I’ve spent the afternoon putting together a talk I will be giving online soon for the South West Heritage Trust - see here for more details https://swheritage.org.uk/events/walking-the-somerset-landscape-with-martin-hesp/

In searching around for images with which to illustrate the talk, I’ve come across a number of old photos I snapped while filming various walks and other series for ITV Westcountry. I really liked doing the programmes and we had enormous fun belting around the entire South West - always with producer Cathy Sayers and mostly with my good mate, cameraman Chris Harris. Various other ITV staff sound-engineers and cameramen came with us at various times. I’d love to be reminded of their names if anyone knows…

The first two photos were taken while we were filming a series called Icons of the Westcountry - and on this occasion we were focussing on Golden Cap - the highest hill along the entire English South Coast.

The next three images were snapped up on Dartmoor when we were doing a really good circular walk based around Warren Inn. Because there were no roads we carried all the heavy equipment right around the 6 mile route. I always laugh at the third of the photos - it looks like I’ve been shrunk and am talking to a giant film crew.

The next set of images were all taken on the Isles of Scilly. We did a walk there, and on another occasion we flew over for a couple of days to film another Icons of the Westcountry. The walk I think was on Tresco, where you can see the crew chilling out in the waiting room before the ferry took us off to another of the isles. A couple of the other shots are on St Mary’s where we interviewed a guy called Keri Jones who used to run Isles of Scilly Radio. We also met Harold Wilson’s widow - completely out of the blue… She was tending her late husband’s grave and after a bit of a chat she agreed to give us an interview. I have a feeling that episode won some kind of recognition at an awards thingy.

And here we are in Doc Martin Country. We went to Port Isaac one a couple of occasions - the first time to do the quite long walk (with heavy filming equipment) from Port Isaac to Port Quin - and I pulled of a bit of a coup by getting my old friend Jon Cleave of the Fisherman’s Friends to perform for us with his mates - and we used that music from then on as the theme tune for the series. We also went there to actually meet Doc Martin and we carried a really good chat with Martin Clunes, who was wonderfully friendly and helpful.

The next photo was taken at Hardy’s Cottage in Dorset where the National Trust kindly allowed us to film

And these two images were taken at the very first TV walk we ever did. Indeed, this was my first piece to camera - and the beginning of a long run of programmes which stretched over a period of almost five years.

I do have more photos somewhere and if I can find them and some of the TV we did, i’ll put them up here. But these last images were taken at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall - as you will recognise… Another of our Icons of the Westcountry.