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GB 1949 1hr 02mins Dir: Jay Lewis Starring: Cliff Gordon and Diana Decker
A pair of young miners travel to Ramsgate where they find the attentions of two holidaying girls too much to turn down
This comedy was made as a second feature, and Director Jay Lewis, along with most of his crew, were former members of the Army Kinematograph Service. The film features some fabulous shots of Chinnor station and a Watlington branch train worked by a former GWR auto-train hauled by a ‘Pannier Tank’. However, a shot of a different station entirely is slotted into this sequence, and there is also an earlier scene filmed at an as yet unrecorded station.
Jack Vyvyan wheels a pile of parcels through the gate of an as yet unknown ‘station’. This may not be a station at all and the sign on the left announcing ‘railway’, ‘station’ and ‘colliery’ tempts us with the rest of its wording and could be a prop nailed to the wall. Nonetheless, the background buildings are distinctive enough, so where is this?
Cliff Gordon arrives onto the platform. The Southern Railway signboard on the fence announces that the ‘7.15am service to Ramsgate is cancelled as from Monday next’. The fact that we hear but do not see the train arrive, suggests again that this may not actually be a station.
This is looking down onto Chinnor station from Hill Road and there is no denying that this is the real thing
Chinnor station in Oxfordshire closed in 1957, but it has since reopened as the main operating base of the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway
The guard gives the ‘tip’ to the driver and the train departs. This is Chinnor station looking north east, with the Hill Road overbridge beyond the platform.
This close up shot of the train pulling away gives us a clear glimpse of the ex-GWR 0-6-0 Pannier Tank on the front. However, it also shows that for some inexplicable reason the cabside number plate has been covered over thus eliminating the loco’s identity!
All is not as it seems here either. One really has to be careful sometimes as spanners are thrown into the proverbial works from time to time. This is definitely not Chinnor, which only ever had one platform and a single track. So on which station is Cliff Gordon standing? And why was it inserted into this sequence?
Back at Chinnor again and Cliff Gordon watches the train depart, as the guard looks back and watches Cliff Gordon in amusement! Although the Pannier Tank remains unidentified, the former auto coach is No.81.
