Where's Your Local Hero?

One of the great benefits of my Schoolteacher Fellowship at the University of St. Andrews is the opportunity it presents to see the spectacular natural beauty of Scotland. This past weekend I set out in my rental car (driving on the “wrong” side of the road) on a mission I have wanted to accomplish for many years.

One of my favorite movies – this dates me but so what – called Local Hero, came out in the early '80s and is set primarily in Scotland. In one of his last appearances, Burt Lancaster co-stars as an eccentric Houston-based oil company CEO. The whimsical plot involves a fast-rising junior executive type named Mac (played by Peter Riegert) who is sent to Scotland by Lancaster’s company. Mac is supposed to buy up an entire town for the company’s new refinery. But…instead, he completely falls for the town, the people, the innkeeper/accountant with whom he is negotiating, and even the innkeeper’s wife. For example, toward the end of the movie, after some drunken celebrating as the sale nears completion, Mac tells his counterpart, Gordon Urquhart, that he wants to swap lives: Gordon can go to Houston, live in Mac’s expensive high-rise and drive his big bucks Porsche. Mac wants to stay in the little fishing village (with Gordon’s wife, of course), memorably telling the befuddled innkeeper: “I’d be a good Gordon, Gordon.”

I’ll leave the rest of the movie to you. My idea this weekend was to actually get to Pennan, the tiny place where much of the movie was filmed. My present time here in St. Andrews actually represents my third visit to Scotland. On both other occasions I had thought of getting to Pennan but failed to do so. This time I made it. Not surprisingly, the town is in a very remote spot on the northeast coast of Scotland between Banff and Fraserburgh. I spent Saturday night near Inverness – the capital of the Scottish Highlands – and got to Pennan early Sunday afternoon. If you are interested in checking out the town on line, go to, among other sites, www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/pennan/pennan/index.html.

The last mile or so to the town is essentially straight down, on a one-car only path that passes for a road. The town itself consists of about 20 houses on one street; the houses face out to the water and back up to the sheer, green cliff I had just descended. It was a glorious, sunny day. The locals were out talking and strolling on the street. The Pennan Inn, the site of much of the action in the film, was closed. The townsfolk were hoping for a new buyer soon. Other than the shuttered inn, there were no commercial establishments (in the typical sense) whatsoever. A poster board with some painted postcards sat on a bench by a house – each card cost about two pounds. Payment was on the honor system – you placed your coins in a glass bowl beside the cards. I bought a couple, looked out again at the harbour, and headed back to St. Andrews.

The drive back took about five hours. On the way, I thought of what I had heard and seen. One woman told me that visitors had come from as far away as the Falkland Islands! I think everyone has their own Pennan – a place to visualize frequently and maybe, just maybe, get to at least once. I was there no more than 30 minutes but the visit will stick with me a long time. And, yes, for those of you who have seen the movie, the red phone booth is still there.