Railway in the Woods

It is Black Park, immediately to the west of Pinewood Studios and not far from where I have lived most of my life. The track, buffer stop and carriage—all part of a temporary outdoor film set—I saw one winter day as a child in company with my mother and paternal grandmother (and the latter's retinue of miniature poodles). No filming was being done, so I cannot claim we saw François Truffaut or any member of cast or crew, which is a pity. A few years later I saw the film on television.

It is, don't you agree, a sad and singularly haunting film—one imbued, moreover, with a sense of civilisation endangered, of centuries of culture and learning reduced for ever to ash?