chatting to another fan who regularly travelled up from Buckinghamshire who helped me with info re filming dates, so we arranged to meet up the following week, as he was staying in a B&B locally for that week.
Except for a few days filming in Marsden or the centre of Holmfirth, they could be filming just about anywhere in a 20 mile radius of Holmfirth, there was several tricks used to find where they were, one would be to get to the base camp early (6 am) then when the portable loo's left the camp, follow it. Often in those days there would be markers tied to lampposts or street signs, with LOC printed on it pointing in the direction of filming locations, so we could follow these, sometimes we would get on the highest hills and using binoculars look around and look for the set lighting and then work out where they were.
If you could get sight of a call sheet for the next day that made life easy, this would appear on set mid afternoon with details of the next days locations, some days they would be filming on private land, so without a invite there was no point in going. Saturday was the only day they did not film, they used to do a 6 week block of filming starting the Easter Sunday, then return for around 4 weeks on the late August bank holiday.
So twice a year they would erect the frontage at Auntie's shop, this seemed odd why they would do this twice a year, so I asked the set designer at the time Stephan, he explained that when they filmed early in the year only the scripts for the first 5 or 6 episodes were complete, so they would film those and then go to the studio's and film the internal bits, then return in August to film the rest of the external bits, then back to the studios to complete the internal bits, it was then a rush to get them ready for screening in front of an audience for the laughter track.
Now I was armed with when they used to film life was easier, no more wasted trips to try and find them when they weren't there , though when they first returned the following year they could be anywhere, but I now had a secret weapon to find them, more next time
Except for a few days filming in Marsden or the centre of Holmfirth, they could be filming just about anywhere in a 20 mile radius of Holmfirth, there was several tricks used to find where they were, one would be to get to the base camp early (6 am) then when the portable loo's left the camp, follow it. Often in those days there would be markers tied to lampposts or street signs, with LOC printed on it pointing in the direction of filming locations, so we could follow these, sometimes we would get on the highest hills and using binoculars look around and look for the set lighting and then work out where they were.
If you could get sight of a call sheet for the next day that made life easy, this would appear on set mid afternoon with details of the next days locations, some days they would be filming on private land, so without a invite there was no point in going. Saturday was the only day they did not film, they used to do a 6 week block of filming starting the Easter Sunday, then return for around 4 weeks on the late August bank holiday.
So twice a year they would erect the frontage at Auntie's shop, this seemed odd why they would do this twice a year, so I asked the set designer at the time Stephan, he explained that when they filmed early in the year only the scripts for the first 5 or 6 episodes were complete, so they would film those and then go to the studio's and film the internal bits, then return in August to film the rest of the external bits, then back to the studios to complete the internal bits, it was then a rush to get them ready for screening in front of an audience for the laughter track.
Now I was armed with when they used to film life was easier, no more wasted trips to try and find them when they weren't there , though when they first returned the following year they could be anywhere, but I now had a secret weapon to find them, more next time
