THE success of Ricky Gervais's TV series, Extras, prompted retired teacher John Robinson to record a diary of his experiences of filming for the singing AA men advert currently being shown on TV.

Since retiring as senior English teacher at Sharples School, John, aged 60, has worked on various series and adverts. Here is his story...

ON the set of a Northern soap. In the bar, the crew setting up a scene. Arthur, my cohort for the day, slightly hearing impaired as I had earlier discovered on an outside location the same day.

On the command "action" you all move to your mark. Not so Arthur. He stays rigid. "Stop", all back to square one. Director not happy. I spot Arthur's hearing aid. Much cajoling and fierce whispering later, my arm around Arthur, I nudge him into place.

Now in the bar. "Wildtrack please - silence on set." This is where nobody speaks, moves or breaks wind. The mikes pick up atmospheric sound, which is later dubbed onto the soundtrack. As one "gaffer" said to me, "These things can pick up a mouse with asthma two blocks away.'"

Arthur fiddling with pint glass on counter turns to me. "It's not real ale in these bloody glasses, John." All eyes turn to me. My smile could betray guilt. It weren't me, honest guv. Director's clipped tone. "No talking on set, run wildtrack."

Arthur still not happy, sips drink in glass. Pulls face. He is going to speak. I seek a trapdoor to Hades. His head turns to me. Sweat begins to creep down middle of spine. A quick prayer. Dear God - kill Arthur. "Stop Wildtrack." Ordeal over. The director, ie God - is happy. I try to round up a lynch mob but cast and crew have moved on.

Six months earlier. "Why not try being a film extra?" This is my mate, Joe O'Byrne, whose film, "Looking for Lucky", I have been cajoled into taking part in. "I'll put you on to this Manchester agency."

Two weeks later, a day's course in the etiquette of filming, some digital photos taken and my ugly mush is on the agency website.

A month on, I am sitting in a vast church hall in Manchester, surrounded by what looks like a load of escaped convicts to rehearse a choral rendition of the Carly Simon song, "You've Got A Friend". In my face a microphone. We have to sing a line each. The director, wearing a crocodile skin-type jacket, rather 60s Retro gauche, I thought, winces at my hoarse croak and moves on.

Some of the escapees are chosen and join the professional singers upstairs, who really do the song justice.

Three am the next Sunday morning. Alarm call. Call time 4.30 am Piccadilly station. Despite being nearer the Grim Reaper and enjoying all the daylight I can get, this is a bit much. To add flavour to the whole event, the coach driver, "Mr. Mute and Obdurate" takes us to Grasmere - how pretty - rather than up the East coast to Wasdale, thus adding two more hours to the journey.

Wasdale at last. Avoiding strangling the driver, we are whisked off to the "chuck wagon" in mud and driving rain. The whole village has been taken up by the facilities vans and crew.

After a hot brew and an egg and bacon barm, we are thrust penguin-like into bright yellow A.A. jackets and shuttled mini-bus wise onto the wilds of Wastwater for filming. Now, as a lover of the Lakes and its hostelries, I look forward to the day ahead.

Blind hope and optimism are dangerous bedfriends. Like lambs to the slaughter we are filed on to the bleak unforgiving shores of the lake. The sleet-like rain lashes across us in remorseless fashion, the wind chill would make a brass monkey cringe.

Our happy band of lapsed church convicts is directed to march up the hills and down, like the Grand Old Duke of York's battalions while straining to sing the wretched song we had auditioned to earlier.

I hear brooding undertones of threats to the director. The "chuck wagon" comes and goes. Once hot food is now wet through. We stand in the back of a lighting van to keep warm. There is mutiny afoot.

"One last take please guys, all singing round the car."

Now, much as I love Carly Simon, though she never replied to my letters, the song is beginning to grate. Suggestions as to where to put the camera, sound boom, lake and director are rampant. Light fades as do we all. I await the shuttle back to base.

Reminiscent of the Escape from Alcatraz, we dismount the shuttle buses and, surprisingly enough, head for the warming lights of the local pub.

Seemingly, some of us are on the British Drinking Team and attempt to drain the barrels dry. Isn't it strange how the human condition can change in the warming glow of pub camaraderie?

Stories of suffering are shared, anecdotes swapped - anyone would think we'd been in the Gulag workcamps for a year rock breaking.

The wags are at the front on the return journey, checking the driver has satnav and calling out each road sign. It is now 7.30 pm. A long day to be made even longer when the police pull the driver off the motorway at Preston.

Once militant driver now compliant, very wary that the convicts have had enough. He turns to the assembled company and asks: "What do you want to do now then?"

With one voice, in an upsurge of joyous revenge, we cry: "Phone the A.A. man. Phone the A.A."