RAILWAY CHILDREN COUNTRY

With the release of the long-anticipated sequel to the heart-warming film, we take a nostalgic journey through Yorkshire

© JOHN DAVIDSON PHOTOS/ALAMY/JAAP BUITENDIJK It was the family film with enduring appeal. Released in 1970, The Railway Children, directed by Lionel Jeffries, was an adaptation of a 1906 book by the same name by E Nesbit.

The film, which was a huge success, and is still much-loved today, tells the story of three siblings, Roberta (known as Bobbie), Phyllis, and Peter Waterbury. Having spent the first part of their childhood living in a lovely house in an affluent part of London, the children find themselves suddenly down at heel (due to the fact that their father, who works for the Foreign Office has just been arrested on suspicion of being a spy – a fact hidden from them by their mother) and are forced to move with their mother to the beautiful, but remote, Yorkshire countryside to start a new life.

The house they move to, which is rat-infested on arrival, is called Three Chimneys and is located near

Oakworth train station, and although at first, it’s a far leap from their former life, the children soon embrace it. They delight in watching the steam trains chug past on the nearby railway line and befriend an old gentleman who catches the 9.15am train each day. Soon enough the family become involved in a bit of an exciting espionage escapade themselves.

For those yet to see this classic British film (where have you been?) we won’t divulge more, except to say that the feel-good film proved a huge success, made a star out of Jenny Agutter, who played Bobbie (and incidentally who also starred in a BBC dramatisation of the same book a couple of years before the film), and showed its setting of Yorkshire in a beautiful light.

Now over 50 years later, the sequel, directed by Morgan Matthews, brings the action forward to 1944 when three siblings, Lily, Pattie, and Ted Watts, are evacuated from their home in Salford, Manchester – also to Oakworth – where they are taken in by the local headmistress, her mother, and her son.

Unlike the Waterburys before them, these children haven’t left an affluent life behind, but the smog and soot of working-class inner-city life, and they have the street cred and toughness to prove it.

Like the first film, the children become involved in an adventure, and it touches on the themes of war, as well as racism, in a delicate way.

Like its predecessor, The Railway Children Return (or simply Railway Children in the US) is set amid the rolling hills and honeypot villages of Yorkshire, and Jenny Agutter reprises the role of Bobbie, although on this occasion in more of a supporting capacity. Other cast members include Sheridan Smith and Tom Courtenay, both household names in Britain, and Game of Thrones star John Bradley.

However, the real star of the sequel is the Yorkshire setting, so here we take a journey through Yorkshire and visit some of the real-life locations that feature in the film.

Haworth

More famously known as the home of the Brontë sisters, with its cobbled streets and old-fashioned shop fronts, Haworth, a hilltop village in West Yorkshire’s South Pennines, is used for lots of village scenes in the film.

BUITENDIJK © STEVEN GILLIS HD9 IMAGING/MARK SUNDERLAND PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMY/JAAP

The Brontë Parsonage Museum, where Charlotte, Emily, and Anne lived for much of their lives writing their famous novels, doubles as the doctor’s surgery in both the original film and the sequel. The museum, open Wednesday to Sunday throughout the year (except for Christmas and New Year) is a great place to appreciate the literary legacy of the sisters.

Elsewhere in the village, the Black Bull pub becomes the Red Lion pub in the film, the graveyard of St Michael’s & All Angels Church is the backdrop to a poignant scene, and many of the village’s shopfronts were given a wartime makeover. bronte.org.uk

Oakworth

Just a five-minute drive north of Haworth brings you to Oakworth, where the film is set. Oakworth train station features heavily in both films, including being the setting for an emotional scene in the first film.

Jenny Agutter, whose father hails from Yorkshire and visited the area many times as a child, says the inclusion of Oakworth was pivotal to the film.

Previous page, left to right: Oakworth Station was used as a lming location in both lms; a still from The Railway Children Return Clockwise, from top left: The Brontë Parsonage Museum becomes the doctor’s surgery in the lms; Haworth’s main street; Sheridan Smith and Jenny Agutter in character; the Brontë Way, near Haworth

Top to bottom: Sir Titus Salt’s mill is used as a US Army base in the new lm; the lm premiered at the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway Station earlier this year

“I have, from the first time I ever went to Oakworth Station, loved steam trains,” she says. “I think they’re absolutely wonderful. The sounds they make, the whole sense of them. Just being back there, and filming, was very touching. One of the engine drivers had driven the trains for Lionel’s film. He was there with his 41-year-old daughter, who was the first woman to drive those steam trains. I love all those connections.”

Keighley & Worth Valley Railway

Of course, it’s the trains that really evoke the sense of nostalgia we all love. The trains in both films are from the heritage Keighley & Worth Valley Railway and the station was used for the film’s premiere earlier this year.

Interestingly, the original railway line closed in 1962 and was only reopened by a group of railway enthusiasts six years later – just in time for the first film. Today, you can take a five-mile journey along part of the original train line through parts of West Yorkshire. kwvr.co.uk

Saltaire

This 19th-century World Heritage Site, on the River Aire in Bradford, also in West Yorkshire, was once home to a textile mill (named Salts Mill after its owner Sir Titus Salt) and a large community of workers and their families.

In the sequel it becomes the US Army base, and today anyone can visit to admire the Italianate architecture of the mill and its surrounding buildings, which include workers’ houses, a school, and a train station. saltairevillage.info

Oxenhope

The house that becomes Three Chimneys in both films is Bents Farm, just off Marsh Lane, in the village of Oxenhope, a little south of Haworth. It’s a private home, but you can still see its exterior on one of the Railway Children walking routes that set off from Haworth. n haworth-village.org.uk/walks/rail3/rail3.asp

The Railway Children Return is available for digital release in the UK on 3 October, it will be released as Railway Children in US cinemas on 23 September, and be released digitally in the US on 6 December.

© DAVID BRABINER/ALAMY/NADIA ISAKOVA/AWL IMAGES LTD

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