Book description
This is the tie-in book to a two part BBC 1 documentary series to be
screened at 9. 00pm in October and which will end on the bicentenary of
the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October. Chris Terrill is famous for his
fly on the wall documentaries which have been watched by millions and
received wide critical acclaim. We have had HMS Brilliant and The Cruise
(audience reached 11 million). Chris has based himself for the last few
months in the very heart of the modern day naval experience. We will
see: a Royal Naval Chaplain exorcising a haunted barracks in Portsmouth,
a vodka-fuelled Trafalgar Day celebration in the British Embassy in the
Moscow in 2004, a Polaris submarine crossing the Atlantic on an exercise
in which it will 'pretend' to nuke America, the patrol of the frigate
HMS Chatham in the Gulf, suddenly diverted to Sri Lanka after the
Tsunami and the Fleet Review, where HMS Chatham in honour of her
humanitarian role in Asia, will lead the entire assembly of a hundred
warships, British and foreign, down the Solent. Chris is the only film
maker to be granted exclusive, behind the scenes access by the Navy this
year. During the filming Chris will capture the heart and soul of the
sailors aboard, and on shore: there will be plenty of irreverence,
practical jokes and laughs, and the human reality of the families left
behind for months on end as warships and submarines go on extended tours
of duty. This will be the fullest ever account of the Modern Navy in a
year when the Trafalgar Day celebrations and the Fleet review will
attract an avalanche of publicity. Chris Terrill is a documentary
maker and writer, as well as a photographer. He lives in SE1, London.
