While the film was in production I invited friends family and neighbours to share their thoughts and responses to the ideas behind the film specifically about how we relate to the passage of time. I wanted to create a visual notebook of ideas that would help sustain me and keep me focussed through the year.

My mum was the one of the first to respond with both an email and later by writing a peice on  Saint Styllites who stood on a piller for years. Appropriare saints seemed a bit of a theme and my dad sent me a cartoon about Saint Sysphus.  My good friend Jim Manthorpe sent me a link to one of his time lapse films and another friend Jessica enlightened me to the work of Irena Werning and her Back to the Future project where she took people’s old photographs and recreated them.

Ailidh Morrison from the isle of Eigg wrote me a beautiful poem about time and the Tommy McManmon told me about his dad Mac who had been taking pictures of the same gate for at least ten years.

I included in the responses to the project some of the articles written about it when it got into the press during production in 2012 and the support I got from Radio 4 listeners after it was featured on the news. I also collected responses from the locals living on the Knoydart peninsular.

Some of my favourite responses were peices of music written or sung like those from Henry Darke and Sarah Hill. I also loved the drawings by Rhona and calligraphy from Rufus Gerrard Wright and the beautiful film Pippa Best made me. I  heard from friends I hadn’t seen in a long time like Simon Lynch. But the reponse I loved most of all was a drawing by my friends daughter Mia Lancaster who was aged eight at the time and drew a timeline showing a girl ageing into a bigger girl and then a woman day by day.

 

Here are all of the different responses I received CLICK on the links to look at them.

#1 Email from mum, #3 Jim Manthorpe,  #4 Jessica – Back to future,  #5 Ailidh Morrison,  #6 Mac’s Gate, #7 Emma Lindley, Response #8 Dad, #9 What the locals think, #10 Solargraphs, #11 Mum and the patron saints of obscurity,  Response #12 Abby Boutlebee, Response #13 Mia’s Timeline, #14 The Telegraph and the tabloids, #15 Radio 4 Listeners, #16 Stuart Watson, #17 Portraits of a South African village, #18 Fiona McCade@The Scotsman, #19 Poem received, #20 A Drawing by Rhona, #21 Calligraphy by Rufus Gerrard-Wright, #22 Small cat arrives in post, #24 Simon Lynch who I haven’t seen in ten years, Response #25 Overtime by Claudia Firth, #26 Thomas Thwaites, #27 Sleep Stills by Pippa Best, #28 Henry Darke sings Stay the Same, #29 In memory of Nick Darke, #30 Harry Wootliff, #31 Tommy McManmon, #32 Sarah Hill Sings a Song, #33 Noctuaries by Oliva Humphries