For many years after coming to live in New Zealand in 2000, I was able to make regular return visits to England to see my friends, relatives and favourite places. Spending a day with Lesley, who lives in East Sussex, was a regular feature. After having lunch either at her home or in a local pub we would go for a walk on the windswept downland between Seaford and Eastbourne with its views of the Seven Sisters cliffs (inspiring a scene in my novel You Yet Shall Die) followed by a cup of tea in her beach hut.

My 2020 visit had to be cancelled due to the pandemic restrictions. It’s been some compensation to be able to talk to people on Zoom, and to see my home country on screen. I was excited when Lesley told me that two movies – Hope Gap and Summerland – had been filmed in the area where we used to walk.

Hope Gap, which I saw last year, is a family drama charting the breakdown of the marriage of a middle aged middle class couple. Their young adult son takes long walks by the sea while pondering how to mediate between his introverted father, who has announced that he is leaving to live with another woman, and his melodramatic mother who is devastated by the situation. This film tackles its subject seriously but with touches of humour. It would not be to everyone’s taste, but I found it an absorbing story intelligently told.

Summerland has only just arrived in New Zealand cinemas and I saw it yesterday. The main action is set during World War 2. A reclusive woman writer, embittered since the ending of a lesbian love affair, is furious when she is forced to take in a boy evacuated from bomb-ravaged London. Predictably, her heart eventually softens and the film has a happy ending. I found the story rather sentimental and contrived, but the scenery was lovely. Although allegedly taking place in Kent, most of it had been filmed in the same part of the East Sussex coast pictured above.

***

Jennifer Barraclough, originally from England and now living in New Zealand, is a retired doctor and a writer of medical and fiction books. A list can be found on her author pages: https://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-Barraclough/e/B001HPXGZI (US) and https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jennifer-Barraclough/e/B001HPXGZI (UK).