Hastings East Sussex + Foyle’s War

Nodal Point Class A

“Welcome to Foyle’s Country!” declare the friendly locals. Their locale is Hastings’ answer to Bristol’s Clifton or Dublin’s Killiney. It’s a ravishingly unrepentant patchwork quilt of cottages and gardens and love knitted across the lower – and occasionally upper – gradients of the hills that bow down to England’s southeast coast. Interspersed with some rather grand Nash-sur-Mer terraces. “You have to photograph St Just!” they cry. “That’s Detective Chief Inspector Foyle’s house although the interiors were filmed elsewhere.” A ­­faded sign on the flank wall next to the rather smart three storey plus multi bowed Regency St Just (who knew an interwar policeman’s salary was so generous?) reads: ‘T Noalles. Plumber, Painter and Glazier. Writing, Graining and Gilding. Estimates Given.’ Mr Foyle’s accent is certainly more plummy than plumber.

The very sunny very atmospheric very colourful (check out the half red squirrel peeping out of a stone basket) very real set of Foyle’s War was a training ground for thespian soldiers with Edward Fox, James McAvoy, Tobias Menzies, Rosamond Pike, and, eh, Danny Dyer, working the trenches. With more country houses than a Burke’s Guide, lemon curd sandwiches by the dozen, ladies wearing lavender water, and as many twists and turns as Murder on the Venice Simplon-Orient Express, no wonder Foyle’s War was an instant television success. It’s all terribly tickety boo. A celebration of flotsam and jetsam narratives floating across topsy turvy townscapes and higgledy piggledy farmyards. Foyle’s War features some memorable wartime sayings too such as, “Up with the lark; to bed with the Wren.” Cue Chris de Burgh’s ‘Borderline’ playing…