Family life documented for TV show

8:34pm Wednesday 27th August 2008

An "unremarkable" British family have sacrificed their private life to let 21 cameras into their home for a new, primetime TV show.

Channel 4 spent a year searching for subjects for the fly-on-the-wall series before finding the Hughes family, from Canterbury, Kent.

Now the routine of the Hughes' day-to-day life - from slumping on the sofa while watching TV to the parents' incessant squabbles with their nightclub-loving teenage daughter - has been caught on camera for the nation to watch.

The series, The Family, comes 34 years after the seminal Paul Watson documentary of the same name. The subject of that show, Margaret Wilkins, a mother-of-four, was vilified for her family's use of foul language and for discussing what were then taboo subjects.

The programme was credited with creating the fly-on-the-wall documentary and came 25 years before the likes of Big Brother and The Osbournes.

The latest family, comprised of Simon Hughes, 44, who was recently made redundant, wife Jane, 40, who works for a charity, and their four children Jessica, 22, Emily, 19, Charlotte, 17, and Tom, 14, said they felt that they had nothing to fear from letting the cameras into their home.

The Hughes' were filmed over 100 days and nights and more than 5,000 hours of material was condensed into the eight-part series starting next month.

Instead of using cameramen, the family's semi-detached house was fitted with 21 wall cameras to give the Hughes a greater sense of privacy. Their neighbours also moved out so that the next door property could be turned into a production gallery.

The Hughes family could only enjoy real privacy in the bathroom, where there were no cameras.

Jane, who has been married to Simon for 22 years, said of taking part: "We just had to get on with life very quickly. We got used to the cameras. We forgot they were there. The cameras didn't change our behaviour at all, except Simon had to wear his pyjamas."

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