Celia's memories
British actress Celia Johnson was the first choice of David Lean and Noel Coward to play the part of Laura Jesson, the housewife whose ordinary life is turned upside down when she falls desperately in love. In a biography of her mother, Kate Fleming records Johnson's wartime letters to her husband Peter, brother of James Bond author Ian, a successful writer himself in travel, now serving in India.
Although she was fascinated by the role from the first, Johnson was unhappy about the proposed location. 'We have got to go up North for 4 weeks location on some horrible railway station. I don't yet know where.'
Much to her surprise, Johnson and the entire crew immensely enjoyed the time spent at Carnforth. She recalls that it was a very happy unit. Often in the middle of the night, Johnson and Lean would watch the express trains roar through the station. 'The reason that I am enjoying it is that away on location and all of a unit one gets a good compact atmosphere, much more like a theatre. ..You'd think there could be nothing more dreary than spending 10 hours on a station platform every night but we do the whole thing in the acme of luxury and sit drinking occasional brandies and rushing out now and again to see the expresses roaring through. The unit is mostly mad or pleasant with a sprinkling of bores among it and a great many gamblers.'
Cast and crew would have a huge meal at one in the morning in a restaurant car, (where, apparently the food was inedible). Towards the end of filming, Johnson was now not looking forward to leaving. 'I have got awfully fond of Carnforth Station. It seems most unlikely, but all the guards and porters are most awfully nice and even the stationmaster, a large man in stern bowler hat who is renowned for his grumpiness, raises his stern hat unceasingly to me and I am continually being besought to sit by the fire in his office.
We had a very long night two days ago and didn't finish in the station until 7.30, by which time the fish train from Aberdeen had pervaded the place - not really encouraging to Art (!) at that hour of the morning. I was playing a sad little scene with the scent of herrings in the air and milk cans rattling...'
Fleming Kate, 'Celia Johnson: A Biography' (Weidenfeld and Nicolson,1992)
In 2000, Alison Evans, who was then a Post Graduate student at the University of Plymouth, approached the Friends of Carnforth Station to ask if she could produce a website about Carnforth Station , as one her modules towards an MA in Publishing.
This website is the website that she produced.
The original website was created in 2000., and apart from one or two factual corrections (different telephone numbers / contact addreses etc.) The website is as created.
Since then the Station rejuvenation has been completed, and the station is now open as a fully fuctional railway station, and a visitor center. For the latest information about the station, please visit
http://www.carnforth-station.co.uk