I just received this message from Chris Wilson. Please reply to him at
[log in to unmask] if you are interested in participating.

All the best,

Giles

I write to ask whether you would be willing for me to suggest your name to
BBC researchers working on OU funded 10 minute regional endings to a new TV
series to be transmitted this autumn (summary outlines attached). Apologies
to one or two of you who have receieved messages from me already about the
series, but this email contains some further information.
'The Natural History of Britain' is an 8 part series going out on BBC1 this
time next year. It is presented by Alan Titchmarsh. The OU is paying for 10
minute regionally based ending to six of the programmes. The 50 minute
nationally transmitted programmes are:
1 Alan's Britain
2 The birth of Britain (geological history)
3 Ice Age Britain
4 Island Britain the last 10 000 years and human occupation)
5 Taming Britain (how humans changed the landscape)
6 Industrial Britain
7 Britain today
8 The Future of Britain.
I have seen some clips form the programmes and am very imprssed by the
stunning photography and imaginative ways that are used to describe
Britain's natural history.
Regional endings to the programmes will be made in Northern Ireland,
Scotland, Wales, and the BBC's English regions. A map is enclosed showing
the BBC's English regions: the South and Southeast regions, and the East
and West Midlands, will combine to make the endings covering their areas.
There will, therefore, be 12 differenet regional endings. Their main
objective is to encopurage viewers to go out and see for themselves and
start being 'landscape detectives'. The programme presenters will be people
who appear regularly on local TV.
In addition to the 60 minute TV broadcasts, it is likely that the series
will get coverage by regional TV news and local radio. The 'Where I live'
sections (there are over 40) of BBC websites will be presenting local
natural history walks desigend to show as many as possible the features
shown in the series. The OU will be prodcuing some follow up print material
that viewers can obtain by calling a number adertised in the programmes, or
by visiting Open2.net (the site for OU funded BBC programmes, which will be
hot linked to the the BBC site). The Natural History Museum is taking a
lead in encoraging museums around the country to put on events related to
the series and will be calling a meeting soon to get this ball rolling.
I am involved in advising on the content of the regional 10 minute endings
to programmes 2 and 3 (plus feeding geological ideas to my colleagues with
programmes 4 and 6), and have been involved in making a pilot version of
the ending of 'Ice Age Britain' based in BBC West. We are keen that OU
people (Milton Keynes and regionally based staff, Associate Lecturers,
present and past students) are seen in the programmes where appropriate,
but there will also be opportunities for national and local experts and
enthusiasts to appear (but it will be up to the regional BBC producers to
make the final decisions). The regional endings will certainly be concerned
with what local people do as much as they showing local aspects of natural
history.
My advisory role is to offer ideas for the reguional endings and put
production teams in touch with local expertise. Making the pilot prgramme
has shown that in the time available it is possible only to cover one or
two locations (or sets of related locations), plus a round-up of quick
glimpses (less than 30 seconds) of other places in a region that viewers
could visit. I am about to offer some suggestions to production teams
concerning the features/themes developend in the 50 minute programmes that
they might follow up in their region. These notes are reproduced at the end
of this message.
If you are willing to have your name given to BBC production teams, they
may contact you for suggestions about places to film (this would mostly be
in the field, but museums are urban landscapes are possible) and people to
interview. The teams are responsible for the content of the programmes, but
I have a quality control role and so will comment on ideas and scripts as
they develop, and also on 'rough cut' versions of the programmes. If you
have ideas you would like to see covered, please let me know so that I can
pass them on.
Best wishes,
Chris
The Birth of Britain: notes for regional/country production teams
Key themes
Listed below are key themes covered in the programme that could be followed
up in 10 minute regional endings (in no particular order) plus a few
features not covered by the but worth considering/exploring in some regions
(indicated by *). I have been very sparing in suggesting the latter
possibilities because it would be difficult to adequately introduce totally
new topics in the endings. The list is not meant to be exhaustive nor
prescriptive.
1 Fossils
1.1 Trilobites
1.2 Carboniferous corals
1.3 Carboniferous fossil plants
1.4 Ammonites
1.5 Dinosaurs
1.6 Others*
2 How the Earth moved in your region
2.1 Caledonian mountain building
2.2 Variscan mountain building
2.3 Alpine mountain building *
3 Molten Britain
3.1 Granites
3.2 Intrusions*: sills (horizontal sheets (e.g. Whin Sill) and dykes
(vertical sheets)
3.3 Lavas (e.g. Giants Causeway)
3.4 Volcanoes and their deposits*, including evidence for past subduction*
4 Britain's northward drift through different climate belts
Including 'Jungle Britain' and 'Desert Britain'.
5 Cretaceous rise in sea-level
6 Rock types
6.1 Three basic types*: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic: could be
covered in urban walk showing building stones, explaining what type they
are, where and how they formed including links to the 'Birth of Britain' story
6.2 Building stones: Lower Palaeozoic slates & Jurassic of S England
6.3 Building stones: other ages*
7 Key rock formations (most of the terms listed below are not used in the
programme for the formations shown)
7.1 Old Red Sandstone (Devonian)
7.2 Carboniferous Limestone
7.3 Millstone Grit
7.4 Coal measures
7.5 New Red Sandstone (Permian & Triassic)
7.6 Chalk
Ice Age Britain: notes for regional/country production teams
Key themes
Listed below are key themes covered in the programme that could be followed
up in 10 minute regional endings (in the order that they appear in the
script that I have) plus a few features not covered by the but worth
considering/exploring in some regions (indicated by *). I have been very
sparing in suggesting the latter possibilities because it would be
difficult to adequately introduce totally new topics in the endings. The
list is not meant to be exhaustive nor prescriptive.
1 Caves and remains of ice age faunas
2 Raised beaches
3 Extent of ice sheets
4 Scenery produced by glacial erosion (U-shaped valleys etc)
5 Glacial erratics
6 Diversion of rivers
7 Ice age faunas preserved in glacially related sediments
8 Interglacial faunas and sediments (e.g. mammoths)
9 Glacial features produced by erosion and not included in Prog.2: crag and
tail, roche moutonne, spillways (Newtondale in Yorkshire is in Prog 4 I think)*
10 Glacial features produced by deposition (moraines, drumlims, eskers,
kettle holes etc)*