New Railway Children?

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I was watching The Railway Children and the scene where they prevent a train accident by waving their scarlet underwear to stop the train. I immediately thought "Ready Made Family!" I mean the scene where the Marlows and Dodds wave Nicola's yellow jumper to stop the train, after vandals have been mucking with the line.

AF said somewhere she loved the Railway Children - she read the E Nesbitts before writing Thursday Kidnapping - and I wondered if it was a conscious or unconscious echoing on her part?

It then struck me that the whole of "Ready Made Family" is a sort of late twentieth century Railway Children. The railway is integral all the way through, from when Mrs Marlow, Ginty and Lawrie are late because they are in "almost a nasty accident" to the arrival of the Dodds by train (Nicola and Chas go up into the engine) to Chas's obsession with trains, to travelling by train to Yetland Cove, to walking along the line (leads to ructions with Edgar) and Nicola's trip to and from Oxford. (It's on the train where Edwin says he still misses Rosemary - very evocative scene, leading Nicola to start reflecting on Latin quotes). And of course the basic situation - three children, two girls and a boy, go to stay in the country after a domestic disaster - is the same.

There's also Mr Lanyon who lends Nicola the money for her ticket and says that if the branch-line is closed - as is threatened - then what will it matter [about the money?] Which makes me wonder if AF has some sort of elegy for doomed rural train lines thing going on with this book?

Of course there are train scenes in the other books - the starts of Autumn Term, End of Term and Runaway Home, a scene in The Thuggery Affair. But in no other book is it so pervasive. (And I wonder if she didn't do a train scene in Cricket Term because she was all trained out?)

What do you reckon? Good theory...or siding to nowhere?

Comments

[antfan.livejournal.com]

There's also the fact that Rose is obsessed with old children's books. Hmm. Possible pointer there?

[catwithcreamy.livejournal.com]

I do hope it is an unconscious echoing, because when I first read it I immediately thought of The Railway Children and was rather disappointed that the same idea had reappeared - I had been enjoying AF's originality so much. But yes, good theory - it's partly why I like the books so much - an elegy for former times, trains and all. Of course, plots , I imagine, suffer from the same fate as musical composition - there are only so many notes in the scale to compose with.
I think the scene in the train with Edwin and the 'tears of things' is absolutely superb, deeply touching.

[hooloovoo_42]

Although I don't disagree with your theory, I think it was just a case of trains being so much more a part of every day life back then. If you lived on a branch line and there weren't many buses, the train would be the most obvious form of transport. Once you got to a mainline station, you could go anywhere.

My mum grew up near Keighley and the Keighley & Worth Valley line (where the 1965 version of TRC was filmed) was a main route from the towns up to Haworth into Keighley and then on to Leeds, London or Settle.

I remember reading a Ngaio Marsh book once where all the characters kept jumping on trains from Paddington to the West Country at all hours of the day and night. I asked Mum about it and she said that in "those days", there would have been far more trains a day, as very few people had private cars and they weren't built for such long journeys.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I think that it's more that the railway was so important in postwar times - all children were obsessed by it, and far fewer people owned cars

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

I think it's a great theory! Totally buy it -- it's like a mirror image of The Railway Children, with the children missing their mother rather than their father, and not getting her back at the end. The whole "three children move to the country sans one parent" thing -- I'm sure AF saw the TRC parallel in that, and worked the train stuff accordingly.

The book is so full of other literary references too -- as someone said, Rose and the old kids' books, and Lord Peter Wimsey and the Aeneid -- great stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, a bit sceptical about my own theory now. After all AF references the Persuasion theme very clearly by having Nicola reading the book. She could easily have included a direct Railway Children reference by having Rose read The Railway Children, for example, but I don't think she does.

Still, think Railway Children must have been an unconscious influence at very least. (Certainly on the scene with the jumper.) Maybe having created Chas as a character obsessed with trains, she then found that the train line provided a very useful plot device at various points.

By the way I never meant the suggestion to be derogatory of AF's writing - just that it's fascinating to see what her influences are.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

sorry, that was me.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

So many key moments in all the earlier books happen in trains, don't they? Nicola's pen knife, running off to see Giles, meeting Esther and Sprog flying off, Marie realising everyone knew about the twin switch except her, all of RMF; then less so in the later books, perhaps because modern trains are somehow less evocative than steam trains and/or they were travelling more by car.
I had an excited moment of recognition a few weeks back listening to the Archers when a character quoted the "sadness of things" line. I woudn't normally recognise Latin tags but thanks to AF I did this one!

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are a lot of trains, you are right - but not so pervasive as in Ready Made Family? Regardless of whether its Railway children inspired, it makes me realise that AF set up the train theme very cleverly - the two different accidents with the first fore-shadowing the second, the way arguments about the train line are used to highlight family conflicts, the way Nicola recalls the earlier incidents - the near accident in Chapter One and going up into the engine with Chas - when she is afraid the train is going to crash. (And its the London train, just like the Railway Children!)

And it provides some gorgeous scenery:

For the last two miles before reaching Yetland Cove, the railway track ran so close beside the sea that you could watch seaweed lifting in the swell. The station itself was part of jetty, and passengers had to walk fifty yards or so over rough boards between which the sea could be seen slopping and gurgling between the piles. Chas thought it the perfect railway...

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Did they close the Westbridge line by the way? Seems like it should have been a prime candidate for Beeching(sp?)'s cuts. But I think they went home that way in Run Away Home?

[tabithabun.livejournal.com]

I thought of the Railway Children too when I first read the scene with Nicola's jumper, also when Mr Lanyon lends her the money for her ticket as a little thank-you from the railway company for what the children had done that morning.