Today most cinemas seem obsessed with American blockbusters. But of course England has had its own successful film industry for over 100 years. Many top films like The 39 Steps are iconic. But most people agree that likely the best film ever made in England was Brief Encounter, a story of surprising love in middle-age (that never amounts to anything, due to both people being married to other people).
Penned by Noel Coward originally as a play (it’s him making the train station announcements), the film was mostly filmed at Carnforth Station in Cumbria (the tea room still exists, as a tourist spot). Famously Celia Johnson runs out to throw herself in front of the express train, not being able to bear it that Trevor Johnson’s character is going to South Africa, so they won’t be tempted into an affair, due to their deep love for each other.
The reason why Carnforth was chosen, was because it was far enough away from London, to be warned if there was an air raid (the film was shot during the Second World War, released in 1946). The bridge that the couple cross is in the nearby village of Langdale.
Celia Johnson was one of England’s top actresses, and later married the brother of Ian Fleming (who wrote the James Bond novels). This writer pens a loving tribute to the ‘lady who made more Englishmen go weak at the knees than any other lady of the 1940s’. Primarily a stage actress, he says her accent was so charming that she would make Y noises before certain vowels:
‘I went eybsolutely myad and bought a new hyat’.
Famed for being quiet and intelligent and witty, she is the opposite of today’s vacuous celebrities, once telling her daughter that she would not write an autobiography, as she had never had an affair with Frank Sinatra. And if she had, she would not have told anyone! She is buried next to her husband (near her son-in-law and granddaughter, who sadly died in a boating accident on the Thames).
Trevor Howard was a very successful actor, who is one of a small handful of well-known people who have declined an honour from the government (in his case, a CBE). Others were Rudyard Kipling and painter Lowry (who after the death of his beloved mum, said there was no point in accepting one, as ‘There seemed little point, once mother was dead’).
