Peter Cush­ing lives for­ev­er in Whitstable

“Peter Cush­ing lives in Whit­stable / He goes shop­ping on his bicy­cle / You can see him buy­ing veg­eta­bles,” sang the band The Jelly­bot­tys – and for many years, that was true. The actor loved the sea­side town in Kent that was his home for 40 years. The locals loved him too, so there was only one place where Talk­ing Pic­tures TV (TPTV), Britain’s fore­most nos­tal­gia broad­cast­er, could hold a cel­e­bra­tion of his life and career.

Cush­ing passed away in 1994 at the age of 81, but if any­thing, his rep­u­ta­tion has only grown since then with new gen­er­a­tions intro­duced to his work via stream­ing and phys­i­cal media releas­es. His per­fect dic­tion and qui­et­ly dig­ni­fied per­for­mances in a range of films and TV appear­ances, from Hammer’s Drac­u­la (1958) to Star Wars (1977), and Olivier’s Ham­let (1948) to his BAF­TA-win­ning role in the great­est adap­ta­tion of George Orwell’s Nine­teen Eighty-Four (1954), are nev­er less than bril­liant. Whether he’s play­ing a vil­lain or a hero, he’s always the one who catch­es the eye.

You get the feel­ing that Cush­ing, if he were still around, would have watched TPTV, which is run by father-and-daugh­ter team Noël Cronin and Sarah Cronin-Stan­ley. He was, like them, a lover of all things British, par­tic­u­lar­ly if they come from a past that seems close yet tan­ta­lis­ing­ly out of reach. Cushing’s films have done well on TPTV, which marked 10 years on air on May 26^th (coin­ci­den­tal­ly the 112^th anniver­sary of his birth).

To sup­ple­ment its income (which most­ly comes from adver­tis­ing) and pay for new titles, Noël and Sarah raise extra funds via in-house mag­a­zine ​‘Inter­mis­sion’ and organ­ise a vari­ety of events through­out the year, all attend­ed by view­ers who feel them­selves to be, rather touch­ing­ly, part of a fam­i­ly or com­mu­ni­ty. I’m proud to say I’m a mem­ber of it, as well as a die-hard Cush­ing fan, so when I heard how TPTV were going to hon­our him, I bought a tick­et as soon as they went on sale. And it’s a good job I moved quick­ly, because the event quick­ly sold out – it seems I am not alone in my ado­ra­tion of the ​‘gen­tle man of horror’.

Whit­stable is many miles from my home in East York­shire, and my jour­ney began in dis­as­trous fash­ion with a can­celled train to Lon­don. But noth­ing would damp­en my enthu­si­asm; I even­tu­al­ly made it to the cap­i­tal, and after a night in a bud­get hotel, head­ed to Whit­stable. This meant bat­tling through crowds of Charl­ton Ath­let­ic fans at St Pan­cras, who were en route to Wem­b­ley for the League One play-off final. It was only 8.20am, but already some were worse for wear – chances are they wouldn’t remem­ber much, if any, of the match.

I, on the oth­er hand, was deter­mined to com­mit as much of my day to mem­o­ry as I could – and it was clear, as a I arrived ear­ly at the venue, the Horse­bridge Arts Cen­tre, that oth­ers were of a sim­i­lar mind; a crowd was already gath­er­ing, chat­ting over tea served up by Noël him­self, and rub­bing shoul­ders with guests includ­ing Cush­ing co-stars Melvyn Hayes and Car­o­line Munro. I’ve writ­ten for Inter­mis­sion and am a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to the TPTV pod­cast, so caught up with Sarah and Mel Byron, the Cronins’ chief fac­to­tum. Then it was time for the day’s action to begin.

After a brief intro­duc­tion, the 150 or so hard­ened Cush­ing fans heard from Hayes, Munro, and for­mer Ham­mer Films run­ners Phil Camp­bell and Bri­an Reynolds, who regaled us with tales of work­ing with the great man, but the most amaz­ing sto­ries came from Geof­frey Hugh­es, whose father sold their fam­i­ly home to Peter and his wife Helen in the 1950s. The Hugh­es clan moved a few doors away, but remained friends with the cou­ple; Geof­frey and his sib­lings appear to have been sur­ro­gate nephews and nieces to the Cush­ings, who were unable to have chil­dren of their own. Peter treat­ed them to gifts from the local toy shop and encour­aged their hob­bies. I once inter­viewed the actor William Franklyn about his work with Cush­ing. He told me his daugh­ters nick­named him St Peter; if the tales recalled here are any­thing to go by, it was rather fitting.

After­wards, we watched The Curse of Franken­stein (1957), the film that began the actor’s long asso­ci­a­tion with Hammer’s goth­ic hor­rors, before a brief lunch. The fun con­tin­ued after­wards; like kids on a school trip, we were split into four groups, each tak­ing it in turn to tack­le var­i­ous activ­i­ties. For me, it began with a guid­ed tour of some Cush­ing hotspots with com­e­dy his­to­ri­an Andre Vin­cent. He admit­ted he wasn’t an expert in his sub­ject, but in a way, that might have been an advan­tage – he real­ly had to have done his home­work, ​‘wing­ing it’ would not do for the audi­ence of ardent Cush­ing fans. Nev­er­the­less, he did miss out the Tudor Tea Rooms, the actor’s favourite eatery.

What we did see, how­ev­er, was Cushing’s View, a spot look­ing out to sea towards the Maun­sell forts in the dis­tance. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, a cou­ple were sit­ting on the bench donat­ed by the Cush­ings and stead­fast­ly refused to move, despite 30 pairs of glow­er­ing eyes bor­ing into their souls. (Vin­cent had ear­li­er described the local folk as res­olute and they were proof of that.) Cushing’s beach­front house, com­plete with its top-flight art stu­dio, was also fea­tured, along with places he would vis­it, such as the local golf course (to admire the view rather than play), as well as the local Wether­spoons pub – a for­mer cin­e­ma now called The Peter Cushing.

It was then time to watch a 1992 inter­view, car­ried out by jour­nal­ist Peter Williams (who was present to dis­cuss the show) for his TV series The Human Fac­tor, in which Cush­ing dis­cuss­es his spir­i­tu­al side as well as his love for his wife, who by then had been gone for over 20 years.

A trip to the local muse­um fol­lowed, where a plucky band of vol­un­teers proud­ly show­cased their exhi­bi­tion devot­ed to the local hero, includ­ing his bicy­cle, his art equip­ment (Cush­ing was a skilled water­colourist) and a cos­tume from The Masks of Death (1984), his final out­ing as Sher­lock Holmes. Then it was back to the Horse­bridge for the last event: a Cush­ing quiz. I’m proud to say I won.

After a quick catch-up with Mel, in which we mused on what Cush­ing would have thought of all the fuss (we decid­ed he would have been touched, embar­rassed and sur­prised), I was back on the train to St Pan­cras, pass­ing some of the Charl­ton fans going in the oppo­site direc­tion. They were jubi­lant, hav­ing won the match and there­fore pro­mo­tion to the Cham­pi­onship next season.

They can’t pos­si­bly have been as hap­py as me, how­ev­er. I mean, I spent the day ​‘with’ my hero, and then topped it off by win­ning some cake. Sure­ly there can be no fin­er end to an event than that.

Talk­ing Pic­tures TV’s Peter Cush­ing Cel­e­bra­tion ran from May 25 – 26 2025.