It's enough to make you weep By STEPHEN OLDFIELD IT was the station buffet where tea and tears poured out. In the refreshment room at fictional Milford Junction, doomed lovers Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard said their last farewell in David Lean's Brief Encounter. Fifty years on, the moving British cinema classic still saturates hankies whenever it is shown. Now the tea-room is the cause of another crying shame. In 1945, Carnforth station in Lancashire where the film was shot - was thriving. It was an important stopping point on the Euston to Glasgow main line, and passengers would throng the buffet counter three-deep. Today, it stands derelict and vandalised. Even the fence put up to deter intruders has collapsed and its final fade-out is breaking hearts. Not only those of railway and cinema buffs, but those of the locals who had their own brief encounter with fame as extras in the film.
'It's an appalling mess, and so short-sighted that the refreshment room has been permitted to collapse into such ruin,' said widow Elaine Maudsley, 69, who makes a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-me' appearance in a platform scene. 'It could be, and should be, a real money-spinner. It gets Japanese visitors in droves. They've told me it is still on in some cinema there each week of the year, but I wince at what they survey - a disaster area. 'why something which amounts to a national cinematic treasure with such tourist potential was ever let go to such gradual rack and ruin, I'll never know.' Mrs Maudsley, who lives in Carnforth, actually worked in the buffet during the two weeks of filming. 'The film was so very, very, English. I served Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and the whole crew with their tea there,' she added. 'They were exciting, wonderful days in 1945. The war had just finished and the station and tea room were bustle, bustle, bustle. It was the golden age of steam and the golden age of England. 'we can't bring the steam trains back - but must we abandon all hope of a hint, here in Carnforth, of the country as it then was? 'It would only take a comparatively small investment to bring back to Carnforth, for the good of everyone, a glimpse of an age gone by, but forever captured In Brief Encounter.' Former railway fireman Alf Bergus, 71, who also appeared in the film, said: 'It's very sad indeed to see the state of the refreshment room. Carnforth is a victim of the rail revolution. Between the wars, it was a major staging post on the West Coast main line. Workshops, coaling yards and depots abounded. Trains changed engines and took on coal and water to 'shove up Shap' - Shap Fell In Cumbria. All sorts of lines fed into the station. In fact, the film-makers chose Carnforth for its human whirl. It guaranteed, even more than London stations, an atmospheric picture of billowing steam at night. Then came diesels, electrification and cuts. Now no main line trains stop at Carnforth. On one line, InterCity trains whizz through at 100mph. On the other, a local service from Manchester 'turns left' for Barrow. The station Is used so little, there Is no booking office. No one can remember? when the tea-room closed - 'It was many, many years ago,' said Mrs Maudsley but any dreams of it reopening could be throttled by the red tape of recent reorganisation. Before April 1 last year, the station was owned by the British Railways Board. After that, ownership passed to the Government-owned Railtrack. It leases the line back to Inter City and to Regional Railway North-West, who 'don t require the facilities of an unstaffed station'. A Regional Railways spokesman said: 'The ball is in Railtrack's court.' Yesterday, no Railtrack Properties spokesman was available for comment. But the Mayors of Carnforth and nearby. Lancaster are keen to See the station's regeneration as Is Carnforth Chamber; of 'Trade'; and they are seeking a meeting with the company. As they do so, Carnforth has suffered another sad loss. A plaque on the refreshment room wall, commemorating the making of the film has gone. "It's been pinched" said a painter working on Platform One, "The best we can hope for now is to get our own Brief Encounter - to allow us at least to paint over the bare boards covering the tea-room windows." It's enough to make you weep, © DAILY MAIL, 10 th April 1995
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