In his book, The Last Journey of William Huskisson,” Simon
Garfield tells the tale of a meeting that took place between
forty-nine-year-old railway giant George Stephenson and Fanny Kemble, an
actress of twenty-one, whose father knew some of the directors of the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway. She just happened to be wowing theatre audiences in the
city in the role of Shakespeare’s Juliet, at the same time as the first trains
were being trialled, in 1830.
To cut a fascinating and very readable story short, Fanny
joined George on the footplate, where she was all but overcome by the
experience, as he explained the basics of how the locomotive worked, in his
broad Northumbrian accent. Fanny likened the machine to a powerful animal -
possibly the first time, but certainly not the last, that that simile would be
employed. She described her impressions of her ride “up front” in a letter to a
friend, admitting that she was now, “horribly in love,” with the great man.
In 2008, we went to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool for
the exhibition, Art in the Age of Steam. There were railway art masterpieces on
show from France and the USA, as well as some notable nineteenth century
British examples. Into that category comes this familiar painting [below, left]
by Abraham Solomon, entitled The Meeting…and at First Meeting Loved.
The young man is obviously taking advantage of the fact that
dad is asleep to chat up the daughter. Apparently, this caused such an affront
to [admittedly, frequently hypocritical] Victorian sensibilities in 1854, that
Solomon felt obliged to clean it up. He fashioned a sanitised version a year or
two later called The Return – First Class, in which the young man, now having
improved his credentials by donning military uniform, is trying to get a word
in edgeways, while her father, now sitting between them and evidently playing
party pooper, goes off on one.
Perhaps the best-known railway romance of all was the David
Lean wartime film, Brief Encounter, in which in spite of its success and
subsequently iconic status, the liaison itself never really got off the ground.
All that “Darling, darling” stuff proved to be just a preamble without
resolution. Common sense prevailed and they went their separate ways without
any crockery getting smashed, the need for appointments at Relate or trips to
the solicitor.
The other mega, rail-related cinematic romance was surely
the Railway Children? Who can forget that poignant moment when father finally
returns, emerging on the station platform as if from the puff of smoke itself,
rather than unjust imprisonment far away? Lots more films have included
railway-based love interest, of course, including Dr Zhivago and The Thirty
Nine Steps.
The poets have also had their say. Philip Larkin noted
preparations for nuptials observed from the train when passing through the
towns and villages of Lincolnshire in The Whitsun Weddings, and in [christine1] his poem, Thoughts in a Train, John Betjeman’s
attention is attracted by the garb and accessories of an intriguing fellow
traveller, though he seems mesmerised by her trappings - indicators, he points
out, of a higher social class then her third class ticket would suggest -
rather than any of her other, perhaps more obvious, attributes.
When Michael Portillo ventured into Thomas Hardy country on
one of his Bradshaw inspired rail journeys, he referred to an example of the
novelist’s lesser known contributions as a prolific poet. Entitled Faintheart
in a Railway Station, Hardy notices that……….
“…then, on a platform, she:
A radiant stranger, who saw not me.
I queried, “Get out to her, do I dare?”
But I kept my seat in my search for a plea,
And the wheels moved on. O could it but be
That I had alighted there.”
The heritage railways are not infrequently afflicted by
romance in recent times, I’ve noticed, whether its members of staff and
volunteers finding that love has sprung from their rubbing shoulders in their
work situation, or enthusiasts who have chosen a favourite railway location in
which to celebrate getting hitched.
Just one of the many attractions of the refurbished St
Pancras station is Paul Day’s sculpture, The Meeting Place, a thirty feet high
bronze statue of an embrace between lovers. Not only does it summarise the
timeless function of railway stations as places where people have traditionally
parted and been reunited, with all that attendant emotion, but its scale and
location ensure that it will become a focal point for such similar interactions
hereafter.
When we chose rail travel on our own honeymoon, to France,
in 1972, there was no Channel Tunnel or Eurostar so we made do with the ferry
crossings and their connecting services, firstly to Paris and then on to
Grenoble, visiting French friends in both locations. I remember it as exciting
rather than romantic, but my wife may have a different perspective. I do know
that when I left Britain I was a teetotal twenty-three-year-old who had never
touched the stuff but by the time I returned I had developed a real liking for
red wine.
We have often said that we should go back and retrace that
journey, but I have found in other instances that that does not necessarily
work out for the best. It is not possible to re-live the past. Places change.
Some of the people we met up with then, are, unfortunately, but perhaps not
surprisingly given the substantial passage of time, no longer alive today.
Better to savour the moment and the memories that follow.
I sometimes stand accused of “living in the past,” with my
interest in heritage and its surviving tangible reminders. I bet I’m not the
only one to hear that accusation, from time to time. It’s all a question of
balance, of course. The academics,
Lowenstein and Elster, referred to “a triple counting of experience,” in which
we derive pleasure from looking back on the things we have enjoyed and forward
in anticipation to things that have yet to happen, as well as the immediate
gratification we derive from the moment itself. Whether in romance or in any
other worldly pleasure, who is to say that a bit of “living in the past”
shouldn’t be a part of it, from time to time?
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