1. WHY AM I DOING THIS?

By Patrick Forbes, series director
I had seen all the stuff about the National Trust reinventing itself and thought, "So what? It's just the leopard changing its spots." Then it started to intrigue me. Some friends in Dorset told me about the passion the Trust arouses down there. You'll find bumper stickers that say "Don't trust the Trust." There are t-shirts where the oak leaves are done like a swastika. My image of the Trust was grey hair and tea rooms.

As a documentary-maker I'm interested in things that stand both for what they are but also tell you something about the human condition. Anything that can generate that level of anger and interest was probably worth looking at.

"The series would cover the battle for the Trust's soul"

I went to talk to the Trust about making the series. Bizarrely they were thinking about approaching us because as part of their modernisation process they thought they should be opened up to scrutiny.

I eventually saw the National Trust's director general, Fiona Reynolds, who's a cautious woman and herself emblematic of what's going on at the Trust. She said, "Okay, I think we'll try this out." As we did so I became aware that for her one of the attractions was that the series would cover the battle for the Trust's soul between the modernising wing that she represents, and the sort of more old-school, tweedy traditionalist who like old houses and that's about that.

As I did some more research it also became apparent that this was an organisation that in every which way reflected a set of concerns about how Britain runs. It runs up against celebrity, weirdly, because they do battle with Yoko Ono. It fights with the middle classes, which is what happens in Dorset. It has to deal with immensely rich and powerful people - Lord Rothschild of Waddesdon. It also has to deal with questions about our attitude towards heritage and history and whether we keep buildings up or knock them down - Tyntesfield.

Curiously, this organisation that we really don't know much about, in a lot of ways reflected many of our obsessions of the last few years. That's what fascinated me as a documentary-maker and one way or the other I knew it was going to be an interesting ride.