Fame at last!

Oh what a fun day I have had!  The BBC were at Elm Park Library today filming for See Hear!  Yes, and I managed to sneak into the background so I got filmed too!  No kidding, really!  Natasha, from Bookstart kept saying that her marketing people would be miffed, so we let her put her Bookstart Bear on the table (in a much more prominent position!).  She actually had two bears to use - they were twins - and they had to keep swapping around as they got too over-excited!  Josh's Mum was holding them still most of the time as they were really quite naughty!  You watch when the piece comes on tv - she really does keep hold of them! 

This is a picture of the library before we started filming.  Louise, Jan and Danielle were there and had spent a long time making the library look really beautiful for my big moment! 

Danielle was a real angel and made a mercy dash in her car to pick up a treasure box for us to use for filming.  Ok, sorry I am really not explaining what we were filming but I am just so excited!  See Hear wanted to come and do a piece on literacy and deaf children, with a particular focus on Bookstart.  Yes, I know I promised I would do a blog post on Bookstart - I have done the photo shoot for it, so its nearly ready!   Other than me, there was Josh's Mum (from libraries), Natasha (from Bookstart), Val (from Health) and Lisa (the hearing impaired support teacher lady).

The star of the show was little Danny and his mum Emma - they are both deaf and so used sign language - little Danny was so funny because he was playing a game with Natasha and she was teasing him that she didnt know the signs and he kept signing that she had the signs wrong and then laughing and showing her the right sign.  They ended up joining the library and taking books out with them - Emma had thought that Danny didnt like books but he really did and had so much fun taking all the books off the shelves and throwing them on the floor!

There was also a lovely lady called Claire from press office - she was very shy and just would not have her picture taken with me!  And there was also Gareth and Danny from the BBC - they were such nice guys and seemed to really enjoy their lunch at Greggs the Bakers up the road!

This was me and Director Danny - I got to look through the camera and held the big fluffy sound thingy for a while - but it was quite heavy and made my arms ache.
And, this picture was with Gareth as well.  Gareth was writing everything down as we filmed it - so he was the one who knew what shots were needed - things like Natasha had to hold some books up but she had to make sure she held them in the same hand that she had used earlier so Gareth had it written down!  I got on really well with them both and am waiting for them to ring me up and ask me to star in my own programme!

This picture shows the people who were in the filming.  You have seen Natasha before on this blog, but you might not recognise her today as she had done her hair especially for the cameras!!  She has this rather strange puppet, which Lisa said was quite scary!  Lisa is the lady holding me - she does look like an expert the way she is holding me doesnt she...and look at that smile!  Val is the lady in the middle - she is so kind and lovely - she was the nursery nurse who came round and saw Josh when he was a baby!  She comes and does work with libraries when she gets the time and she is also our Bookstart link with health in Havering.

This is a picture of the twins....as you can see, I had to hold onto them quite tightly as they would not keep still!

I really had such a great day - it was fascinating watching the filming being done!  The funniest bit was when they filmed each of the people nodding and looking like they were listening to someone talking - they did look very funny!!!

Oh - and if you want to catch my moment of fame....I will be on See Hear on the first Wednesday in February - and also on iplayer after!

Monkey Monkey!