26 May 22, 2022The Sunday TimesTravel
I was brought up in
School Aycliffe, Co
Durham, and I didn’t
realise until returning
years later how ancient, beautiful and
idyllic this Saxon village is. We would
holiday in Bridlington, Scarborough,
Great Yarmouth and even Hull. But the
most exotic trip we took was during the
long, hot summer of 1976, to Somerset.
We stayed at a holiday camp and went
to Wells and Cheddar Gorge. It was
blisteringly hot and everything you
want when you’re ten years old.
I’ve recently been reminiscing
about family holidays as we lost my
dad last year. He would take us
fishing for mackerel and there is
home-movie footage in which he
is holding up the fish he’s caught.
None of us were wearing life
jackets and my mam couldn’t
swim — it was so dangerous.
When I was 18 I went
interrailing in Europe with
my girlfriend at the time and
some schoolfriends. We spent
months planning the trip, but
within two days we’d all fallen
out. It ended up with just me
and my girlfriend travelling
together, staying in youth
hostels because we were so poor.We visited as many capital cities as
possible, so we could say we’d been there.
Being a bit morbid in my youth, I went
to Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris to see
Oscar Wilde’s grave and to Menton, in
southeast France, to visit Aubrey
Beardsley’s grave in Trabuquet. I went
back there a couple of years ago when
I was doing a documentary about
Beardsley and it was a weird feeling,
because I never thought I’d return
and it brought back all those
memories. I was taken with
Menton, where the rich would
holiday in the 1890s. It was
overtaken by Nice, so it’s a bit
forgotten, but it still has a genteel
quality. I’m a sucker for church
bells and crumbling squares.
Steven Moffat and I have found
that going away to develop scripts
works well for us. We visited
Morocco twice while writing
Sherlock and wrote Dracula in Lake
Como. Italy is my favourite country
and it was absolutely beautiful.
Writing abroad may sound indulgent,
but it’s a really good idea because
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everythiLake Como, in Italy, inspired Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat to write scripts for Draculaand watered, and if you get stuck you
go onto the balcony to look at the view,
returning refreshed and inspired.
We shot some of Dracula in Slovakia,
in the same castle that was used in
Nosferatu. We’d been filming in the forest
for about two hours when it started to
snow. Being in the middle of a dense
Slovakian forest with a coach, horses
and Dracula was so atmospheric; the
light bouncing off the snow was almost
like moonlight.
The best holiday I ever had was to
Malaysia during the three-week break
of the first League of Gentlemen tour
in 2000. It was a few years into my
relationship with Ian, my partner. We
stayed in a beach hut just yards from
the sea. There were so many activities
and every day we’d look at people
waterskiing, but we did nothing apart
from reading and sleeping.
I hate camping so when I go to places
like Mauritius, I prefer to do it in luxury.
We don’t have a flashy car or children,
so we spend our money on holidays.
The mantra I live by is the tagline from
the end of the film My Own Private Idaho:
“Whatever it takes to have a nice day”.We often take winter holidays in Britain
with our dog and I enjoy going to blustery
places in February. We’ve hired cottages
in the Cotswolds, Norfolk and Aldeburgh.
When we’re somewhere like Whitstable,
we’ll go for a long walk, looking forward
to fish and chips in the pub afterwards.
Ian’s a huge Abba fan and we always
talked about going to Stockholm, so a
few years ago we went on a whim, and
the randomness was appealing. Sweden
was all I imagined it would be. We went
around all the islands on a boat looking
for Agnetha. The weather was glorious
and it was culturally
fascinating and restored
our spirits — like the
best European breaks do.Mark Gatiss, 55, is an actor, writer and
director. He lives in Islington, north
London, with his partner, Ian Hallard,- He is directing The Unfriend, a new
play running until July 9 at Chichester
Festival Theatre. He also appears in the
films The Road Dance and Operation
Mincemeat, in cinemas now
Interview by Shelley RubensteinThe actor’s creative juices
flowed in Italy, while Malaysia
was an idyllic fly and flop
MY HOLS
MARK
GATISS
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to two children aged up to 12,
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Unveiled this month, the four
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One family dinner for
four (excluding drinks) at
the Gumstool Inn or theOnly one entry per person,
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wherewasi by Wednesday.
Normal Times Newspapers
rules apply. No correspondence
will be entered into.The answers are Coldingham
and St Abb’s Head National
Nature Reserve. Neil
Townsend of Bristol wins a Paris
break with Eurostar and the
Hôtel des Grands Boulevards.sold olives here?” asks
Friend. “No. Because of its
intellectual rigour,” I sigh.
Friend shrugs and says he
wants to visit the town’s main
rugby club. A recent signing
will probably play in a
postponed tournament this
year, for an unlikely national
side. “Like several of its
players, he’s an Aussie,”
Friend explains. First,
however, we buy lunch from
a food van near Asda.
I suggest we then visit a
heritage centre devoted to
a big former airbase. It’s a
mile and a half northwest of
the gates, and a reminder
this town was visited by the
spirit of Sparta, as well as
that of its rival. Friend has
no idea what I mean. “It’s all
Greek to me,” he says — and
wolfs down his souvlaki.
Sean NewsomCOMPETITION
WHERE WAS I?
THE QUESTIONS
THE PRIZE
HOW TO ENTER
LAST WEEK’S PRIZE
WIN A
LUXURY
BREAK IN THE
COTSWOLDS
IN A FAMILY
SUITE AT
CALCOT & SPA
EVA BOCEK/ALAMY; JAMES VEYSEY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKI seek an academy. But first, I
want to show my friend some
gates. “Are they by a bridge?”
he asks, when I tell him what
they’re called. No, but the
name is richly deserved.
These glittering portals —
cast for an 1860s exhibition
— were intended as a gift to
a queen. They were rejected.
Friend asks why. So I take
him a third of a mile
southeast, to a statue of a
wartime leader (mother:
Elizabeth) who later became
a peacetime leader too. It
stood in the same exhibition
as the gates and could be
seen behind them. Accounts
vary, but at some point the
queen, or her court, took
offence. Again, Friend asks
why. “Well he wasn’t exactly
a royalist, was he?” I explain.
The academy is next door.
Dissolved 236 years ago, it
was one of the reasons this
town earned a flattering
18th-century sobriquet, later
usurped by a city further
north. “What, because they1 What was the name of
the wartime leader?
2 What is the name of
the heritage centre? *