Yesterday, Joan Ishibashi and I were sitting in The Slipway restaurant, when a man in a sports car drove up. “Isn’t that Ian McNeice?” I asked. “Go out and ask him for a picture,” Joan replied.

McNeice usually carries a small green bucket and asks for a £1 donation to the Port Isaac RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution.) From their Facebook page: The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea. They provide, on call, a 24-hour lifeboat search and rescue service and a seasonal lifeguard service. Situated in a 700-year old fishing village, Port Isaac has seen lifeboats launching for over 100 years.

In June 2019, Port Isaac RNLI posted: “We would like to say a huge thank you to Ian McNeice AKA Bert Large, for again raising such a wonderful amount of money for Port Isaac RNLI. Ian asks people to make a donation in return for a requested selfie. There’s clearly a lot of Doc Martin fans in the village! Thanks again Ian “

Mr. McNeice didn’t have his green bucket with him when I approached him in the car, so I asked if he would accept my £1 coin as a donation for taking his picture. He agreed!

Later in the afternoon, Joan and I saw Ian McNeice on the Platt where I took Joan’s picture.

It was this morning, however, that we had the opportunity to watch actual filming for Season 10, along with the crowds of other Doc Martin fans. Although the big stars, Martin Clunes and Caroline Catz were not present for the filming today, we were lucky to catch several others, although at a great distance.

The greatest surprise to me was the huge number of equipment and personnel who are needed to produce this show. For example, in the scenes with Mrs. Tishell at the Portwenn Chemist, it almost seemed like a game of “how many people can we stuff in here?!” I bet there were at least a dozen staff in that small room in addition to the actors, and of course, all the equipment.

My friend Amy Leddy was able to get a selfie with Dame Eileen Atkins (Aunt Ruth) who was also in the scene with Selina Cadell (Mrs Tishell), but she had to run to catch her! Amy had met her on two other occasions and Dame Eileen recognized her! She is 87 years old (unbelievable!) and walks faster than people who are much younger.

Here are some photos of the crowd and how challenging it must be to produce this show with so many spectators! We were lucky to get seats in The Slipway restaurant across the street, but they warned us not to look in the direction of the actors because we would be part of the background. Of course, we ordered some food so we were not needlessly sitting there!

Today was our last day in Port Isaac and the last time to see our friends to say goodbye.