If you can get Youtube on your TV at home - sit back and enjoy a bit of Newlyn drama courtesy of the Heather Anne, written by ex-fisherman John Oakden and filmed on location in and around Newlyn!
Back in the 1980s when Cornwall's very own Susan Penhaligan who starred in a Bouquet of Barbed Wire spent a month in Newlyn while filming the TV drama, Heather Anne. The story of of an out of luck skipper who, instead of a bumper haul of fish which hopes to solve all his financial woes, he goes and trawls up a torpedo instead. The drama also starred Jack Watson, Maurice Roeves (Danger UXB) and Judi Spiers (newsreader) amongst others. The writer went on to become one of the original scriptwriters for the Ch4 soap, Brookside.
The boat in the starring role belonged to Basil Hendy from Porthleven, the Les Deux Marcel and was unusual in that it worked a single beam trawl towed off the stern. Aside from all the drama at sea and to-do with the financial and love-life woes of the main protagonists there are plenty of scenes in which to spot locals in walk-on roles who just happened to be in the background of shots inside the fictitious pubs and around the Old Quay.
Maximum points of you can identify BOTH pubs which were used and the cottage that was Susan Penhaligan's TV home, her fictitious matrimonial home sporting a figurehead in the front garden was at that time home to a certain Pirates rugby player and local driving instructor.! Bonus points if you can name the blue and gold macaw that appears briefly in one of the pub interior scenes - it's home was normally in the foyer of the Smugglers Hotel where most of the cast and crew stayed while filming was underway. Apart from its cameo role, the macaw has another claim to fame in that it is probably the only such bird ever to have been killed by a hit-and-run driver - hotel owner Dave Reeves accidentally left the door of the hotel open while cleaning out its cage when the bird spotted its chance for freedom and made good an escape out of the foyer door, on to the road and straight into the path of a passing car - by the time Dave realised that the bird was missing all that was visible were dozens of blue and gold feathers blowing up and down the road!
Who knows what dramas will unfold in the future in Newlyn?!
