SHIRLEY VALENTINE

GB
1989
1hr 48mins
Dir: Lewis Gilbert
Starring: Pauline Collins and Tom Conti

A bored housewife leaves her husband and takes a romantic holiday in Greece

This award-winning romantic comedy-drama is based on Willy Russell’s 1986 one-character play of the same title, though it seems somewhat dated now. It features a scene on the concourse of London St Pancras station and visible in the platforms behind is an HST set and a Class 105 Cravens DMU. Something is on the front of the DMU, possibly a very rare glimpse of an old train heating bolier, but the Class 105 is just as rare. By this stage no more were in passenger service and it would have been one of the small handful converted to parcels operations, all of which had been withdrawn by March 1989.

Pauline Collins and Alison Steadman at St Pancras. The DMU behind is a Class 105 but attached to it at the front is something of unknown provenance. I thought it may initially have been a Class 31, but the bodyside is wrong and it does not appear to have a yellow cab front. It could be an old steam heat boiler, of which a few were still knocking around in departmental use, but I am not so sure on that either. Any ideas?
This, though, is clear enough. As the pair make their way to the exit an HST set is in the platform