When the dream of a home turns into a living nightmare
HEARD the story about the woman who sent her partner to buy a two bedroom flat in Glasgow and he came home with an uninhabitable, money pit of a villa in Dunoon?
Rather puts into perspective that recent argument with your other half over bringing home the wrong type of milk.
“There were quite a few tears,” says Claire Segeren, 23, from Toronto, whose boyfriend Cal, 26, from Hull, was the hapless soul who accidentally bid on the wrong unit at auction.
What happened next is set out in a new documentary series, Accidental Renovators (BBC Scotland, Friday, 7.30pm).
Finding out the bid was legally binding, the couple wondered what to do. The place had been lying empty for dozens of Dunoon winters so it was in a state of near collapse.
Tear it down and start again the couple were advised. They chose to stay and try to fix it, despite having no experience of renovation and just £10,000 left in the bank. Oh, and being environmentally principled sorts they wanted to do the job sustainably, natch.
After the tale of Jameswood Villa in Dunoon was posted on social media the story attracted attention from Wales Online to Fox News. Donations came in, totalling £3000. Other people offered their labour in return for a place to stay, food, and trips around the local area on days off. Peggy, a volunteer from Virginia, says she backed her fellow millennials (people born in the 1980s or 1990s) “because we never get good stories about us”.
The locals were supportive too. Mary and Ann, neighbours, brought soup and sympathy. Mary also asked if they were off their heads to take on such a project. At this point I was firmly on the side of Team Mary. You know on Grand Designs when it reaches the dead of winter and the build is mud and mayhem, and you wonder who on Earth would expose themselves to such grief? Well Cal and Claire are in that situation with knobs on (or rather off; they don’t have a roof yet never mind doors). They do have a caravan on site, but that hardly looks one star never mind five.
Narrated by Gail Porter and told in four parts, Accidental Renovators is as much a study of a relationship as it is the story of a build. Watch through the fingers stuff, definitely to be viewed from the safety and comfort of the sofa.
Classic television drama Our Friends in the North (BBC4, Wednesday, 10.10pm,11.20pm, 12.25am) is given a welcome repeat, beginning this week. Written by Peter Flannery and first aired in 1996, the epic tale spans the years 196495, following four pals from Newcastle as they make their way in the world (or not).
Our Friends in the North was watercooler telly back in the pre-Covid days when offices still had watercoolers. Critics tipped its core cast of then unknowns – Daniel Craig, Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee, Mark Strong – for stardom, and so it proved.
The awards-winning series has featured on many a telly best list, so it will be fascinating to see if it has aged well. One of the coolest
moments, if memory serves me right, was the closing scene of troubled Geordie (Daniel Craig) crossing the Tyne Bridge to the sound of Oasis singing “Don’t Look Back in Anger”. The perfect marriage of song and moment.
Simon Reeve’s South America (BBC2, Sunday, 9pm) finds the intrepid broadcaster and writer travelling the length of the Americas, some 4000 miles, starting in Venezuela at Mount Roraima. It’s a stunning location, spoiled only by the presence of … toilet paper. “What the hell is that doing here?” shouts Reeve, speaking for us all.
The clash between humankind and nature is the theme running through the five part series, with deforestation of the Amazon highlighted as the greatest threat to the future of the planet. Reeve visits a group of indigenous people who recall how their ancestors were all but wiped out by the diseases brought in by foreign invaders. As Reeves continues his journey, the news is increasingly dominated by stories about a new virus, one with a similar disregard for borders. It’s Covid, and it will be 20 months before Reeves can return to his project.
When he does he finds the deforestation has become worse. But where there is life, and good people, there is hope, and as ever Reeve makes it his job to find them. As the series continues (all episodes are on iPlayer from Sunday) he meets conservationists leading the fight to save the golden lion tamarins of Brazil. Having come close to extinction in the 1980s, they are now being vaccinated against yellow fever. Reeves calls this “muscular conservation”. I like the sound of that.
One for the diary: the new series of Strictly starts at 6.10pm next Saturday, September 17.
Where there is life, and good people, there is hope, and as ever Reeve makes it his job to find them