26 February 13, 2022The Sunday Times
Travel
The actor travelled by rail from
Beijing to Moscow, and sold
blood to get home from Greece
MY HOLS
COLM
MEANEY
I grew up in Dublin in a
postwar housing estate
and we never went
abroad. My earliest travel
memories are of going to a little fishing
village called Howth, all of six miles from
my house. My dad had a bread van and
had to be close enough to town to go to
work even when the rest of us were on
holiday. But just being somewhere
different was special — there were places
to buy ice cream and arcade games
to try. As I got older we started going
to Greystones in Co Wicklow, where
we’d rent a house on the beach —
walking out on to the shingle from
the house was magical.
I live in Mallorca now, but still
love Ireland and go back three or
four times a year to places like
gorgeous Galway, Connemara,
Co Kerry and west Cork. What
I love about it now are the great
restaurants that have popped up
over the past 25 years or so.
There’s been an explosion in the
number of top Irish chefs. My
favourite restaurant in the world is
Chapter One in Dublin. In west Cork
there’s a food truck with a Michelin
star. I love that there’s no snobby
attitude to good food in the country.
When I was about 17 I started goinghitchhiking. I remember once I was trying
to get to Co Kerry. It was getting later and
later and I couldn’t get a ride; I was on the
outskirts of Abbeyfeale, in Co Limerick. It
was summertime, but it was raining hard,
and I ended up sleeping in an abandoned
car — I’ve never been so cold in my life,
and now when I see Abbeyfeale on the
map, 50 years on, I still say:
“I hate that f***ing place.”
At the end of that trip I went to
Greece with my girlfriend
at the time and I ran out of
money. She flew to London
and I said: “Don’t worry, I’ll
just hitchhike back.” I sold
a pint of my blood to get
some cash — you could do
that in those days. The
hardest part was travelling
through former Yugoslavia,
because there wasn’t much traffic
and I had to sleep in fields. When I
finally got picked up the truck kept
veering to the other side of the road
and I wondered whether the driver
was drunk — he was falling asleep.
My first overseas trip was when I
was 17 and I went to Finland andThe Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg, Russia — a city that Colm Meaney visited as a 17-year-old
Russia with the Abbey, the national
theatre, to perform The Silver Tassie.
St Petersburg was amazing in the early
Seventies, when the Soviet Union was
the most feared — it was completely alien.
We went to a few bars where you had to
queue at a cash register and order what
you’d like, and you were then given a chit
to take to another counter that dispensed
the drinks. We found it such a laugh. We
would stay out late and got asked by the
cops whether we were OK on numerous
occasions. At least I think that’s what they
were saying — we didn’t speak Russian.
I returned to Russia while on a seasonal
break from filming Star Trek. This would
usually coincide with my older daughter’s
school holidays, and she would spend
time researching trips we could do —
usually exotic and expensive options. In
1998 we took a two-week tour on a train
from Beijing to Moscow. The train was
very old-fashioned and majestic, with
lots of wood, glass and red velvet; it was
like going back to the tsarist days. We did
a little detour into Siberia and went to
Lake Baikal. The train stopped on the
shore and we were invited to go for a
swim. It was June, but I will never forgetthe cold. I think I was among three on the
train who went in, and six strokes out and
six strokes back was all I could manage.
These days I don’t go on holiday much
— I tend to just travel for work. But I sort
of live on holiday anyway. I’m based just
outside Santa Maria del Cami in Mallorca,
about 20 minutes’ drive northeast of
Palma. It’s a beautiful island, but I
wouldn’t have come here at all if it wasn’t
for my wife — she lived in Madrid and
came here a lot, and persuaded me. My
image of Mallorca had always been of
Santa Ponsa — sunburnt, drunken Brits
falling around on beaches — but it’s a big
island, and we even have mountains that
get a dusting of snow.
It’s incredible. I would
be happy to spend the
rest of my life on the Med.The actor Colm Meaney, 68, is best
known for his roles in Star Trek,
Layer Cake and Con Air. His latest
film, Confession, is out now on
digital platforms including Amazon.
He lives in Mallorca with his wife, InesInterview by Georgia Stephens
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My first
was 17 andThe Church of
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thetimes.co.uk/wherewasi.The winner and up to three
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and a big rustic kitchen.
Beyond the grounds of
the château lies la France
profonde — deeply rural and
full of delicious things to eat
and drink. St Céneri le Gérei,
listed among the country’s
most beautiful villages, is
only 30 minutes away by car.
For the full range ofOnly one entry per person,
at thesundaytimes.co.uk/
wherewasi by Wednesday.
Normal Times Newspapers
rules apply. No correspondence
will be entered into.The answers are Hampton
Court Palace and Giovanni
Antonio Canal. Barbara
Durham of Cumbria wins
a trip to New York with
British Airways Holidays.at a second statue. It honours
an alumnus (mother,
Susannah) of the adjacent
school, which has evolved
into the town’s library. We
agreed he had a formidable
beard as well as mind.
But Friend seemed
frustrated. “Where’s the
heptagon?” he blurted
out eventually.
“The what?” I asked.
“Yesterday you said the
town is seven-sided,” he said.
“I thought you meant that it’s
still bounded by some kind
of fortification.”
I stared blankly at him.
Was there a remnant of the
Civil War I’d missed? After all
the town had been a royalist
stronghold and — briefly —
a royal mint. Then I twigged.
He’d misunderstood me — I’d
been talking about the river.
Sean NewsomCOMPETITION
WHERE WAS I?
THE QUESTIONS
THE PRIZE
HOW TO ENTER
LAST WEEK’S PRIZE
WIN A WEEK
FOR FOUR
IN FRANCE
WITH
SAWDAY’S
AND BRITTANY
FERRIES
YULENOCHEKK/GETTY IMAGES; KEN MCKAY/IREX/SHUTTERSTOCKTo get us started I’d planned
a stiff climb. We weren’t
going up a hill — I just
wanted to see one at the top.
But there was no access that
day, so we had to soldier on
without honouring a local
hero. He died 180 years ago,
but is still a towering
presence in this county town.
Instead Friend and I set off
towards the town’s historic
core. No wonder it’s old —
it’s so defensible it must have
seemed preordained for
settlement. “A case of natural
selection,” I suggested as we
walked along a road named
after an abbey entrance.
Half a mile northwest of the
local hero, some of the
abbey still stands; it’s now
a parish church.
We didn’t go in. Friend
wanted to see the castle first.
Like the abbey it began life
in the 11th century. It guarded
a narrow neck of land against
raids that originated mainly
in the west.
Then we doffed our caps1 What was the local hero’s
first name?
2 What was the first name
* of the alumnus?