Mull Calling

In search of a telephone box, in the footsteps of Michael Powell

As soon as I found out that the phonebox was real, I wanted to go and see it. Chancing upon a late night BBC 4 documentary about wartime film making I’d happened to see the section about one of my favourite films of that era — “I Know Where I’m Going!” and there it was, on bright, modern, colour television instead of black and white film: a public telephone box placed right next to a waterfall, where any conversation would be drowned out by the sound of the torrent. A ridiculous folly of a phonebox, I now knew that it wasn’t made up, a mere creative thought or writer’s joke. It was real and it was still there. Years later my husband and I were holidaying in Scotland and I finally seized my chance to pay the box a visit.

One of the most lovingly imaginative films to come out of the wartime period in Britain, “I Know Where I’m Going!” was made by the formidable team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known as “The Archers”. This director and writer were also responsible for such classics as “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” and “A Matter of Life and Death”, as well as many more besides. The film in question is really an homage to Powell’s boyhood home, the Isle of Mull, with Mull’s castles, lochs and dramatic coastline providing the ravishing backdrop to what is, essentially, a love story. A single-minded, ambitious young woman named Joan, fond of the finer things in life, intends to marry her wealthy employer in a ceremony to take place on what she believes to be his own private island, called Kiloran, in Scotland. Her plans are somewhat upset, however, when she meets a handsome Naval officer who introduces her to the Highland way of life, opening her eyes to a very different world than that which she has previously known. The contrasts between the island natives and wartime incomers are explored as Joan comes to realise that she may not quite know exactly where she’s going after all.

The entire film has a fierce energy about it, from the dramatic scenes of storms at sea to the raucous joy of a traditional Ceilidh, complete with dancing and music from the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. There are a multitude of deft comedic touches too, the bizarrely sited phonebox being just one. An elderly postmistress puts down her knitting to get to grips with new fangled radio technology whilst elsewhere a wayward golden eagle called Torquil runs amok carrying off lambs, pursued by his bumbling owner. The eagle playing the role receives a credit at the end of the film, his real name being Mr. Ramshaw. The Isle of Mull appears as if a whirl of winds, mists and swirling tartan, full of rich accents and beautiful, rugged landscapes, where girls herd cattle and boys go out to fish while kilt-clad hunters stalk the hills with their dogs. There is a powerful sense of place in the piece, putting across the notion of a vibrant and vigorous approach to life in a harsh but stunning setting. Even today, Mull is a truly unique and lovely place and I am delighted to report that a suitably quirky vibe persists in the vicinity of the famous phonebox itself. It had been a very wet summer when we visited and the full effect of the raging waters could be appreciated. In fact the door was almost completely silted up with detritus that had been carried down the mountain by the flowing streams and was difficult to open. Despite this, somebody had managed to leave a box of eggs on the shelf beside the telephone inside. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, I think the Archers would have approved,

The road to the phonebox was not an easy one. Most roads on Mull are single tracked with passing places, but when we took the turning off to Carsaig in search of the red-framed film star the going became decidedly tougher. Our car barely fitted on the track and there were often steep drops at either side. Pine trees, clearly planted for a timber harvest, ranged out in neat rows on the hillside as the road rose and fell by sharp degrees. The trees closed in around us and it became very dark, with more moisture in the air and slippery mud under our wheels. Then, suddenly, on the left, the fabled box, with its attendant waterfall. It is now an official listed building, apparently, a vital part of Scottish film making heritage. Rarely used for calls I suppose, it exists to take a new leading role in many a film buff’s holiday snaps, as well as being a handy place to leave half a dozen eggs. There is no plaque or information board to explain why it is special. Only those who are in the know fully appreciate it and that is enough to commend it. It has survived relatively unchanged and that’s what’s cool about it.

In actual fact several locations from the film still exist in all of their evocative glory and can be visited. Moy castle, much feared by the Laird of Kiloran, stands on a remote loch shore, grey walled and imposing, with rocks all around. You can’t go in any more, for fear of crumbling ramparts rather than the “terrible strong curse” mentioned in the script, but the outer shell has recently been restored. You can linger by the door and imagine the feisty Joan charging to the top to recite the curse set there in stone. Elsewhere, at Duart Castle, it is the interior that provides interest to the film lover. The dining room table, laid up as if to receive guests, and the deep set window seats reachable by tiny ladders, must surely have been recreated in a faraway studio for the filming, but they appear today just as they did on screen. Duart Castle was renamed the Castle of Sorn in the film, habitation of a comically exaggerated, upper crust family whose barbed unpleasantness was played out within grand walls which seem to still be standing now. Indeed the whole film was played out within and around the scenery of breathtaking Mull, from Ben More to Tobermory harbour, wild and inviting at every turn, all expansive skies and forbidding mountainsides, twisting roads and wooded loch banks, and all still there urging you to visit it. To see all of it is to realise why Michael Powell loved it so and why it inspired him to produce such creative work.

One night we dined at the Western Isles Hotel. We were seated in the modern conservatory extension, perched precariously above the harbour. The building makes a number of appearances in the film and I believe the crew made it their home whilst they worked. The conservatory wasn’t there back in the 1940s, but we could almost imagine them returning to the hotel after a hard day spent lugging heavy equipment through the rough Mull landscape, sitting down to a hot bowl of cullen skink as we did and comparing midge bites. Filming must have been a challenge and perhaps the enthusiasm of Michael Powell for the well-trodden Mull paths of his early years and the views out to sea that he knew so well helped to motivate and inspire the whole, hard-toiling ensemble. It is easy to fall in love with Mull. The air is full of stories. They resonate all around; you can breathe them in with each bracing draught from the shore. “I Know Where I’m Going!” is a perfect, compact little ninety minute tale that was just one of those stories, though a complete fiction, that grew out of that particular time and place, a remote and beautiful Scottish island in wartime. The island is still working its magic on people and somewhere, halfway up a steep slope by a waterfall near Carsaig, an old red phonebox still stands. It waits, for the phone to ring, the door to open, the streams to cascade over the rocks and the water to drip from the leaves of the trees and create great muddy puddles underfoot. It waits for someone to pull over, stop and take a photograph. It waits for memories to be recalled, for old stories to be told and for new stories to begin.