My best-ever trip? Morse solved that
CONTINUING our series featuring the holiday adventures of famous people, this week Inspector Morse actor KEVIN WHATELY, 67, recalls his lifetime of adventures…
First holiday I can remember:
We would have a couple of weeks by the seaside each summer when I was very small. We’d rent a cottage in Bamburgh with some of my cousins. The beaches are huge and windswept, and I remember beautiful sunny days playing by the sea.
My first trip abroad:
When I was five or six we went to Connemara and stayed in pretty Kylemore Abbey. On the first day, our car broke down ten miles from where we were heading. We had to rent another car to get there and the only one available was an embarrassing tomato colour.
My most adventurous trip:
In the late 1960s, I went hitchhiking across Europe. I started in France, then visited Florence and Venice. I had a one-man tent and survived on very little. I was happy on my own but I had my shoes stolen in Luxembourg and had to come home barefoot.
Best holiday:
For an episode of Morse in Australia, we filmed a lot in Cowra in New South Wales, which has a high street like an old western town. During the last week we filmed in Sydney and my wife Madelaine and children Kitty and Kieran came out to join me. It was a lovely trip, rounded off by spending Christmas at Whale Beach with Morse’s director, producer and their families.
And my worst:
My least successful getaway was a trip to Lisbon about three or four years ago. My daughter, who is a mezzo-soprano, was singing in an opera there, so we went over with her daughter to join her. But the flat we rented was terrible and it rained all the time. I like Lisbon – I have visited a few times – but this time was a bit of a disaster. My granddaughter had a cold, too, so she couldn’t really go near her mum as she was trying to protect her voice.
Essential holiday item:
A book of poetry. I often take one by someone like Michael Ondaatje. If I am working abroad, I love having breakfast on my own, reading and studying a poem.
Ultimate dream destination:
Antarctica. The jagged ice landscape would really inspire me.