Caravan Site Shambhala

Something quite extraordinary has just happened. Let us hope it is an omen...

Nick was discussing the script with one of his caving buddies, Carruthers (not his real name), over the weekend. He (Nick) said that he couldn't remember where the original Smith (not his real name either) lived. Carruthers (still not his real name) immediately replied that he knew exactly where Smith lived, and, what's more, that the site still existed. Needless to say Nick was dumbfounded that this hazy piece of his teenage years was still there for all to see. Carruthers took him out to the site, which had changed a lot in the last 25 or so years. We have to keep the location secret, for various reasons (actually Maj-12 are pressuring us, as are the Bilderberg Group).

Nick emailed me to tell me all about this, and I was gobsmacked. Yesterday evening, he and I visited the site. I never thought I would see it, in fact, I was sure it no longer existed, as a lot of that part of Weston-super-Mare has been developed massively over the last 10 or 15 years. (New estates are still springing up like mushrooms after rain.) It was a part of town that is, to say the least, grim, as it is near both the airport (disused) and the old town tip (also disused, on which they have built a McDonald's - how apt is that?). It is also near the new tip (smellier than a caver/filmmaker/writer after an evening in the alehouse) and also cut off from the town by the railway line, and right next to a large pond that I wouldn't want to swim in.

It's an odd little world. You can easily feel cut off there, the way I'm sure the real Smith did. But the fact that it's still there is somehow a reminder that Smith's world is still with us, that the outsiders, the aliens/immigrants, the mad, the lonely, are still there. And they still have stories to tell. Perhaps our film will be a way of making those voices heard.