Freddie's

It was a horsey colleague of mine who mentioned in the bar late one night that she'd seen a camel, once upon a time, owned by a certain Lady Chichester and trained to perform dressage.

Well you can't ignore something as wonderfully eccentric as that. I eventually tracked Lady Chichester down to her family pile in Wiltshire. A more classical english country manor it would be hard to find.

I spoke with Lady Chichester several times on the phone, the difficulty was arranging a time as she spends much of her time between Los Angeles and London. But agree a time we did and, come the day, it was a fine crisp clear blue autumn morning. For a film maker this is a real treat.

Lady chichester introduced me to Therese, a very friendly, curious and intelligent bactrian camel. A bactrian is a camel with two humps.

Therese eats copious amounts of carrots. If she doesn't, her humps fall over.

Coming from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, Therese sports a fine winter coat of fur. She has performed in Horse Guards Parade in front of the Queen, appeared in the Lord Mayor's show and loves to be the centre of attention.

Throughout the filming Therese was always trying to get into shot, was completely aware of the camera and just demanded to be in the frame at all times.

Lady Chichester was a charming host and along with her friend Martine showed off Therese's personality and jumping and dressage skills.

The thing is, Therese does like to spit a lot. She has two stomachs so is constantly ruminating and gobbing out bits every few minutes. Much of it ended up on me.