As regular readers will know, Coran and I live in the beautiful village of Box Hill, in deepest Surrey, which at the end of July played host to the Olympic Road Cycling Races. As Editor and Assistant Editor as we were then of the village magazine, Box Hill News, we hoped to produce an Olympic special to commemorate the Games. Sadly this was not to be, as after 100 hours of work and numerous meetings and other discussions, we were told that the National Trust areas in which we hoped to sell the magazine were to be ticketed zones. It is a long story, much documented on the Internet (at the time) and local press, and the least now said the better.
Good however can come from bad, as it was as a result of this that Coran first posited the idea to instead produce a video - a video for the village and the wider community (and that includes you) documenting not only the Races themselves, but what went on behind the scenes with regard to planning - and an awful lot did.
Coran is well placed for a project such as this, with his own web design business, having worked for the BBC for over 20 years, including as part of the RDS team. This project certainly stretched her own boundaries and taught her many more skills which will no doubt stand her in good stead for the future. I conducted at least one of the interviews myself, and so have also learnt from the experience.
The video, which can be seen above, comes highly recommended by myself (even if I am in it - and you can see me in person also at least twice), features interviews with Andy Wright, Southeast Regional Manager for the National Trust, Lyn Richards, Chairman of the Friends of Box Hill and Helen Shackleton, an independent artist who provided much of the artwork which was placed along the ZigZag for the Race weekend, as well as around the outside of the National Trust centre itself as a permanent feature.
This is our legacy for the Games, and our gift to the village. Enjoy.
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