Return ticket
ROMANTICS clutching soggy hankies will soon be re-enacting Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson's Brief Encounter. Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 2 will be playing softly in the background. Carnforth railway station in Lancashire, the station made legendary by David Lean's film, is to be turned into a Brief Encounter theme park. Its new owner, Railtrack Property, wants the derelict buffet to become a shrine to the film and the particular English restraint that it portrayed. ''We have invited developers to submit their schemes,'' says Steve Tyler of Railtrack. ''Obviously we like the idea of a Brief Encounter theme restaurant.'' In its heyday between the wars, Carnforth was a major staging-post on the Euston to Glasgow line, with steam trains stopping to fill up with water and coal to ''shove up Shap'' preparing to climb Shap Fell. Elaine Maudsley, 70, appeared as an extra in the film, and still lives locally. She is chuffed at the idea. ''It's so sad to see it all boarded up,'' she says. ''That film is still being talked about today.'' Japanese tourists will flock to the venue, as the film is replayed continually in Tokyo. The omens are good. A commemorative plaque to the 1946 film was stolen from the buffet two years ago but recently reappeared on the steps of Heysham police station. Return ticket, The Times - 2nd August1995 (
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