Welcome to Aidensfield: Digital Fan Practices and Physical Tourism

Heartbeat (1992-2010, Yorkshire TV) was a staple of Sunday night television when I was growing up. Following Last of the Summer Wine (the topic of my last blog), the series with its 60s music, classic cars, and stories of crime on the North Yorkshire moors was both captivating and charming. And then I grew up and became interested in other things, and slowly drifted away from the sleepy village of Aidensfield. In fact, I only ever thought about it when my dad would send me photos of his classic motorbike parked up on the green outside the Goathland Post Office, which doubled as the centre of Aidensfield during filming. In choosing my case studies for this research project, I knew that Goathland was popular (its steam railway also doubled as the village of Hogsmeade in the first two Harry Potter films) but was surprised to discover that not only was a classic car rally featuring vehicles from Heartbeat held there every year, but its organisers were a good decade younger than I am.

The Heartbeat Vehicle Rally is an annual event which sees vehicles that were used in Heartbeat, along with other classic cars and bikes, descend on Goathland for two days in the summer. Some of the show’s stars appear, signing autographs and taking photographs, and money is raised for charity through the sale of a Heartbeat calendar and donations taken by locals dressed as characters like Sergeant Blaketon and loveable rogue Claude Greengrass. The rally was created by Heartbeat fan Alan Coleman, who had bought the police minivan used in the show after filming finished in 2009 and made several trips to Goathland in it. Parking the van outside the Aidensfield Stores attracted a lot of interest from other fans, which gave him the idea of arranging a car rally featuring vehicles that appeared in Heartbeat. Phil Hopkinson, who owned the Aidensfield Stores, gave Alan contact details of the companies that had supplied the vehicles for filming, who in turn put him in touch with the new owners the vehicles had been sold to and who were happy to bring the cars to Goathland for the first Heartbeat Vehicle Rally in 2011. Alan set up a Facebook page for the event, on which he announced that a calendar and postcards of Heartbeat vehicles would be produced, with the proceeds going to two charities, and asked for fans to contribute digital photos of their vehicles.

Ten Heartbeat vehicles were on display at the first rally, yet social media has played a role in increasing the number of cars that are exhibited, and the number of fans in attendance, in subsequent years. A Twitter account for the event was created in 2015, and nineteen vehicles – both ex-Heartbeat and vintage - attended in 2016. Alan also began sharing Periscope broadcasts and created an Instagram account in 2016, using the social media accounts to solicit ideas for encouraging other Heartbeat stars to attend. In one post he wrote:

“Each year I get asked if any other Heartbeat actors will be attending, well the owner of the Aidensfield Stores has always arranged for David Lonsdale to attend and each year David has kindly agreed to do so. I would think that any Heartbeat actor would understandably (sp) at least expect to be paid their travel expenses to attend the rally, so I don’t think it would be fair to ask the Adensfield stores to stump up money for additional actors. It may be possible to raise money to pay actors to attend by raising money online using Gofundme or similar ? If people think it’s a good Idea, I will look into it.”

Responses were positive, with interest from UK and overseas fan. Two fans set up Facebook groups for Heartbeat fans in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway while the President of the Scarborough Elvis Fan Club offered support in putting on an after-event social evening. Covid saw the 2020 Rally being cancelled but online events were offered to fans, including a Zoom quiz and Q&As with Tricia Penrose and David Lonsdale which were streamed live on Facebook. The Facebook live with Tricia took place on 17 September, 2021 and generated 45 comments, including questions about the show and the possibility of an official convention, while the event with David generated 77 comments including questions about the production of a Heartbeat audio show. Alan also set up a Facebook group linked to the Rally page for owners of ex-Heartbeat vehicles to share information, photos, and advice about finding, buying, and restoring screen-used vehicles. Members shared links to vehicles and other Heartbeat items they had seen for sale which, in some cases, led to ex-Heartbeat cars being bought by members and restored for exhibition in the rally at Goathland. The vehicle owners group currently has 5,056 members with regular posts about the show being contributed.

Alan stepped down from organising the rally in 2021 and the organising team now consists of Lee Jones, Kieran Reid, and Jason Bullard. In addition to taking over the running of the Facebook pages Lee and Kieran are also active on their own Twitter and Instagram accounts. Lee runs @TvHeartbeat, which shares favourite clips, photographs, and behind the scenes information, while Kieran runs the Molly the MGB GT Instagram account, featuring photos of his classic car. They also run the TV Heartbeat Podcast which features interviews with cast members and discussions of the show and its episodes.

Of course, we’re used to social media being discussed in relation to fans and fandom, but it generally seems to be thought of in relation to new(er) texts: Harry Potter fandom has an active social media presence and FOX used platforms like Snapchat and Twitter to generate hype for The X-Files revival season in 2016. It seems strange to think of a text about the 1960s, which ended in 2010, having an active social media presence but it clearly does, and moreover, it’s been an important tool in connecting Heartbeat fandom as well as facilitating physical events like the vehicle rally and encouraging visitors to Goathland. As Keiran said when he spoke to me, he has been approached by people who have attended the rally after seeing photos of his, Lee’s and Jason’s cars on Instagram - one attendee brought his Rolls Royce to the rally after seeing Kieran’s posts. Lee has also utilised his social media platforms to encourage people to attend the rally with their vehicles and forged connections with cast and crew which resulted in Vanessa Hehir attending the rally for the first time in 2023. As the Heartbeat Vehicle Rally shows, digital fan practices are just as important in encouraging screen tourism as physical ones are, no matter how old the source text.

This research was funded by the University of York.

Biography

Bethan Jones is a Research Fellow at the University of South Wales. She has written extensively about anti-fandom, media tourism and participatory cultures, and is co-editor of Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Society (Peter Lang) and the forthcoming Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy, Conflict, and Complicity in Fandom (under contract with University of Iowa Press). Bethan is on the board of the Fan Studies Network, co-chair of the SCMS Fan and Audience Studies Scholarly Interest Group co-editor of Popular Communication.