Robbie Coltrane

The TV and movie star harks back to his childhood and shares his passion for holidays around Britain

ROBBIE COLTRANE

“WHEN I was a child, people didn’t go abroad and roast themselves stupid, they would just holiday on the British coast. Only the toffs left the country in the 1950s. They’d go to the South of France and hobnob with Graham Greene, while the rest of us went to Fort William and had to put up with the cold weather.

“My father actually used to take coal to the beach with us and start a fire in the sand. He’d get a lovely blaze going. We’d sit on the beach, eat chips, and watch the fishermen leave the port – it was great.

“I do love the coast, and there are miles and miles of beautiful coastline in Britain that people just don’t know about. A lot of these places are post-industrial, and they never thought of themselves as tourist towns, so they don’t sell themselves that way, but they really ought to.

“My favourite area is the west of Scotland. It’s just beautiful. You get these wonderful skies and they have the best sailing in the world. I live near Loch Lomond and when I had a boat, I could be sailing on the west coast in half an hour.

“Hastings, where my older sister lives, is fantastic, too. The place is full of these big black wooden houses, and they have the best fish market. The fishermen literally empty their boats and you walk up and choose exactly what you want. It’s all so fresh and just lovely.

“But cars are my one big passion, and a trip I’d love to do is the vintage car race from Paris to Beijing, through Germany, Poland and Latvia. It’s all done by humungously rich people, though, who take a spare car and three mechanics with them. I think it’s kind of self-indulgent to spend that amount of money and use that much gas on something that is totally unnecessary.

“That is the definition of fun, of course, but I think my conscience would take over. All these cars that cost 2 million quid driving through countries where they live on a dollar a week just seems a wee bit like cultural imperialism of the worst sort. Fun, but a bit too decadent for me.”

INTERVIEW BY SIAN THATCHER
ROBBIE COLTRANE’S B-ROAD BRITAIN (BANTAM PRESS), WHICH CHARTS HIS JOURNEY AROUND QUIRKY BRITISH TOWNS, IS OUT NOW, PRICED €23.