The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: Kingsbridge to Berwick

Harold Fry, 65, has just cut the lawn outside his home at Kingsbridge, on the south coast of Devon, when a letter arrives. Queenie Hennessy, a colleague from twenty years ago, has cancer and is in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He writes a brief note, goes to post it, has second thoughts and walks to the next post box, and the next. The walk to the far end of England has begun. The 2023 film was also shot in and around Kingsbridge, among other Devon villages.

Location precision: The novel places Harold's home in Kingsbridge but not on a named street; the pin marks the town.

Harold keeps going, and six miles south of Stroud he phones the hospice. He is told that his message, asking Queenie to wait for him, is working: patients without family usually die quickly, but Queenie has rallied. Encouraged, he finds a cast-off sleeping bag and, with his money running short, starts to sleep outside. The call turns an impulse into a promise he now has to keep.

Location precision: The novel gives only a distance from Stroud; the pin marks the town, not the spot of the phone call.

In Cheltenham Harold starts shedding what he thinks he needs. He gives away his guidebook and posts his debit card and other small items home, so the walk depends on strangers and on what he can carry. Without a card or a guide he is no longer a man following a plan; he is simply walking north toward Queenie.

Location precision: The novel names the town, not a street; the pin marks Cheltenham's centre.

South of Coventry a young man called Mick joins Harold and tells him: "What you're doing is a pilgrimage for the twenty-first century." Mick works for the Coventry Telegraph, and Harold's story soon spreads. Several others join them from all walks of life, sleeping out or finding garden sheds. What began as a private promise to one woman is turning into a crowd.

Location precision: The novel places the meeting south of Coventry without a named spot; the pin marks the city.

Near the end the walk comes apart. Harold decides to backtrack, which throws off the fellow-travellers, who go straight on to Berwick. Alone, he becomes badly disorientated and wanders west of Berwick, sending postcards home from places like Kelso. It is the lowest point of the journey, and the point where the reader learns there is more behind the walk than a letter.

Location precision: The novel mentions Kelso only as one of several places he posts from; the pin marks the town.

Harold reaches the hospice where Queenie has been waiting, but at first decides not to go in. At last he changes his mind, and later he and Maureen are reconciled before the waves breaking on the beach. Together they visit the hospice, where they learn Queenie died at peace, and then head to the waterfront, remember how they met, and laugh for the first time in years.

Location precision: The hospice in the novel is not named; the pin marks the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.