Follow the Flame

Olympic gold medalist Amy Williams

Another day, another early start. The Olympic torch arrives with it's huge entourage in Somerset and shines it's wonderous light on my town.
Cameras packed, lenses cleaned but must pop into the nearby garage. Not fuel, have to stock up on chewy mints now that I don't smoke any more. Sad but true.
Only received my accreditation for the media truck yesterday so I am not sure what to expect. Have lots of concerns like, is anybody going to turn up, what is the like going to be like and more importantly will I get a good view of proceedings.
The Gazette has eight pages to fill with pictures and I have photographers at Ilminster, Yeovil, Ilchester and Somerton. It's going to be a fun day.
On arriving in town i soon realised I need of worried the amount of people turning up. There ended up being thousands of people prepared to get up early and line the route. Yeovil really did themselves plan.
For a photographer the great thing about these sort of events is that everyone is in a good mood and more than willing to shout, scream and wave for you.
The media bus arrived on time and I had about two minutes to get my self strapped into special photographer seats places at the rear so we preceded the torch bearers by about ten metres. I have to say the event organisers were on the ball and the whole event was superbly organised.
Then the first torch is lit from the original flame and we are off. I am sat on the truck with a photographer from the Press Association, who was onboard the bus all day- now he earned his pay, a one man tv crew and the torchcam.. Some of the bigger town's and cities had a lot more but this was fine for me.
The view from the bus was strange as you couldn't see behind you and didn't know was about to happen.
I can't remember much else about the day as it was all over in about 30minutes apart from people jumping in the streets to take pictures in front of us and being removed by the guards for their own safety and luckily to ensure we got the pictures that we and they needed.

The media bus winds it's way through Yeovil. Picture courtesy of Quedam Centre

It was all over in a flash but my over-riding memory was that of sheer joy on the faces of the selected torch bearers and the willingness of Yeovil and surrounding town;s to embrace the event with open arms.
Then it was back to the office to download and get those pictures on pages. What a fantastic day.