All in the day's work

[shewhomust]

Today we went to Goathland to have lunch with a visiting party of Ford Anglia owners - you can say this for my job, it takes me into some unexpected situations.

It's perfectly logical: among the web sites we manage is one belonging to Peter Walker, who writes, under the name Nicholas Rhea, a variety of books, including the Constable series, based on his experiences in the police force in rural Yorkshire a generation ago. The setting and characters of these books formed the basis of the Heartbeat television series, a gently nostalgic show whose appeal has proved surprisingly enduring, and astonishingly international. The plots are unthreatening, the scenery is gorgeous, and the background music is sixties pop: and then there are the cars...

It is now several years since the Norwegian Anglia owners club first discovered Heartbeat, and decided to visit Aidensfield. Last year we made contact, and their organiser kindly wrote a report of their visit for Peter's web site - and this year we all met in Goathland, the setting used by the television to stand in for the fictional Aidensfield. There was a multicoloured array of Ford Anglias, a car whose design is distinctive enough, with its backward sloping rear window, that even I remember them from the 60s; there was Peter's vintage Jaguar, which was also much admired; there was a television crew from the local Norwegian television motoring programme, in green overalls; and there was much pleasant conversation.

We paused on the way home to walk a short way along the Wheeldale Road, a stone paved track across the moors which may or may not be Roman. The drive was also notable for the number of pheasants we saw, very smart in their coppery-bronze coats and white collars. One was being chased across a field by two lambs; another was being repeatedly buzzed by a low-flying lapwing.