(From the 'Sunday Herald', 10 August 2003)

A Land Fit For Heroes

The phonebox was a fake... but Pennan has clung to the fame Bill Forsyth brought 20 years ago with his 'Local Hero'.
Douglas Fraser takes a look back at the birth of Furness, and finds out what happened next...

It's 20 years since Bill Forsyth put the fictional village of Furness on the movie map as the setting for 'Local Hero', arguably the best Scottish film ever made.
Offering a view of somewhere beautiful and magical where rain never fell, it proved a marketing godsend for the then Scottish Tourist Board,
and the film's box-office success lifted the spirits of a demoralised Scotland whose identity and confidence were at low tide.
But what of Pennan, Furness's real-life double? A cliff-foot village on the Buchan coast, how magical does it seem now
as the 20th anniversary of the film’s release slips by almost unnoticed....?

"The phone box was the biggest con of all," says Baden Gibson [centre], chief character of real-life Pennan.
The movie version was fake, apparently, and was last seen rusting near Macduff. "BT kept that quiet. They must have made a mint out of it."

In a village with a permanent population of 15 through winter, rising as high as 60 in summer, Gibson is Mr Pennan:
lobster fisherman, taxi driver, ship's chandler ("splicing, clamping, rubber legs"), harbour-master and lavatory cleaner (voluntary).
He's also skipper of the MB May Lily [seen in the background], available for boat-trips ("see the birds or the seals, by appointment").

He lives in a garage, not unlike Ben in the film.
Since he moved out of the family home, Pennan's movie celebrity status has put the 25 or so other cottages out of his price range.
He appeared as an extra in the film on £12 a day and, like Ben, he wouldn’t live by any other beach in the world....