Jim Greenhalf catches up with the author who much prefers Saltaire to Bradford...

Saltaire will feature in a major travel series which ITV are networking, starting on Sunday, November 15: six 30-minute programmes going out at the prime time of 6.30pm.

The series is based on Bill Bryson's best-selling Notes From a Small Island. I caught up with the unassuming American and the crew from Carlton TV earlier this week in Sir Titus Salt's model village.

They were coming to the end of the second week of a scheduled 54-day shoot and were looking forward to three days off. Bill Bryson, moving between a large white camper van called Kon Tiki and the chapel where Salt and his family are interred, certainly looked in need of a rest.

"I've never done anything on this scale before, driving round with a dozen or more people in four or five vehicles every day," he said, waiting to be called for a shot.

The project has already taken producer Allan Sherwin two years to put together. It's being shot with film rather than videotape, so the process is time-consuming. Location shooting is also very expensive. He politely refuses to disclose how much the series is costing, but says it's one of ITV's flagship programmes for the autumn.

Bill Bryson is less than flattering about Bradford in his book. The city does not feature at all in the TV series because he is under the spell of Saltaire, even on a cloudy day of uncertain sunshine.

"Saltaire is probably the most impressive surviving example in the world of a model village built for a particular purpose, a place for people to live and work. It's very lovely, the harmony in the architecture: a very agreeable corner of the world," he said reflectively, puffing on a black curved pipe.

"It's nice to see what uses have been found for this area, that it's not been flattened for B&Q warehouses and Comets."

A photographer from another Yorkshire paper arrived wanting a picture by Salts Mill. The quiet American from Des Moines, Iowa, obliged. Five minutes later, needed by the film crew, he hurried back towards the chapel followed by the photographer who unwisely asked for another picture.

"There's a whole crew waiting," Mr Bryson said over his shoulder with the slightest hint of impatience.

A day's shoot can last up to 16 hours, Allan Sherwin confides as we wait outside. Although Bill Bryson shied away from having a camper van around - an unwanted symbol of stardom - it serves usefully as an impromptu location office where he and director Richard Lightbody can swap script ideas. Sometimes it also serves as a caf where they drink coffee while waiting for the summer to arrive.

The previous day the crew had gone to Malhamdale, where Bryson and his family used to live, but the weather made filming impossible. So they went for a trip on the Settle-Carlisle railway - "the most magnificent piece of railway in Britain", he said.

During another snatched interval in filming I ask Bill Bryson if he can think of any place in the United States comparable to Saltaire.

"Back Bay in Boston, perhaps, but there's nowhere that I can think of that's been built by one man and has survived," he replied.

I asked him if he was aware of the modern side of Victorian Saltaire, the hi-tech electronics industries in and around Salts Mill which had come in during the late Jonathan Silver's time. Had he met Jonathan?

"I never met the man, but I have been in the mill nose to back. I've seen the Hockney Gallery and had a coffee in the Diner. I know about Pace (Micro Technology)," he added.

It will be interesting to see if the programme featuring Saltaire will reflect this dual aspect of the village which has been the secret of its success as a regenerated community. A lot of people just see Saltaire's quaint Victoriana and entirely miss the point.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.