Family living life through a TV film crew’s camera lens
A Sunderland businessman has revealed what it was like appearing on Channel 5’s The Estate: Life Up North – a ‘docu-soap' about ordinary people in Washington.
The TV series focused on the lives of six families who live or work in the town and was filmed over the space of a few months in 2019.
The four-part series aired back in October last year, however it was pulled from TV schedules before every episode had been broadcast – with the final two added to My5, Channel 5’s on demand service.
Woofs N Scruffs owners Mark and David PottsBrown
appeared on the show with their two adopted sons Kai and Christopher.
Mark has told the Echo about how they got involved
with the show and what it was like while filming was taking place.
He said: "They contacted Woofs N Scruffs as we were expanding, so when they heard that we had adopted two children and were getting married in the same year, they just hit the jackpot with us.
"We had a film crew following us for about five months.
"They filmed our wedding, they were in our house and in our life with the kids which was very strange I must admit.
”During the first few weeks, we’d be getting looks off everyone but eventually we just forgot that they were there.
"I think in the end I was glad for them to be gone.”
Mark added: "It was a nice experience and the kids enjoyed it, that’s the main thing, I wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t.”
Despite the show being about businesses, both Mark and David were keen to get across another important message that is close to their hearts.
Mark added: "We were trying to get across that same-sex couples can adopt children, especially at the ages of six and seven as people don’t like to usually adopt at around that age group.
"Yes, it is a challenge but you can do it so we wanted to get that across to everyone and we’ve had a massive amount of positivity from it.
"To be honest, I was a bit nervous about it but has done us well and it is over with now so we’ll just crack on with our lives now with no microphones hooked up to us.”