The filming yesterday with freelance journalist Richard Vobes who is making a video about Shrewsbury and my book went really well.
The film-maker is producing a video about the town as part of a web series called The Bald Explorer, which he is submitting to the BBC.
He has already made the first episode about Lewes in East Sussex. To watch it go to www.BaldExplorer.com
The owner of The Lion Hotel, Howard Astbury, was very helpful in opening up the bedroom where Charles Dickens stayed and also the balcony and the “queer old rail” which the author wrote about to one of his daughters.
Richard, (pictured right with me in the Dickens room), also filmed and interviewed Howard in the Hayward Restaurant and the Ballroom.
For me the highlight of the day was standing on the balcony, watching the shoppers below as Richard and his daughter, Georgie, filmed from across the street.
Looking from the balcony down the historic Wyle Cop, past the black and white Tudor buildings over to the Wrekin it is a view that has hardly changed since Dickens or when Benjamin Disraeli saluted the crowds after winning the acrimonious 1841 General Election to become the MP for Shrewsbury, and eventually Prime Minister twice.
An added bonus for me was that after filming a coach party from a Catholic church in Runcorn arrived at the hotel for afternoon tea. On their day's outing to Shrewsbury they had had Mass at the town’s cathedral before shopping and sightseeing, finishing up at the hotel.
The priest, Father Jonathan Mitchell, invited me to give a short presentation about the hotel’s history over tea, and a number of them bought The Lion Hotel book as a memento of their trip.
Interestingly, many of them said it was their first visit to the town but they had enjoyed it so much that they planned to return.
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