If a film is made of the second novel in the trilogy, I hope Linda Bassett reprises her role. Queenie isn’t actually in the film much and I’m not sure that she even speaks in it. I hadn’t realised that Linda Bassett was in it but she was the perfect choice as Queenie Hennessey. I can’t imagine anyone other than Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton playing Harold and Maureen. There were some lighter moments but I’d say it’s not a film for you if you’re feeling emotionally fragile. I’m welling up now just thinking about it. There’s one particular scene with Maureen and her son David at the kitchen table which had me in bits. I knew there would be sad bits, as I remembered most of the gist of the story, but didn’t quite remember it being quite so emotional all the way through. Well, my goodness what an emotional experience watching this film turned out to be. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years.Īnd then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him – allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. Along the way he meets one character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years. Little differentiates one day from the next.
He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. I was very excited to find out that Harold Fry was going to be adapted for the cinema, especially when I saw who was playing the main characters. I think that Rachel Joyce is a wonderful writer and she captures emotions so beautifully on the page in these three poignant books.
I’ve since read the other two books in the series, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennesey and Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North which tell the story from the viewpoints of Queenie, who Harold is walking to see in the first book and Maureen, his wife. I bought The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry when it first came out and loved it.
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