The makers of a £4.5 million film have been banned
by a mysterious American-based laird from shooting on
his uninhabited Hebridean island.
Now the romantic comedy The Rocket Post, in which several
British stars are set to appear, will be made instead
10 miles away on Taransay, the former base of the BBC1
docu-soap Castaway 2000.
Its makers, Ultimate Pictures UK, claim that Ber Bakewell,
the absentee owner of the island of Scarp, off the west
of Harris, had at first agreed. He has since then decided
not to allow the filming to go ahead. Disappointed producer
Mark Shorrock said that he had spoken at length several
times to Mr Bakewell. He caught up with the landowner,
rumoured to be a millionaire recluse, in a small town
in the south of India where he has been travelling for
the last week.
It was quickly established that fears over Foot and Mouth
disease or even demands for more cash were not at the
bottom of the absentee laird's decision. "We were
at first left with the impression that there was no problem.
We'd already had a written indication that everything
would be fine so were quite surprised. "Now he seems
to have just changed his mind. He just told me that it
was because he thought Scarp was a difficult and complex
place. There was nothing we could do to change his mind
and now he does not want us filming on his island,"
said Shorrock.
The change of heart by the landowner is a big financial
blow for the producers. There are all kinds of extra construction
to do now on Taransay, which is also uninhabited since
the 29 remaining BBC castaways quit on January 1, and
Mark Shorrock says they may have to make cuts in other
areas of the production.
Several big stars have been approached for parts in the
£4.5 million project including Sir Sean Connery,
Peter O' Toole and Sir Richard Attenborough. "Billy
Connolly was interested but the dates clashed with a stand-up
tour and Albert Finney has said no. We will have more
information next week," said Shorrock.
Scarp, a scenic fertile island which still has its own
small church and various holiday homes, has been generally
uninhabited since 1971. There are a few summer houses
on the island but the filmmakers were to be long gone
by the time they are normally occupied.
The film is for a cast of 29 to re-enact the doomed attempts
by a German inventor in the 1930s to get mail by rocket
across the channel from mainland Harris to the island
of Scarp, off west Harris. The story will be about a short
but vital experiment in delivering the post. On Saturday
July 28, 1934, Gerhardt Zucher sent 4,800 letters at 1,000
miles per hour in one of his rockets from Scarp to Hushinish
on the Harris mainland, only to have the whole lot explode
and scatter all over the shore. Three days later, the
disappointed inventor made another unsuccessful attempt
at the experiment from nearby Amhuinnsuidhe. That too
was a disaster and he returned to Germany where he was
apparently more successful with his rocket design ventures
for Hitler's war effort.
Scarp, a scenic fertile island which still has its own
small church and five small holiday homes, has been generally
uninhabited since 1971. There are five re-built summer
houses on the island but the filmmakers were to be long
gone by the time they are normally occupied. Ber Bakewell,
who has given locals an address in America, bought Scarp
just over five years ago.
Mark Shorrock had nothing but praise for the Mackay family,
the owners of Taransay, who he said by contrast could
not do enough to help them.
Little seems to be known about the mysterious Mr Bakewell.
Rents on Scarp are collected for him by North Uist Estates
although no-one was available to comment at their offices.
Cider king Jonathan Bulmer, who owns nearby Amhuinnsuidhe
Castle, is known to be a friend of the mystery man but
he and his children were said to be ski-ing in Switzerland
and not contactable. A local on Harris, who asked not
to be named but who has met Ber Bakewell several times,
said: "Mr Bakewell is a nice person when you meet
him but he is very private. "He comes and stays on
Scarp maybe once or twice a year and he never even talks
to the people in the holiday homes there. "He will
keep clear of them and deliberately walk on the other
side of the island. Apart from that, he has been pleasant
enough to us each time we have met him." Another
said: "He said he was going to India to work on a
project to build a dhow. I think he is then going to sail
it from Goa."
The Western Isles are currently being targeted again by
several filmmakers - just as it was in the late-1950s
and early 1960s by the Ealing Studios for box office successes
like Whisky Galore and Rockets Galore.
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