THE shocked family of Lynne Nugent ended up facing the cameras when a hopeful phone call put them on national television.

Lynne, a fan of Channel Four's US drama Desperate Housewives, called Richard and Judy after half-listening about a competition based around the series.

The daytime show contacted her to say that they were sending a film crew over a week later. Lynne hadn't realised her family were expected to act out a scene from the latest episode of Desperate Housewives.

Filming was on Sunday at The Feathers Hotel in Ledbury, when 'Mike the plumber', played by Lynne's husband Paul, arrives for a date with 'Susan', alias Lynne in a black wig, having been shot. Not even dad Maurice Harding, of Saxon Way, Ledbury, could escape.

Lynne said: "I've never done any acting before. It was all so funny and we played it for laughs. It was really hammy! My husband wasn't very impressed when told what he had to do and my father was also roped in as a waiter for the scene."

The result was broadcast on Wednesday afternoon but the Nugents, of Riddings Farm, Bosbury, lost out on the prize of a holiday to Los Angeles, including a visit to the Desperate Housewives set, when a rival family were declared the winners.

Lynne said: "We were robbed! We were better than the other contestants, though I'm biased of course!"

The couple's children, Nicholas, seven, and Louise, nine, we not part of the scene but were praised by their parents for being so well-behaved throughout the film shoot.

Although not the winners, the Nugents have been left with a video of their scene and hilarious memories of their time in front of the cameras.

A television crew was also in Ledbury on Tuesday, March 29, when the BBC came to the butcher's shop of John Miles, in the Homend, to take footage for a forthcoming programme concerning additives in food.

Mr Miles sells meat from rare and traditional breeds and his products contain no additives.

He was chosen by the BBC after being one of just three specialist butchers named in a recent food supplement in The Times, the others being in London.

Mr Miles said: My customers couldn't make it out at all when they walked in and saw the cameras!"