Pete McGill went to the Canterbury area
where ACT was filmed
with his friend Pat
on Sunday 24th March 2002
As a long time fan of ACT, I'd often meant to take a trip to Chilham to breathe in the aura of the locations, and thanks to IMDB.com, I now had a list of them.
(
http://www.imdb.com/Locations?0036695)
[That's the list I entered from the fuller list at
/FAQ/FAQ25.html
- Steve]
If I'd known about Paul's book, I'd have been in heaven!
On Sunday 24th March 2002, an old friend Pat (who'd recently watched the film) and I travelled down to Chilham and parked in the car park before walking up into the village square. There was a church procession circumnavigating the sqare - it was Palm Sunday - and we paused to watch before strolling round, visiting the gift shop, and striding off to find School Hill, the lane in the film where Bob and Peter play ball. It was quite awesome to walk up the hill, retracing their steps!
We walked out of the village, over the road and through the level-crossing to Chilham Mill (which I thought I had an electronic picture of, but I haven't!) and soaked up the beautiful surroundings, thinking of the river battle and the boys enjoying themselves before helping Bob.
We did not visit Julliberrie's Grave (Pow-wow Hill) as we were pressed for time, and headed back to the car, and on to Fordham.
[Fordwich]
We were in time for lunch, and took a couple of shots of the fine old inn, The George and Dragon, while poring over our OS map, trying to find Chilman's Down. We obviously needed Paul Tritton's book, but at that time I was oblivious of its existence.
Suitably refreshed after a splendid meal and a couple of pints, we headed for the Town Hall, the river, and the church, all of which matched our expectations and more. We found the village most peaceful, and full of ancient ghosts as Mr Colpeper would have approved - all you have to do is listen!. On the way back we stopped to take a picture of the car park of the G&D, which was the football field in the film, apparently!
I wanted to travel on to Wingham, but time was running short so reluctantly we hit the road and headed back to Croydon, reflecting on what an interesting and fulfilling trip it had been.
We resolved to return, and mop up the rest of the locations before we got much older.
- Pete McGill
Other P&P trips
