The Family That Walks On All Fours

Our driver, Veysal, stares at the ground and shuffles his feet, then whispers: “You must leave. Now. It is very dangerous to stay.”

That’s when my cameraman and partner, Jon Lane, draws himself up to his full height and says, “Well, you’re going to have to shoot us then because we’re not going.”

If it was anyone other than Jon, I might have wobbled. But Jon was an ITN cameraman for 17 years, covering nasty conflicts in some of the maddest places on earth. He knows how to look after himself and I know he won’t put our lives in danger. Still, everyone around us is doing a blindingly good impersonation of being scared witless.

“If you shoot us,” continues Jon calmly to the soldier, “you will be on the BBC news tonight.” (Great! Fame at last!) “Do you really want to take that responsibility?”

He’s judged it well. Turkey’s human rights record is a stumbling block to their acceptance into the EU. This local officer simply can’t take that kind of decision. We tell him we’ll leave later that day and he backs down – although the patrol keeps watch from the roadside. When we do finally leave, we take the precaution of hiding our precious rushes (video footage) in a haystack and arrange for a courier to collect them for us later.

That edited video footage was seen nationwide in the US when “The Family That Walks on All Fours” re-aired recently on PBS as part of the prestigious science series, NOVA. The film first aired in the UK last March and has sold to over 30 countries, securing BBC Worldwide’s biggest-ever sale for a single documentary.

Chuffed? You bet. Passionate Productions is just me and Jon.