Please meet Jeffrey the horse. He’s a lovely tame animal. Not having ridden a horse since an incident at Girl Guide camp in 1985, let alone ridden side-saddle, I was a bit nervous of Jeffrey when I first met him. But he is so well trained that if you accidentally pull even a tiny bit too hard on the reins to bring him to stop, he goes into reverse and starts walking backwards.
He was also completely unfazed by our camera and our sound man’s fluffy boom – but, strangely, he took a dislike to the silver stepladder I used to climb up onto him, and we had to hide it from him.
Anyway, Jeffrey and I are trotting through the grounds of Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire, home of the Fiennes family, in search of the intrepid seventeenth century traveller and chronicler of Britain, Celia Fiennes. She’s just one of the many Restoration Women I’ve been thinking about recently, for a new BBC4 series. Nell Gwyn and Barbara Villiers, the royal mistresses, are of course included, as we spring off from the subject matter of 2012′s Hampton Court exhibition ‘The Wild, The Beautiful And The Damned’, about beauty at the debauched court of Charles II. But we’ve also got Aphra Behn, Margaret Cavendish, and scores of nameless ordinary women to consider too. Read the official blurb here.
Sounds absolutely fascinating, Lucy. When will it be screened, please?
You are very brave; horses bite, I know that because I have been bitten by a horse and it changed my life. Have never been near once since!
Good luck
David
This sounds fascinating, I am really interested in this period. Do you know when the series is going to be broadcast?
The new series sounds really exciting!
please tell us more about the BBC series
What a shameful period of English history! A tyrannical monarch is justly deposed and beheaded, only for his lecherous son to be invited to reclaim the throne after a decade of republican government! I am amazed you can even mention Charles II without blushing in embarrassment!
Looking forward to your new series.
Dear all, ‘Restoration Women’ (working title) will be shown later in the summer, I think, all a bit vague! An alternative working title is ‘Old Charlie’s Angels’. Which do you prefer?
Lucy