FROM HERO TO ZERO COVER STORY COVER STORY LOCAL HERO MADE THE

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Feb 17, 2008

THE signpost for Pennan, when it comes, is unexpected. No views of the Banffshire coastal village can be gleaned from the main road; instead, a sliver of tarmac slopes dramatically towards the sea. The skies blacken. A startled raven swoops from a fencepost and flies away across uncollected hay bales. An omen, perhaps. The steep descent is best made slowly and with caution. One hairpin bend follows another. A final stretch of road, barely wide enough for a car, and then there they are: the red phone box, the white buildings, the grey surf crashing into the shore. Like so many good pilgrims before me, I have arrived at the fictional village of Ferness, the one-time setting for Local Hero.

It is exactly 25 years since the film was released, making this the silver anniversary. The plot is well-known: an American oil baron (Burt Lancaster) sends his Texan lackey, Mac (Peter Riegert), to buy the Scottish village of Ferness, with a view to replacing it with an oil refinery.

But Mac falls in love with the village and its people.

Written and directed by Bill Forsyth of Gregory's Girl fame, the story meanders towards a happy ending in which nothing is lost and everything gained, insinuating itself as a minor classic. For those who haven't seen it, think Donald Trump with less controversy. And so here, a quarter-century later, I am.

As yet, no-one has come out to meet me. Wind batters my face. The original red phone box a prop version was used by Mac in the film leans unromantically against a damp wall. Last year, 16 girls from Portsoy secured an unofficial world record by squeezing into it en masse. The record remains unofficial only because the red kiosk is peculiar to Britain. And this particular one is a protected landmark.

A recent British Telecom survey revealed that no other public telephone box in Scotland rings more frequently. People call from all over the world, primarily because of the film. As there is no mobile phone reception in Pennan, it is also a lifeline for residents. But today, it is available for Emergency Calls Only. Directly behind the phone box is the Pennan Inn, which also featured heavily in Local Hero, although the interior scenes were filmed in Banff and Lochailort. It closed last summer, when the current owners emigrated to Canada. As yet, no-one has come forward with the GBP350,000 asking price.

Each of Pennan's 45 houses adorns the village's only street in one of two formations: gable-ends facing the sea like shoulders, or taking the worst of the weather face-on. None would have expected an assault from the towering cliff face behind. The landslide on the morning of August 6 last year damaged nearly a quarter of Pennan's homes, up-ending some roofs and spewing mud through doors and windows. It was hardly Pompeii, but the damage means that even now a number of residents have yet to return, pending insurance claims and concerns over further slides. Because the village hall's roof caved in, it is currently out of commission. Along with the inn, it had been the only place for villagers to congregate.

As I walk from one side of the village to another, it strikes me that I may be the only person here.

Looking through windows, at first tentatively but with a growing sense of abandon, I see model boats and folded magazines, coffee mugs and chairs, but no life. One back garden has a knee-high copper Buddha on a shrine; in another, a lonesome gnome has climbed onto the roof of a shed. The waterfront has rusty anchors and washed-up pebbles, a hammock wrapped in on itself on poles.

At the far end of the village there is a shack, not quite run- down but reminiscent of that owned in Local Hero by Ben Knox (Fulton Mackay), the beachcomber who refuses to sell his land. (The actual beach in the film was Camusdarach in Morar. ) The door is padlocked from the outside. A voice from inside is followed by four shrill pips and turns out to be someone on the radio.

Estimates regarding the number of permanent Pennan residents vary, but not by much. Optimists argue for six or seven; pessimists four or five.

Second homes and holiday houses lie empty for months on end. By luck, the owner of Pennan's only bed and breakfast is at home. Sue Johnson, from Derby, has issues with the press because of their handling of the recent landslide.

"The papers were all doom and gloom, " she says.

"I'm not saying the mudslide wasn't bad, but I had guests staying here who were fine about it. When it happened, the council shut the village off for two weeks and very quickly moved a lot of the mud. Then one paper described the village as a ghost town."

Looking around, I might have come to the same conclusion. Last month, the final three damaged homes were declared safe following a repair operation on the cliffs behind the village, but it could be months before the properties are reoccupied.

Liability for the full cost of the clear-up is still being debated between the council and Pennan's laird, Julia Watt. But in the immediate aftermath of the incident First Minister Alex Salmond, the constituency MP, made a useful suggestion: "Let's just get the work done and then have the wrangle about who is paying."