Railway buildings where Brief Encounter was filmed will be flattened unless enthusiasts can win a losing battle to raise £1.5m

Time runs out for station steeped in myth

The station clock, an icon of British cinema, has stopped and time is running out for the trust struggling to restore Carnforth station, where the classic British romance, Brief Encounter. was filmed in 1945.
The film brings tourists from all over the world to visit the Station in Lancashire: more will flock in when the movie is re-released for Valentine's Day next year. But they only find desolation. Like the wretched commuters, huddled on the platforms of a Station recently voted the worst in England, the tourists can only dream of steaming tea urns.
The Carnforth Station and Railway Trust has magnificent plans for the station, but if it cannot raise the £ 1.5m needed-before the Railtrack regeneration programme reaches north Lancashire early next year the buildings will be flattened. The trust is still about £1m shy of the target.
The buildings which sheltered the stiff upper lip tragic lovers still stand - just.
Every time a 110 mph express screeches through without stopping little flakes of British cinema history drift down from the rotting platform roof. The refreshment room is locked and shuttered, its interior a mouldering ruin.
The last 30 years have been a chapter of disasters for the junction, which created a market town and once provided hundreds of jobs. Half the platforms were torn out in the 197Os in the electrification of the west coast line. The station lost its ticket office, then all staff. The station clock was also electrified (its l870s clock- works were sold off for scrap), ran erratically for a few years and then stopped.

"Celia Johnson used to stand in front of this fire warming-herself."

The only facilities now are two and a half benches - the vandals had the other half - and a square room, headquarters of the trust, which is manned daily by volunteers. It offers petition forms, tourist leaflets, and a brief respite from the savage wind from Morecambe Bay.
"This was the station master's office, and it always had a proper fire - fed with coal from the tenders," trust chairman Peter Yates said. "They had to film in the small hours of the morning, when the station wasn't in use, so it must have been bitterly cold. When she arrived at the set Celia Johnson used to stand in front of this fire warming-herself."
Director David Lean scoured the country for a setting to film Noel Coward's script - originally a one-act stage play - about a middle-aged couple who meet in a station buffet, fall in love, steal a few afternoons at the Kardomah cafe and the Roxy cinema, and then part forever for the sake of their children and the sacred institution of marriage.

Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1946) Bored housewife Laura Jessop (Celia Johnson) describes the first meeting with Dr Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) when he helps her to remove a piece of grit from her eye, blown there by a passing express train.

"It all started on an ordinary day in the most ordinary place in the world - the refreshment room at Milford Junction.
I was having a cup of tea and reading a book that I got that morning from Boots. My train wasn't due for ten minutes. I looked up and saw a man come in from the platform. He had on an ordinary Mac, his hat was turned down and I didn't even see his face. He got his tea at the counter and turned. Then I did see his face. It was rather a nice face ... He passed my table on the way to his ... 'Oh please, could you give me a glass of water? I've got something in my eye and I want to bathe it'."

Carnforth was chosen partly because it was so remote the war office felt the film set's lights blazing in the blackout were unlikely to attract the Luftwaffe. David Lean's shrewd eye also spotted that the station had ramps to the underpass - Celia Johnson, who spends an unfeasible amount of the film running from her platform to her lover's and back, would have looked ludicrous scrambling up and down steps.
It was filmed in the last months of the war, and released in November 1945. It recently came second on the British Film Institute list of 100 great British films.
All the crucial scenes between Johnson and Trevor Howard take place either on the station platforms or in the refreshment room, ruled by Joyce Carey's magnificent Ivy, goddess of the tea urn. The trust has an agreement with Railtrack to restore all the buildings, bring back a stationary steam train as the star attraction of a visitor centre , and reopen the refreshment room complete with bentwood chairs, cast iron stove and mahogany counter.
However, the scheme was shot down last year by the heritage lottery fund because the unlisted buildings did not meet the priorities. The trustees believe their project meets all the government's objectives of conservation, urban regeneration, and promoting increased railway use.
The trust recently located the innards of the clock, which warned the lovers their time was up, in west London.The owner knew nothing of the film connection , and is happy to sell it back. "It has been through dozens of hands since it was first sold, yet we managed to trace it chairman Peter Yates said. "If we can do that we can do anything."

Time runs out for station steeped in myth The GUARDIAN Monday 8 th November 1999

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