The woman who knows her station

Elaine Maudsley waits patiently on the station at Carnforth, recalling the time 50 years ago when she appeared in Brief Encounter.
The film is the centre-piece of a proposed tourist attraction, to be housed at the station.
Here Celia Johnson as Laura, tells Myrtle Bagot (Joyce Carey) and Albert Godby (Stanley Holloway) how it all began: "just through me getting a little piece of grit in my eye."
Elaine Maudsley saw the blossoming of Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard's hopeless love in Carnforth tearoom.

Now, Gavin Bell reveals, she may see the atmosphere of Brief Encounter again For passengers on the West Coast main line between Scotland and the south, Carnforth Station in Lancaster is a brief encounter. From the windows of an Intercity express hurtling through it, there is a blur of boarded-up buildings, a high wire fence enclosing the platforms, and a big old clock. It is unlikely that passengers notice the clock displays a choice of times on its two faces, and neither is correct. The errant clock is at least in keeping with the atmosphere of the station, a forlorn place abandoned by railway staff more than 20 years ago and left to mourn alone the passing of the age of steam which once breathed clamorous life through it.

Now efforts are being made to revive its fortunes by re-creating a romantic episode in its history - when it was transformed into Milford Junction, where Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard gazed at one another with hopeless love in David Lean's black and white classic Brief Encounter.

On the 50th anniversary of the making of the film, there are proposals to create a themed restaurant and a small exhibition centre in the buildings which appeared in some of the most poignant scenes. It is envisaged that the restaurant in the old booking hall would have posters and other memorabilia of the film, while a visitors' centre in the former refreshment room would have audio and visual displays featuring Noel Coward's screenplay and the haunting theme music from Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.

The initiative has come from Railtrack, which acquired the station last year from the British Rail property board. A long-term lease on generous terms has been offered to prospective developers, and a short-list of interested parties is being drawn up with a view to reaching a decision in a few months. The lease extends only to the buildings, as two of the platforms are still used for local train services.

Steve Tyler, a Railtrack spokes-man, sees the old refreshment room being restored to the way it was in the 1940s, with LMS teacups, a big tea urn and rock cakes, and monitors playing various scenes from the film. "We're open to offers, of course, but we're hoping potential entrepreneurs will share our vision for Carnforth. We get lots of tourists turning up to wander around, and some of them even know the lines and re-enact their favourite scenes on the platform. But there's nothing for them to see really, it's a bit disappointing for them. So we're hoping this will be the answer."

Many of the enthusiasts are Japanese - apparently there is a cinema in Tokyo that shows the film throughout the year because Japanese have a high regard for chaste love. Mr Tyler points out that there is already a Brief Encounter restaurant at a station near Norwich, which does good business, and he suggests the real thing offers an even better investment opportunity. "Apart from the romantic aspect," he says, "it is good for us to have a thriving business at the station that creates a good image and attracts further investment in the railways."

A good omen is the recent recovery of a plaque commemorating the making of the film, which was stolen from the station two years ago. It seems the thief had a twinge of conscience, because it turned up in a plastic bag on the steps of a nearby police station. It is now at Lancaster museum, pending the refurbishment of the station.

Carnforth has an added attraction in an engine shed near the station, where a private collector has assembled a museum of steam engines and rolling stock. It attracts a large number of railway buffs, particularly for summer excursions on the old trains, who would probably enjoy a cuppa in a 1940s Brief Encounter tearoom while watching Lean's dramatic scenes of steam engines roaring past the platforms.

But it will take some impressive special effects to re-create the magic of Carnforth in the era of Brief Encounter. In those days, all the LMS trains heading north would stop to take on coal and water for the long climb up Shap Fell. The refreshment room on the island platform was continually busy with passengers waiting for their locomotives to refuel, or for connections to Leeds and Manchester. The railway was the biggest employer in the town, and the station was its heart, throbbing to the sound of steam and whistles.

Now the water tower and the gas lamps have gone, the station master's office has been demolished, and electrification has covered the tracks with a cobweb of power lines. Only local services to and from places like Morecambe and Barrow stop here now, and you have to buy your ticket on the train because there has been no railway staff at Carnforth since the early 1970s.

But the fine old buildings are intact, defying dereliction with handsome facades of local sandstone and ornate windows that give them the genteel appearance of a country manor house rather than a railway station.

Local sentiment has been offended by the run-down of the station. "It's a disgrace now," says taxi driver John Bainbridge. "Falling to bits, it is. It's a shame really, because Carnforth was a beautiful old station, always well looked after."

The scheme to renovate it has the unqualified approval of Mrs Elaine Maudsley, a former waitress in the refreshment room who appeared briefly in the film as an extra. "I'm thrilled for Carnforth this is happening," she says. Mrs Maudsley is enjoying a brief return to the media spotlight as a local celebrity, half a century after her acting debut: "It's lovely being reminded of those days. There was such a sense of comradeship after the war, and of course when the film people arrived it was very exciting."

She remembers being paid the huge sum of 37s 6d a night for walking up and down the platform, at a time when her weekly wage was 10s 6d. She also remembers Stanley Holloway, as the station ticket collector, ruining several shots by grabbing playfully at her leg as he climbed on to the platform from the tracks. "Everybody was laughing, but eventually Mr Lean told me to move further up the platform."

Mrs Maudsley has another reason for remembering the refreshment room with fondness. A few months after the film crew left, a young man working in an ammunition dump across the road came in for a morning coffee. "I was engaged to somebody else at the time, but he had the most wonderful voice and I fell for him just like that, and he fell for me. We were married six months later."

The marriage lasted 46 years, until her husband's death three years ago. Mrs Maudsley regrets that he did not live to see the restoration of the station: "He would have loved all this, he really would." So whatever happens at Carnforth, passengers flashing through the little station may reflect that at least one brief encounter there lasted a lifetime.

The woman who knows her station.  Glasgow Herald - 9th December 1995

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