Love for famous station burns eternal The rundown railway station immortalised in Brief Encounter, the classic British film, has been saved from demolition. Carnforth station, where Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson snatched precious moments of suppressed passion, is being refurbished by fervent enthusiasts determined to relive a bygone romantic age. After pleas from fans around the world from Tokyo to New York, the film set of the 1945 classic by director David Lean is to be recreated. A museum, tea room, and information booth are to replace broken windows and crumbling walls of the derelict station, which was scheduled for demolition. The old station clock has been retrieved from a London shop. Enthusiasts raised (pounds) 1.2m for the restoration and Railtrack put in (pounds) 550,000. Peter Yates, Carnforth Railway Trust founder, said yesterday: "What brought me into it was seeing a group of Japanese wanting their photograph taken under the clock. "If someone travels around the world to stand under that clock, there must be a reason. "We have a visitors' book that we put in the stationmaster's office for 18 months. "It was signed by people from all over the world including New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Canada, and the United States. "The Japanese particularly like the film as it is important to them for its moral stance. "It preaches restraint and decency and that is respected over there." Lean scoured Britain at the end of the Second World War for the perfect set to film the Noel Coward love story, and picked the remote station in Lancashire. Its re-opening will have special significance for Alf Burgess, who worked on the steam train used in the film, and Elaine Maudsley, a tea lady who, in a twist stranger than fiction, met her future husband in the same refreshment room. Why then has the film's popularity lasted for half a century? "The eternal appeal is this quality we have in Britain for nostalgia and niceness," said Peter Yates. "Carnforth station has changed very little in 60 years. It is a timewarp, and we all yearn for the past." Love for famous station burns eternal Glasgow Herald - 14 August 2001
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