BLUE PETER By Kath Hardman and Spice

Waiting for the go ahead!

Blue Peter sent me an email saying they had heard I dance with my dog. How many dogs? What breeds? What music? What exactly do I do?I decided the easiest way to explain was to send them a video of various routines and let them see for themselves.

Three weeks later, thinking they would have viewed the video by now and decided not to make use of anything involving Dog Dancing, I wrote and reminded them that the video should be returned to me. The answer I received was not one I expected. “Could I be available on the Monday to be in London at BBC TV Centre with Dog Number 5 on the video?”

Since I had no copy of the video, I had to ask which dog they were referring to, it was Spice! BUT they wanted me to do a dance for 1 min 45 seconds to a choice from three tracks which they would email through to me and I was to “wear a black trouser suit and to dance in a similar style using skills that were shown by this dog on the video”. This was the Wednesday before the recording was to be done.

By Thursday morning I had received the 3 tracks by email!
I thought the first track was awful “Hollaback” (A rap song), the 2nd track was Rachel Stevens, a very slow love song and the 3rd was “Crazy Chick” by Charlotte Church – and that’s the one we chose. That day, David and I choreographed our short, new routine, then, with his help, Spice and I had just three days to learn and perfect it! Spice loved it as we had included lots of moves she really enjoys doing, which is how she works best.

Kath and Spice waiting to start!!

Monday morning, up at 4:00am David and I along with four dogs set off to London. We arrived at the BBC where the car had what started as a full security check - including looking underneath the car with mirrors. But when they looked inside and saw four dogs (Tipp greeted them in his own unmistakable way) they instantly decided to wave us through with the remaining security checks conveniently forgotten!

The stage was set in the studio – a lovely, large piece of Astro-turf had been laid just for us to dance on. We were shown to a dressing room where we had to leave three dogs and I then whizzed up to the back-stage area with Spice and David.

Take 1… The floor manager asked if I would I just run through the routine but not to put much effort into it as they would not be recording it – just checking for camera angles. How do you tell your dog not to try too hard? Spice gave her all and the first run was very good, receiving a round of applause from all the technicians.

At last we are moving!

We then had to wait 10 minutes for cameras to be positioned -

Take 2… As soon as we started the routine, cameras were wheeling around like Daleks and one camera on a twenty foot boom was swirling around above us like a helicopter – I shouted “STOP!!!!!” They said they were recording – I said I just needed to take time to compose myself and little Spice! I told them we could cope with the cameras moving – it had just been a bit of a surprise for us both!

Take 3… All going well until the Blue Peter Goldie (on lead) pulled the girl off her beanbag and ran to join in with us – this time it was the Producer who stopped the recording!

Take 3	Take 4

So, Take 4… Spice was now getting far too warm and she had worked out that her fur was snagging in the Astro-turf - so no more creeps. But Take 4 completed – a couple of jumps missing but as the Astro-Turf had also started to slide on the floor, I can understand why Spice was reluctant.

They thanked us for taking time out of our day for the filming and assured me it looked great! So after a walk in the Blue Peter Garden to relieve the dogs, off we set back home.

I must say, I was more nervous about seeing what they were televising than I was at the recording!! But having seen the programme on 22nd August, I think Spice did me proud and, yes, she worked hard for her Blue Peter Badge!

Phew!!! I did it!

Kath Hardman.