On the 16th December 2007 I watched the Hughes family walk back into their home. In the week and a half they had been away it had been transformed, fitted with 21 cameras and 16 microphones. There were cameras everywhere except the bathroom. I watched from next door – a cottage near Canterbury converted into a temporary TV gallery – as the normality of family life unfolded on a bank of hi-tech screens.
That surreal experience of watching the Hugheses wandering around their home was both the first day of a documentary experiment but also the culmination of 15 months searching for the right family. We met families who were desperate to be on television – everything from the family with psychic kids to the wannabe Partridge Family. We met families we really liked but who didn't want to have the cameras in their home. But, as the weeks went by and we talked with more and more families, our search became less about what we didn't want – people who just wanted to be on television, families so extreme the audience would not recognise any of their own lives – and more about looking for a family whose life included the issues we hoped the series would reflect.
I met the Hughes family for the first time in September 2007, with only a few weeks' money left in the budget to search for families. They were full of questions, eager to know more about the idea for the series but at that stage far from being committed to taking part. We really got on though and after a few meetings I was desperately hoping that Simon, Jane and their family would say yes: they were funny, intelligent and sometimes loud. And there was so much going in on in their lives. Tom was growing up fast, Charlotte was starting sixth form and about to learn to drive and Emily was the most open, wilful and funny teenager I had met. To top it all, Jessica, the eldest daughter had just had a baby and was due to get married in the summer.
Behind the scenes on the making of The Family