Producer Beejal Patel recalls setting out to find a family for series two, meeting the Grewals for the very first time, and watching the family's everyday lives unfold from the production team's portakabin.
Finding the Family
As soon as the first series of The Family went to air in 2008, hundreds of people got in touch to say that theirs could be the 'next family'. By the time the series had come to end, and millions of viewers had got to know the Hughes family, over 2000 families had contacted Channel 4 to say, 'we have our own Emily' or 'My dad's just like Simon', and that's when our search for our next family really began.
For the second series, we weren't looking for the 'next Hugheses', we were looking for a new family through whom we could experience the highs and lows of family life. A family who in their own right could share their daily events, intimate moments and emotional journeys that would touch upon and reflect the lives of others.
The Grewals
The first time I met the Grewals. I had anticipated I would spend a couple of hours with an interesting family and arrange to see them again if all went well. I emerged from their home four hours later and close to midnight. I had completely underestimated what it would be like to spend the evening with seven grown ups and a toddler - especially when the family in question was the Grewals. During that initial meeting, I experienced Arvinder's cries for a 'cup of tea', Sarbjit showing her love through cooking, the Bollywood style story behind Kaki and Jeet's relationship and some tears from Shay as she told me about what she had left behind to be with Sunny. I left the house engaged, moved, excited and thinking that if I could happily give up my Friday night to spend time with them and leave so reluctantly, maybe others would feel the same.
Over the next few weeks I discovered that beyond the funny, charming and at times chaotic family I was getting to know, there were real issues and events at the heart of their lives. Here were three generations of one family living under the same roof. Alongside their individual journeys the next few months would see them pull together for Shay and Sunny's big wedding, and prepare for Kaki and Jeets new arrival.
Life in their back garden
By the time the 28 cameras rigged in their house were first switched on and we watched Sarbjit and Arvinder's first affectionate breakfast banter, we (the production team) had spent weeks setting up a gallery, office, technical room and interview pod in the Grewals back garden from which we could watch their lives unfold. From here, in our portakabins, the teams would be split into two daily shifts to ensure that when Tindy snuck in after a night of clubbing or when Arvinder wanted jam on his toast we didn't miss a moment, nor disrupt the family's lives with a camera crew traipsing through their house. Instead we were able to sit back and capture family life in all its intimate detail.
The tapes we shot would be transported to London every morning - in the end the 1,500 tapes amounted to some 3,500 hours of footage. We filmed across the summer - which at times in our black boxes felt like we were in the middle of the heat wave - and the eight weeks didn't go without its fair share of technical difficulties. The day we experienced a power cut and lost all our cameras and sound was certainly one to remember.
The production team working behind the scenes became a family in their own right, sharing the Grewals daily events. In episode two, when Jeet announced to Kaki he might go back to India, everyone in the gallery was pin silent. No one could fail to be moved when the story unfolding on our screen was the life of a family only a few feet away.
The universal themes of family life
When we started filming with the Grewals we knew we would be making eight one-hour films but had no idea what they would be about, beyond the fact that they were a warm, brilliant, loving family and that there was going to be a wedding and a baby (though neither of these events were due to happen until our cameras would leave the house).
What emerged on the journey to the Grewals big moments were the universal themes of family life we are all familiar with. From the daily exchanges between Sarbjit and Arvinder reflecting 35 years of marriage, the difficulties and effects of pregnancy on a relationship to dealing with a son who despite being 23 is still the baby of the house. What we captured from our time with the Grewals is, I believe, a series we can all relate to and one I hope viewers enjoy just as I enjoyed my time with them.
