|
The last meeting of 2022 was held at Blackstones Sports and Social Club on Wednesday 30th November. Twenty-nine members had a most enjoyable morning which began with several members reading railway themed poetry, bringing back pleasant memories of learning poetry at school for many. The poem Adlestrop and picture of the station are reproduced below.
We then watched a 1936 British documentary film, Night Mail, which was directed and produced by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and produced by the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit. The Postal Special train was a train dedicated only to carrying the post and with no members of the public. This was the same train that was the target of the Great Train Robbery in 1963. The Night Mail focuses on the mainline route from Euston station in London to Glasgow, on to Edinburgh and then Aberdeen. External shots include the train itself passing at speed down the tracks, aerial views of the countryside, and interior shots of the sorting van (actually shot in studio). Much of the film highlights the role of postal workers in the delivery of the mail. The film ends with a "verse commentary" written by W. H. Auden to a score composed by Benjamin Britten.
This was followed by another film, Elizabethan Express, which was a 1954 British Transport Film that follows The Elizabethan, a non-stop British Railways service from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley along the East Coast Main Line. The journey time of 6 hours 30 minutes gave an end-to-end average speed of just over 60 mph regarded as a creditable achievement given the poor state of British Railways infrastructure in the immediate postwar era. At the time this was the longest scheduled non-stop railway journey in the world. The film follows the preparation behind the service, as well as focusing on one particular journey, featuring many railway employees, for example the maintenance men, the driver and fireman and the station master at Waverley station with his two hats – a Homburg and a Top Hat.
There followed a bingo game (with prizes!) based on The Elizabethan devised by Michael Lumb. A lovely buffet lunch was provided during which, we considered quiz questions, again devised by Michael. The answers were either easy or incredibly hard, which caused much hilarity. It was a lovely end to the first year of the Railway History Group.
|
|
Adlestrop by Edward Thomas
Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
|
|
