A Brief Encounter

I’ve just completed a jigsaw, showing 5 views of Carnforth railway station & its visitor centre devoted to David Lean’s film, “Brief Encounter”, which was shot mainly on this station.

As I did the jigsaw, I couldn’t help thinking that there was something sad about the fact that the best that Carnforth could come up with to attract visitors was the fact it was where a film was shot in 1945.

I am pleased that it has meant the continued life of this Victorian railway station. It has also meant the station has been smartened up. There are some interesting shops on the platforms, worth visiting even if you’re not waiting for a train. You can get decent refreshments as you wait for the train. At one time they even held a Farmers’ Market on one platform.

I can’t help feeling it’s a pity they didn’t do a visitor centre more generally based on the history of the railway in Carnforth. Before the railway came to Carnforth, it was no more than a tiny village, as it had been from time immemorial. In the mid-19^th century, the population grew fast & enormously. As the railway grew, so did the population of Carnforth, as the briefest of glances at the census figures for the period will reveal. The villages around shrank & became little more than overflow residential areas for Carnforth. Carnforth became one of the biggest & busiest railway stations in the north west of England. None of this is revealed at the present visitor centre.

Maybe the main reason I find it all a little sad is that I find the film “Brief Encounter” a bit of a non-event. Yes, it captures that very English understatement of emotion. It does captures something of the period as some US soldiers moan about the lack of whisky (due to rationing) available in the refreshment room. I remember the filth & risk of getting something in you eye if you waited too near the platform edge in the days of steam trains. Undoubtedly the music, Rachmaninov’s piano concerto in C Minor is fabulous. I suppose even the idea of making a romantic film, which only incidentally featured the war, was novel at the time. But none of this alters the fact the film just doesn’t work for me.

I mentioned my feeling to the Fox. He commented that he was relieved to hear that I’d found “Brief Encounter” disappointing too. He’d thought he was the only person who didn’t like the film.