Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2006/January 2007 | Page 37

FEATURE
garage for over 32 years so I asked
him how Heartbeat had affected the
village. “The village was here long
before Heartbeat, and it will be here
long after Heartbeat” he said. “It
has always done well from visitors
either walking the surrounding
North Yorkshire Moors or taking
a ride on the steam train. In my
opinion Heartbeat has brought a few
more visitors to what was already a
popular tourist spot. Don’t think
Heartbeat runs the village because
it doesn’t, life still goes on without
Heartbeat, it’s tourism that runs the
village. However we would be fools
not to use Heartbeat - after all they
use us.”
Bob’s view on Heartbeat was quite
different from other shopkeepers
I spoke to. Brian Taylor and his
wife (pictured below) have had the
village Post Office for the last five

The REAL folk
of Aidensfield
years, and are quite adamant that
without Heartbeat, the Post Office
would have closed down years ago.
“Heartbeat has set up many shop
keepers in the village, we have all
jumped on the Heartbeat merry-goround, and have all done very nicely
from it” said Brian.
“I send my son to private school
from the proceeds of Heartbeat, so

it cannot be that bad. If Heartbeat
stopped it would be a huge blow to
the village because most people now
that visit the village come to see
Scripps Garage or the Aidensfield
Arms, there are really fanatical fans
out there from all over the world.”
After chatting with Brian and his
wife I could not believe my luck
when one of the longest-serving
members of the Heartbeat extras
crew walked in. Peter Wainwright
(pictured right) has been in the
village for over 20 years. Peter had
been coming on holiday to the
village for many years and in the
end he decided to settle down in
Goathland. I asked Peter how he
became an extra.
“ITV arrived in 1990 and asked
permission from the council to start
filming Heartbeat, at this meeting
they asked if any local residents
would like to become background
artists, so I straight away said Oh,
yes please! Actually I would have
probably paid them to be on it
originally. In the early days I think
there were about 40 of us, although
nowadays that figure has dwindled
to about 12.
“In this latest series I think I have
done about five episodes. None of
us ever joined Equity, so we could
not have speaking parts, we are only
allowed to say the odd word like
“Ta” in the pub, or “How do Ventrice”
in the vet’s and that’s about it. The
best story line I was asked to do
was with Bill Maynard (Greengrass)
which was quite exciting. I had to
drive him in a drunken manner, and
he had to keep grabbing the wheel,

Brian Taylor with his wife, owners of the
local Post Office in Goathland.

Island Life - www.isleofwight.net

Extra - Peter Wainwright.

which was pretty frightening,
although it all went off OK in the
end. Luckily for me, the camera was
on the driver’s side so I appeared on
film quite a lot. I enjoyed that day.”
Arriving back at the hotel, I found
Geoff in reception talking to some
holidaymakers. We then made our
way to the production site, which is
located about a mile from the village
in a remote car park on the moors.
G V