French TV film crew Stephane Jacques (foreground) and Quentin Wardavoir learned of the Paris tragedies by text message.
French TV film crew Stephane Jacques (foreground) and Quentin Wardavoir learned of the Paris tragedies by text message.
French TV film crew Stephane Jacques and Quentin Wardavoir just had to carry on with the job at the Central Hawke's Bay A&P Show, worried about the safety of family and friends in the bombings and shootings at home in Paris.
The pair were starting their filming for a 20-minutesegment on shearing when they learned of the tragedy in a text message from France.
Mr Wardavoir's wife, Clementine, was safe but confined to their apartment a few hundred metres from La Belle Equipe, a restaurant on La Rue Charonne, a shooting scene. "She could hear the shooting from our home," said Mr Wardavoir. "Then she could hear all the police and the fire emergency.
"Then the police, and the politicians, told everyone they have to stay at home, don't go out, don't move," he said.
Mr Wardavoir knew of the cafe but hadn't been there, but he had been to one small concert at Bataclan Theatre, the heavy-metal and rock concert venue where the mass-shooting and grenading of hostages on Boulevard Voltaire took place.
Mr Jacques also has an apartment close to one of the scenes of the horror, but his wife was not in Paris at the time, having gone to stay with her mother at the start of a holiday weekend in France. "Lucky," said Mr Jacques, "we have a lot of holidays in France."
Neither of them knew whether they had lost friends in the tragedy, but it brought back memories of the Charlie Hebdo outrage in February where they did know some of those who were involved.
The French pair arrived in New Zealand last Monday to shoot a segment on shearing in the King Country and at the CHB show, along with three other items which will be included in the two-hour peak-time Friday show Faut Pas Rever in March.
They were spellbound by the shearing competition which had a special moment when French shearer Loic Jauberthie, from Saint Soxy, in south-west France was placed third in the Intermediate final.
