Time to mow the roof again, deer
YOU must realise you live in a slightly unusual property when – from time to time – the roof needs mowing. So if homes sometimes reflect the Quixotic nature of their owners, it’s perhaps no coincidence that the man who built this log cabin called Tarka worked closely with comic genius John Cleese.
You can just imagine the scene; Cleese trying to haul a petrol-driven lawnmower by rope onto the roof... as its engine’s running.
Charles Crichton was a legendary film-maker, who kicked off the Ealing comedy series in the late 1940s.
He was responsible for such black and white classics as The Lavender Hill Mob starring Alec Guinness and The Titfield Thunderbolt, the first Ealing comedy filmed in colour.
Yet one of his most successful movies would not come for another 35 years, when he co-directed A Fish Called Wanda with the former Python.
Cleese said he was only brought in to co-direct with Crichton because the insurers were nervous about placing a movie’s production solely in the hands of a 77-year-old.
Of their collaboration on the 1988 movie starring himself, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin, Cleese said: ‘That was subterfuge. I knew the studio would be worried about Charlie’s age.
‘I don’t know anything about how to direct but that doesn’t stop one half of the directors. I simply prayed that Charlie would be on the set every morning.’
For their efforts, the pair received an Academy Award nomination in the Best Director category.
Crichton was also the first choice director for Birdman of Alcatraz – but a difference of opinion with star Burt Lancaster forced him to relinquish the role.
He loved nothing better than throwing off the cares of the showbiz world and heading for relative obscurity at Kirkmichael, a small community in Perthshire roughly equidistant from Pitlochry and Blairgowrie.
There, he had a cabin built of Norwegian spruce. The trees grow at high altitude and by the time their wood would be fashioned to build a house in Scotland, they would be at least 100 years old.
There are a number of similar-style homes around the village, some of them wedged into the land so that wandering deer are often able to stray onto the roof.
Crichton would visit here, fishing locally, until he died in 1999. His wife Nadine eventually occupied the property as co-resident with Crichton’s friend Michael Dawnay.
He explained: ‘The two of them were great friends of mine. Charles and I fished a lot together.
‘Nadine was a fierce, small French lady. As a young woman, she had gone to Paris to be an actress. She ended up in the Resistance. You would not want to be her enemy.’
With Nadine’s passing, it’s now time to sell Tarka – which she named because she liked the association with Tarka the Otter.
The centrepiece of the cabin is the huge, walk-through sitting room/dining room/kitchen.
Yes, there is an awful lot of exposed wood here – but the upside is that you don’t have to worry about wallpaper.
Large patio doors and windows allow you to make the most of the breathtaking scenery, particularly the views of Glenshee.
A door in the kitchen leads to the utility room, which offers space to let you kick off your muddy boots after those long walks in the Perthshire countryside.
There are two double bedrooms with built-in wardrobes, as well as a single bedroom, currently used as a study.
A stone outbuilding offers the possibility of conversion, as other nearby owners have done.
For all his Hollywood history, Charles Crichton may be most fondly remembered by Scots for being final editor on the classic Ealing comedy Whisky Galore. For that alone, Charles, cheers.
Offers over £260,000 to Richard Stewart of CKD Galbraith, Perth. Tel 01738 451111 or email richard. stewart@ckdgalbraith.co.uk