Pennan
Film critic Mark Kermode discusses Pennan movie 'Local Hero' with the film's director, Bill Forsyth 
Pennan 
Banffshire Coast Leaflet (500K)Clinging to the foot of a north facing cliff lies the village of Pennan … and its celebrated listed building – a red telephone box.
Made world famous in Bill Forsyth’s film ‘Local Hero’, Pennan has a fond place in the hearts of those who have seen the 1983 movie. Fans from across the world still come to make a phone call from the world’s most iconic red phone box – which is officially a listed building – where oil executive ‘Mac’ ploughed his coins in at the ‘pips’, to connect to his Texas HQ.
Visitors who remember the film script will immediately understand why Mac was overcome by such a rugged, enduring yet serene place. The lofty title of ‘village’ may seem like a misnomer, as Pennan is a single coast-hugging street of about three dozen quaint fishermen’s cottages. In common with most of Banffshire’s coastal villages, the dwellings are built gable end on to the sea to protect from the worst winter weather.
Idyllic on a summer’s day with blue skies and even bluer waters in the bay, Pennan can also be majestic on a stormy day, in a haze of sea salt with the waves crashing on the pebble beach.
To the west of Pennan lies Cullykhan Bay, the site of Iron Age Fort Fiddes which was rebuilt in the Jacobite Risings and the site of a gun emplacement from the Napoleonic Wars. The beach there also gives access to Hell’s Lum – a cave which cuts through the cliff and where seaspray escapes like smoke from a chimney.
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