ON THE SCENT IN KENT: WHITSTABLE PEARL

Whitstable Pearl, currently showing on UKTV Play, is a light-hearted crime series with a bit of romance thrown in, starring Kerry Godliman as Pearl Nolan, owner of the Whitstable Pearl restaurant, and Howard Charles as DCI Mike McGuire, temporarily relocated to the town from London.  The series makes the most of the location of the title, with many of the town’s sights and landmarks putting in an appearance. 

In the opening episode, in which a body is found in an adrift boat, a strange, otherworldly sight comes into view on the horizon.  These are the Maunsell Forts, built during the Second World War for defence purposes.  Another classic Whitstable landmark seen in the episode as well as subsequent episodes is the Old Neptune, or Neppy, as it is fondly referred to by locals, a white clapboard pub perched on the edge of Whitstable’s shingle beach.

 

Maunsell Army Fort. Photo by Hywel Williams, via Wikimedia Commons.

Whitstable’s harbour, with its distinctive black clapboard sheds and huts and other assorted buildings, some of which form the harbour market, makes a regular appearance in the series, as do the beach huts stretching along the slopes towards Tankerton.  We also get glimpses of the row of beachfront houses backing onto Whitstable’s shingle beach, and of its shopping streets with an assortment of independent shops and galleries.

Harbourside market.

Whitstable is a quirky seaside town with bags of character, best known for its oysters, which are celebrated every year in the form of the Oyster Festival.  The Old Neptune is an unmistakable landmark on the town’s beach, and is probably the best place in town for sitting and admiring the sunsets, which can be seen clearly from here due to the town's west-facing position on the north coast of Kent.  The town’s back streets are full of the handsome clapboard buildings seen in many of the scenes in Whitstable Pearl.  For those who are curious about the Maunsell Forts, there are boat trips which take visitors out to these unique landmarks.

Map of the area.

OIL MAN VERSUS BEACH MAN: LOCAL HERO: PENNAN, ABERDEENSHIRE

If you are looking for a feel-good film in these depressing times, I can recommend Local Hero, made in 1983 and directed by Bill Forsyth.  In the film a rich American oil magnate (played by Burt Lancaster) has his eye on a beautiful stretch of Scottish coastline which has potential as the site for an oil refinery, so he sends a company rep over to check it out.  The locals are keen, seeing the opportunity to make a lot of money, but an eccentric old man living on the beach is refusing to budge.  As well as being a heart-warming story with plenty of gentle humour, the scenery is stunning, helped along by a score written by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

The village targeted by the oil company in the film is called Ferness, but in real life it is the village of Pennan, Aberdeenshire.  Nestling at the foot of cliffs, and consisting of a row of squat whitewashed buildings, the village looks vulnerable to the often angry seas off this coast.  Much of the action centres around the local pub, where the oil company’s rep is staying.  Although Pennan has a pub, this was not used in the film; an ordinary house was used for the exterior scenes instead.

Pennan - geograph.org.uk - 684955. Photo by John Allan, via Wikimedia Commons.

The film was made in the days before mobile phones rendered the old red British telephone boxes obsolete, and there are some comical scenes in which the company rep frantically tries to gather together enough coins to go out to the telephone box to call his boss back home.  The production team used a mockup for the film instead of the existing village phone box, but the original one is still there, and over the years has had many fans of the film turning up to have their picture taken next to it.

Phone Booth Pennan. Photo by Blik, via Wikimedia Commons.

The most striking location used in the film is the beautiful beach with a church which featured in an amusing scene in which the locals gather in the church to hold a meeting, while the oil men stand on the beach oblivious to the line of people filing into the church.  Anyone visiting Pennan on a Local Hero pilgrimage will be disappointed if they are hoping to see the beach, as the real one, Camusdarach Beach, is on the other side of Scotland between Morar and Arisaig on the west coast of the Highland region. The exterior of the church was a mockup covering a house, but the church was based on Our Lady of the Braes near Lochailort a few miles east of Arisaig, which was used for the interior scenes.  A few years ago it was reported that the church was to be converted into a family home.

Camusdarach Beach - geograph.org.uk - 60994. Photo by Lynne Kirton, via Wikimedia Commons.

Pennan lies on the north-facing part of the Aberdeenshire coast, around 10 miles west of Fraserburgh.  Arisaig and Lochailort both lie very close to the route of the Jacobite, or “Harry Potter train”, so film buffs can kill two birds with one stone by visiting the area.  The famous beach is near the Mallaig end of the route, which runs between there and Fort William.

Map of Pennan. 

Map of  Camusdarach Beach.