THE 1945 film, The Way to the Stars, must have been on over the weekend as it prompted an anonymous reader to give me call following the Memories in the paper and on the blog about Bedale.

"I belong Bedale and I'm going to soon be 90," she said, "and I watched them film The Way to the Stars, around the cross in Bedale and along the Market Place, but they put the Golden Lion in Northallerton on the screen instead of the Black Swan where it was filmed."

The Way to the Stars, which was directed by Anthony Asquith and stars Michael Redgrave, John Mills and Rosamund John, is regarded as one of the best British contempory war films, particularly in the way it summons up the wartime atmosphere.

It was shot in Bedale, but in the storyline - the film was based on an earlier play - the pub is called the Golden Lion. Rosamund John's character, Miss "Toddy" Todd, is the pub's landlady who is bereaved when here fiance (Redgrave) is shot down over France.

So our anonymous friend's Northallerton line is possibly a red herring, but the rest is spot on.

One wonders why they chose Bedale to film in. I can't find any reference to any other film being made there, and the storyline is actually set in the Midlands.