The Last Word Film Shoot.

It's that time of year when I start to look for alternative means of employment, primarily to keep me occupied and pay my bills. Some tour operators spend their winters living off their seasons earnings and next years deposits, me I just go to work. In winters gone by I have done an assortment of jobs to pass the time. One of them you can read about in a previous blog " The Grumpy Bus Driver in Bristol ".
When I caddied on The Old Course I put myself through university and eventually got a degree in modern history. The long term plan back then was to become a teacher a path that I abandoned when I realised that teenagers are close to the top of my list of dislikes. After completing university I went to Florida for a couple of winters only to discover that caddying here in Scotland and caddying at a Florida country club are two completely different jobs. Here caddying is a skill, it's about knowing your golf course, reading greens and weather conditions something you get better at with experience. In Florida it's about cleaning golf clubs and kissing ass, to be honest a chimpanzee could do the job and probably better than some of the caddies I met ! So needless to say I was quite happy to give that nonsense up. At some point in the future I will write about my time there if just to keep Maurice amused.
Until the last couple of winters I worked in the care industry helping people with learning difficulties, now that is an experience that I learnt of lot from. The last four winters were primarily working with young men who are autistic. I had the good fortune to work with people who would be placed at different levels on the autistic spectrum, from those who were severely challenging to many aspergers people who would be at the top end of the spectrum. A lot of people can be very patronising towards these guys without intending to do so, me I have great admiration for them as they manage to maximise their abilities everyday. How many of us can say we do that ? Again another blog for another day. Which brings to how we ended up working on the film shoot for "The Last Word".
During the summer I did the occasional little bit of work for a company called Courtney Travel, a transport company west of Glasgow owned by Jim Gaw and his Father-in-Law Harry. Jim has a full time staff but every so often he needs extra drivers. My first experience of working with Jim was driving the rock stars and entourage to and from a festival called "T in the Park". An eye opener to say the least.
The first day I had to transport the crew of Franz Ferdinand back from the concert to their hotel in Edinburgh. The second day I had the misfortune of collecting Glasvegas and transporting them to and from Glasgow. The band themselves were OK but the lead singer has an attitude that has to be experienced to be believed. By 1am the next morning I'd had enough of his constant moaning and bitching and my red mist descended, we were very quickly kept apart by his manager and fair play to the nuss he did have a remarkable change in attitude on the journey back. By the time we had returned to Glasgow the coach was the best thing since sliced bread and the singer thought it would be a good idea to take it and the driver on their next tour of Europe. Personally I'd rather stick a live wasp up my backside than contemplate another minute with them. The final day I had to collect Nathan the guitarist from Snow Patrol and his family from Edinburgh and take them to and from the festival, nice people. Isn't it strange how the coach is good enough for a class act like Snow Patrol, top of the bill and sold millions of Cd's, yet not good enough for some wannabees from Glasgow ! Funny world we live in !
Anyway I digress, I ended up driving the minibus on the film set of " The Last Word" due to Roy Andersons land of unfulfilled promises. Roy owns McLaren Travel a transport company specialising in golf tours, at the start of the season Roy promised many tours and a lot of work. I'm still waiting Roy ! So having a gap in my calender I was only too pleased to help Jim and myself, plus I got to experience something new. Now I am not the greatest film watcher and an even rarer visitor to the cinema, suffice to say I had no idea about the goings on that go into making a film. It is indeed a very unusual world.
Firstly the job of the minibus driver on a film set is very simple, you transport whoever and whatever from A to B as and when directed. In terms of status you are definitely at the bottom end of the food chain, but there are a lot of people like myself down there. The film set itself will consist of two bases; The Unit Base which will house an assortment of mobile homes and offices, consisting of mobile homes for the star actors/actresses, offices for the production staff, make up department, costume department, a catering van and dining room and toilets etc. The other base is the location where the production company are making the film. The minibus driver normally transport whatever is required from one to the other and back again. This could be anything from camera crew and equipment, members of staff, costumes and the tea and coffee, plus whatever else someone has forgotten to take with them.
The most amazing thing for me was this whole village can be taken down and re-assembled overnight wherever the filming may be taking place the next day. Considering that people would start work on this set at 5am (or some earlier) and not finish till after 7pm, the facilities crew do a remarkable job. They completely re-house this small village overnight and manage to supply it with electricity and water. Now I know that the minibus driver does not have the worst job on set.
The actors have their own chauffeur driven transport, the only actors the minibus gets to collect are the extras. Although on this film I did often transport young Richard Mack to and from home, a promising young actor who thankfully suffers from a lack of ego, hopefully he will stay that way. One of the drivers was a guy called Jass Brown who has driven over the years for all the lead actors on films made in this area, you could write a book on the snippets of gossip he let you into. Jass was looking after Ewan McGregor who is the lead actor in the film. The leading lady is Eva Green, apparently the "Bond Girl" in Casino Royale. It's amazing how different people look in real life compared with what you see on the screen. I don't mean that in any detremental way, many people you believe to be bigger or heavier, Eva for example although very pretty could definitely do with a good dinner.
As for the film itself I have very little to no idea what it is about, as there is no book on sale yet. From what little I saw and heard it appears that some virus is killing all and the stars need to find a cure asap. But to find out how true that is I guess we will have to wait until the film comes out.
The thing that struck me the most is how long the days are, the actors are on the set for twelve hours and we are there before they arrive and after they leave. As I have said before if you ever watch an interview on TV and the actor/actress say there work is very boring well believe me it is. What you eventually see on the screen bears no resemblance to what takes place when the film is being made. Suffice to say it was an interesting week or two and I got to learn about something new.
At the moment I am working on another film set which is travelling all around Scotland filming in the most remote places. The film is called "The Eagle of the 9th", all about a Roman Legion that was sent to Scotland and disappeared. If they experienced the weather I have over the last two weeks it's not a mystery that they disappeared believe me. This week we are off to Loch Maree, Applecross and Glencoe, one of the three I have heard of. I'll let you know how it goes at a later date and the story behind the leading mans burning testicles !

The Eden Club Founders Cup.

After our little golf tour it was time to go back to work, this time with a company called The Eden Club. For those of you that wish to know a little more about this organisation you can look them up at http://www.theedenclub.com/. You will find the information you need on that website.
The work is very different from the normal service I provide and it really is nothing more than a chauffeur service for some wealthy people. The interaction we normally have on our golf tours doesn't occur on these events, it's just a case of transporting people from A to B, with a smile of course.
I've done this job for the last five years or so, thanks to my working relationship with Max Espie and his partner Mick Moore. They are both responsible for the logistics at The Eden Club in St Andrews. The work is bearable because of their camaraderie and craic ! In the early days we enjoyed the work the pay was good and we only worked a twelve hour day because all the members stayed at The Old Course Hotel. Therefore all the evenings dinners and entertainment was in the hotel, so once we had got them all back from the golf courses we were free for the rest of the evening.
The dynamics of this job changed a couple of years ago when the club purchased and renovated Pitormmie House, which is a ten minute drive from St Andrews. Now the members who stay at The Old Course Hotel have to be transported to Pitormmie House for their evenings entertainment, thereby turning what used to be a twelve hour day into an eighteen hour day and all for the same money ! As is fitting with the image of The Eden Club Pitormmie House has been renamed Pitormmie Castle, which only goes to confuse the local cab drivers.
The Founders Cup is a tournament for members and their guests, they play a Stableford Competition on three courses, The Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, so the job involves transporting the guests from their accommodation to the courses and back, then when they have showered and changed up to Pitormmie Castle for their evenings entertainment.
So far this summer The Eden Club has supplied me with over thirty days work so I'm hardly likely to say anything untoward in this article, but there is many a time when I am working for them I can't help thinking that things could be so much better, if the powers that be just stopped and thought for a moment.
Poor Mick and Max have been run ragged all summer along with their part time assistant Frank, I don't know what these guys get paid but I don't think it's enough for what they have to put up with. Meanwhile the members receive a first class service unaware of the difficulties that go in to providing that service. Suffice to say that once my four days service was complete I had the pleasure of catching up with some sleep, meanwhile 'Pick & Mix', as they are commonly referred to continue with their long days. Good luck guys !!

Royal Troon Golf Club ( Portland Course )

The final round of our three day golf outing was a game at The Portland Course, at Royal Troon. Stewart Watt is a member here so much to Decky's delight we got a cheap round ! Turned out to be a lot cheaper than we thought as Stewart wouldn't take any money off us.

Royal Troon normally offers a round on the Portland Course as part of its all day package, which includes a round on the Old and lunch. A lot of visitors tend to overlook the round on The Portland as they don't want to play thirty six holes, I have been guilty of this in the past myself. Having now played the course a few times I can honestly say don't overlook it, if it is on your schedule play it, you will enjoy the visit.

In many ways Royal Troon is like St Andrews, people generally only visit the place because they want to play the Old Course and the package that most of you sign up to will include either the New Course or The Jubilee ( or most recently The Castle Course, more about that thing at a later date), in this case The Portland Course. Once the wish of playing these famous courses is completed most golfers view the add on courses with some disdain, I say underestimate these lovely golf courses at your peril because it will be your loss if you choose not to take up the chance to play them.

The Old Course at Royal Troon will always be in my top five golf courses in Scotland. I really like the gentle start where the first few holes can lead you to believe that the course is not that difficult. However I think the back nine, particularly into the prevailing wind is as difficult a finish as any course I've played. I include Carnoustie in this because regardless of the wind conditions there I have always scored better at Carnoustie than Royal Troon.

The Portland Course on the other hand is very different from The Old Course at Troon. There are some great holes and they are not necessarily too long. Having said that I have been fortunate that every time I've played there the wind has decided to take the day off, but I can imagine that some holes will play long on a windy day, but I'm in no rush to discover that ! Many of the par fours and fives are not necessarily a driver off the tee, particularly you long hitters, I can take driver off them all. The par three's I like my shortest club was a six iron at the tenth.

Anyway lets get down to the nuts and bolts of the day. Stewart and Chip played Decky and myself although we won the first hole by default the way Stewart started we thought we were going to get a spanking. Stewart hits the ball so far for a man of his size and age it's ridiculous. So when he hits it straight as he did this morning he is impossible to beat. Luckily for us he returned to normal on the back nine and was soon fishing for his ball in the rough like he was yesterday. Decky and I scrapped home on the seventeenth with a nice birdie.

After the game Stewart invited us back to The South Beach Hotel, (which is owned by his family) for some lunch, which consisted of homemade soup and some salmon for main course. He was indeed the perfect host for the day and for that we would all like to thank him. On top off that we wish him all the best and a speedy recovery for his Mum. A lovely man with a heart of gold but I wouldn't swap his troubles for mine so I wish him all the best, and thanks again for a great day.