Dear Family

Thank you for your enquiry regarding '1900 House'. This is a unique television project that will be made for Channel 4 by Wall to Wall Television, an independent TV production company. Although the series won't be shown until the autumn of 1999, we are already busy planning the project and are now beginning our search for the family who will be featured throughout all nine programmes.

Our series of programmes will explore just how radically our everyday lives have been transformed by the incredible advances in science and technology over the last hundred years. We decided that the very best way to demonstrate this was to conduct a living experiment by transporting a typical family of today back to 1900. To do so we have purchased, and are now converting, a house built at the turn of the century back to the exact specifications of the era — no electricity, telephone, detergent, penicillin, central heating, TV etc.

The house is located near the Millennium Dome in South East London. We are now looking to find the family to live in the house for three months. Their experience will be filmed between March and June of next year. The series will show the whole story through the voices of each family member, both the good times and the bad!

So what sort of family are we seeking? Ideally we are looking for a family with at least two children between the ages of 3 and 14. You should all have a real curiosity about living in the past, must be healthy, resilient and resourceful and, above all, have a good sense of humour to cope with all eventualities. We're not seeking people with any particular expertise, as we will have several specialists in Victorian matters on hand to give the family the very best advice on how to cope in the house. It's important that everyone in the family has fully considered and is keen to volunteer for our experiment, as this will require a commitment to do so for the full three months.

We envisage that, just as in Victorian times, the man of the house will continue to work and the children will also go to school. It doesn't matter where you live in Britain. We will help in relocating members of our chosen family to a temporary new workplace and school nearby the location of our house. Likewise, true to Victorian life the woman will spend much of her time in the house itself, so if you are currently working out of the home, we will make all the necessary arrangements with employers and compensate for any loss of earnings. I hope this helps explain a little more about our programme. To participate will obviously cause some disruption but the experience would be hugely rewarding, giving our chosen family a unique viewpoint of the twentieth century from the vantage point of where it all began.

Enclosed is a questionnaire which will help us get a better picture of yourselves and your interests. Once again, many thanks for your interest. We look forward to hearing from you.