The second episode of Scotland's Biggest Families brings coronavirus trouble, new café launches and the banning of screens in the household.
This three-part documentary series captures the highs and lows of life inside Scotland’s biggest families. Filmed over the course of a typically energetic and eventful 12 months, the series follows the fortunes of the Sullivans in Lossiemouth and the Hanns in Dundee.
Roy and Emma Hann are parents to Scotland’s biggest family. They have 13 children - with eight still at home in their six bedroom semi-detached house in the west of the city. The couple were brought up in the Mormon faith where they were taught not to delay having children.
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They reflect on that experience which has shaped their lives and talk about the emotions and challenges involved when they moved away from the church six years ago. In this episode, Emma is working at a café in Dundee city centre – her first job since she was pregnant for the first time.
With Emma now out of the house more often and sometimes doing morning shifts, the family has to adjust and some of the older children are called on to help the younger siblings get ready for school. For Roy and Emma, one of the big changes they’ve had to come to terms with over the years is the increased use of mobile devices by their children.
As a fun experiment, the children agree to hand over their mobile devices to see how they cope without small screens for a week. Meanwhile, Polly, the Hanns’ third oldest sibling, and her husband Michael, call in family reinforcements as they launch their own café, above the farm shop they run near Alloa.
Ninety miles north of Dundee, Ben Sullivan, an engineer at the nearby Royal Air Force base, and his wife Zoe, who used to work in administration, share their four bedroom home with their eleven children – and there’s a new baby on the way.
Remarkably, two sets of Sullivan twins have their birthdays on the same day. Erin and Leah have been up since early morning waiting excitedly to open the presents for their sixth birthday. But teenagers Charlotte and Isabelle opt for a lie-in before getting up to begin their fourteenth birthday, then it’s off to the bowling alley and a local restaurant for the quadruple family celebration.
Zoe is feeling more anxious as the big day approaches, stepping up the cleaning and other activities around the house to keep herself busy. Then with just three weeks go before Zoe is due to have the baby there’s unwelcome news. Zoe, Roy and seven of the children all test positive for Covid.
Scotland's Biggest Families returns to BBC One Scotland on Monday, November 7 at 8pm. The previous episode can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.
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