The story behind the ITV drama The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe is so fantastical that one would think it is entirely fictional. But in fact the drama is based on a true story, that of prison officer John Darwin, who had racked up debts totalling more than £700,000 arising from properties purchased for renting out. In order to avoid having to face the music, Darwin set out in his canoe one day in 2002 and ‘disappeared’, presumed drowned, allowing his wife to claim on his life insurance. In fact, Darwin secretly moved into a bedsit right next door to the family home, before sneaking back into his own home the following year.
The real-life location of the Darwins’ home was Seaton Carew on the outskirts of Hartlepool, and this area is where much of the filming for the series took place. The Darwins owned two adjacent properties on The Cliff, living in one of them and renting out the other. For the filming, while Elstree Studios was used for the interiors, the exterior shots were filmed at The Headland, an area near the harbour at Hartlepool which is a 10-minute drive north from Seaton Carew. This was also where the beach scenes for John’s departure by canoe were filmed. The town scenes, including the bus station with its clock tower, were filmed in Seaton Carew itself. As for the beach where John emerged, this was filmed at Steetley Pier, about 3 miles north of Seaton Carew, while the real-life location was North Gare, three miles south of the town.
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| Seaton Carew (32694294543). Photo by Alex Liivet, via Wikimedia Commons. |
Seaton Carew lies near the mouth of the River Tees, and borders on a National Nature Reserve extending from the river mouth to the town’s southern edge. The much bigger Hartlepool grew up around a thriving shipbuilding industry, and the maritime tradition lives on in the form of the Historic Quay, featuring among its attractions the HMS Trincomalee, Britain’s oldest floating warship. The town suffered badly during the First World War, particularly on 16 December 2014, when a raid on the town left 117 dead.
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| Hartlepool Headland- geograph.org.uk - 136636. Photo by Martin Routledge, via Wikimedia Commons. |
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