Shirley's Visit to Hastings - Location Filming, Series 2, August 2003


Yep, this'd be the right place.

I arrived in Hastings at about 1pm on Friday, August 1, which was a little later than I meant to. I followed Gerda's directions and found 31 Croft Road without too much trouble (Foyle's house), but when I got there the street was empty, with no sign of a film crew. I'd been told they would start at midday, but I was afraid that I was too late and had missed them completely. I sat down on a low wall across from the house, and while I was taking a couple of pictures, a guy in a yellow safety vest came out of one of the other houses and stood right in front of Foyle house and started fiddling with a cell phone. I went and asked him if he knew if a film crew was there, and he said "One of them is" and said the rest would be there in about an hour. But when I asked him if Michael Kitchen would be there, he said no, he had finished filming last week.


Setting up the cameras.

I hadn't had lunch yet, so I went off to do that. When I came back, there were people milling around, and a table of refreshments set up, and a lot of trucks parked around the corner. I started to change the film in my camera. There were a couple of people standing at the table talking, and suddenly I recognised of of the voices. I turned around, and it was Honeysuckle Weeks.

She was wearing street clothes with big purple sunglasses, but her hair was up as in the show, because they had already been filming elsewhere that day. I went over to her and said I was a fan of the show, and could I take her picture and have my picture taken with her? She was very nice, and said yes, and we did that.


Looking down Croft Road to the left of Number 31.

They seemed to have just arrived and there weren't that many people there yet, and she was just standing around so I said to her that it must be a pain to have to have her hair up like that for the whole six months they have been filming. She said it was, and that she was tired of the uniform, but she said the worst part was the heat recently, and having to stand up so straight all the time.


Number 31.

I told her I was disappointed not to see Michael Kitchen, and she told me Julian Ovenden and Anthony Howell were in the house and would be out soon. She said this was the last week of filming, and that she would then be going to do a play at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre in London.

Someone came up to her and wished “Happy Birthday” which I didn’t know about, so of course I wished her Happy Birthday as well. I didn’t ask her how old – I knew I could find that out later. (She was turning 24). She was very pleasant and chatty, but I was probably making a pest of myself, because she had to excuse herself to go of and study her lines.


Looking up Croft Road to the right of Number 31.



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