The world from my window

When we got wind that a major film was being made in west Dorset last year, it was the talk of The Enchanted Village. We were to be the epicentre, twixt Yetminster, Salway Ash and Blackdown where many of the scenes for Tamara Drewe were filmed. A house we passed every day suddenly had a new fence. Not just any new fence, but a wibbly-wobbly, rustic-style fence. It looked like something from Babe . ‘Why would anyone put up such a stupid, hideous fence?’ my friend Pelly asked, before we realised this was the location for the ‘writers’ retreat’ run by central characters Beth and Nicholas Hardiment. And then the trailers began to arrive. Cars and vehicles parked under an electricity pylon in the middle of a field. The Tamara Drewe Circus had come to town. There was money to be made, deals to be struck. Celebrities wandered through Beaminster, flash cars drove through our lanes and a catering truck paid to park on the village allotments. There was swooning from period drama fans ...

Well, the village wedding has been and gone and we all have the warm glow that follows a lovely bank holiday weekend. My friend Pelly's Number One Daughter was married to her soulmate in the wonderful setting of Forde Abbey, which nestles inside the Dorset border, with just a nod to neighbouring Somerset for its postal address. There were gasps when the bride walked in with her father to a score composed by the Cinematic Orchestra , as the huge log fire blazed in the great hall. A Jane Austen heroine, she took the arm of her husband-to-be, who in the film would have been played by a young Hugh Grant or maybe Dominic Cooper. There was even a distinguished wedding guest in a kilt. And the assembled throng sniggered when the registrar asked the bridegroom to repeat the words: 'I Timothy St John Dauphinois Sutherland...' The guests gathered below the abbot's lodgings and tower (built by the last abbot, Thomas Chard, in the early 1500s) for a group photo as the female photog...

A little while ago, I told you about a film being made around these parts. Loosely based on Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd , the story centres around Tamara Drewe, whose comic strip adventures were told by Posy Simmonds in The Guardian. It's been directed by Stephen Frears and stars Bond Girl Gemma Arterton (pictured below in the TV role of Tess of the D'Urbervilles ): and Mamma Mia eye candy Dominic Cooper (seen here in the role of Willoughby but described by the press as the New Mr Darcy): For some, the film has been the biggest thing since locals tapped into the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Whisky Galore barrel. Thousands have been made by those switched on enough to let their homes to cast and crew. Others I know have also made a pretty penny, contracted to provide services to the stars. And all of us have seen the vehicles roaring through and the coded signs springing up on lamp-posts here there and everywhere. This is the one three strides away from my house...