Night Mail

A series of aerial views follow the Down Postal out of Euston station in London. Looking down onto Bushey & Oxhey station in Hertfordshire with the Up Watford DC Line platform to the left separated from the Fast Lines of the West Coast Main Line by the roof of the station buildings.

"The Postal Special is a fast express, but it carries no passengers. It is manned by forty Post Office workers. Half a million letters are sorted, picked up or dropped at full speed during the night or carried on for the morning delivery in Scotland." Facing Harrow No. 1 signalbox at Harrow & Wealdstone station on The Bridge, Wealdstone in Middlesex with the goods shed to the right.

Signals are cleared for train number 157, the 8.30pm Down Postal Special from London to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, before it thunders through Harrow & Wealdstone. However, this view from Harrow No. 1 signalbox at the north end of Harrow & Wealdstone station is looking north-westward, away from the Capital. The footage also appears in 'The Gentle Sex' as well as being reversed for use in 'We’ll Meet Again'.

The locomotive whistle blows as the train passes. Looking south-eastward from Watford Junction station on Station Road, Watford in Hertfordshire.

Further north, Platelayers attend to the track. Facing southward at Bushey water troughs near Oxhey Road bridge at Watford Heath, Hertfordshire with the footbridge connecting Oxhey Playing Fields with Anthony Close in the right background.

A Lookout Man blows his whistle and calls for his Colleagues to stand clear. Bushey water troughs on the West Coast Main Line between Bushey & Oxhey and Carpenders Park stations, other views of which can be seen in 'Left, Right and Centre', 'Beat Girl', 'Escapade', 'Hide and Seek', 'Train of Events' and 'One Wild Oat'.

The train passes, providing the opportunity for a swig of beer and a smoke. Behind the Platelayers run the Watford DC lines with their four rail electrification system that allowed London Transport Bakerloo Line trains to reach Watford Junction.

After the train thunders by, the view revealed isn't the cutting where Bushey water troughs are located. The footage is reused later in the film to depict the approach to Crewe.

"Four million miles every year. Five hundred million letters every year."

A local stopping train is shunted clear of the main line to allow the Postal Special to pass without slowing. The Aylesbury branch platform at Cheddington station on Station Road, Cheddington in Buckinghamshire. Passenger trains to Aylesbury ceased in 1953 and the line closed completely ten years later. The station also appears in 'John and Julie'.

"Trains from Lincolnshire and Derbyshire connect at Tamworth. Trains from Warwickshire and Leicestershire connect at Rugby."

A Farmer leads his horse home after a day's work.

Checking his pocket watch, the Farmer looks towards the railway embankment.

The Driver of the Postal Special sounds the whistle as his train approaches the farm.

More of the farm comes into view as the camera moves with the train.

The pan continues as the Postal Special passes.

Climbing up the railway embankment, the Farmer picks up an evening newspaper thrown from the engine by the Driver.

The northward journey continues as the Farmer reads the racing results.

Carrying mail bags, two Postmen make their way down onto the railway from a bridge. "At thirty-four points between London and Glasgow, Postmen wait with local mails to deliver them to the Postal Special." The steps down onto the West Coast Main Line from Roughdown Road in Boxmoor, Hertfordshire.

"The mails have been roughly sorted by districts. The Postmen set up a net to catch the mail dropped by the train. They strap up the mail bags in strong leather pouches . . . which are fixed to a standard by a spring clip." Looking eastward from the bridge carrying Roughdown Road to the east of Hemel Hempstead and Boxmoor station in Boxmoor.

Having secured the mail to be collected, a Postman prepares to move the bags into position as express number 157 draws near.

The Down Postal Special's locomotive appears as it begins to cross a bridge.

"A net is swung out from the train as it approaches the standard. The impact releases the spring clip and the pouches are swept into the train." The West Coast Main Line looking south-east to the south of Wembley Central station with Sudbury Arrival Lines, adjacent to Willesden Carriage Sidings, to the left and a property on Highmead Crescent to the extreme right. The scene is reused in 'Inspector Hornleigh Goes To It'.

"Those letters were posted in Bletchley half an hour ago." The camera pans with the train to face north-west on the approach to Harrow & Wealdstone station with the Watford DC Lines nearest the camera.

"Crewe . . . the main junction for the Midlands."

Moving barrows into position, Staff prepare for the arrival of connecting mail trains. Crewe station on Nantwich Road in Crewe, Cheshire.

"Trains from Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester, Stoke, Liverpool and Birmingham bring a thousand bags of mails for the north between 10.57 and 11.39pm. Either platform 1 or platform 3 at Crewe.

The early morning sun reflects off old coaches in the adjacent sidings. PW

On the platform, bags are sorted and loaded onto barrows. Broad Street station in London EC2.

More mails are brought up from the station's subway. Platform 2 at Crewe station in Crewe, Cheshire.

Now staff access by stairs from the renumbered platform 12. PW

As the Postal Special speeds towards Crewe, in the Telegraph Office a message is sent to the Control Room that the train is to be held for 4 minutes as the connection from Holyhead is running 9 minutes late. The brickwork doesn't appear to be of the style found at Crewe.

"The scheduled stop for the Postal Special is 13 minutes. Five hundred bags are unloaded, a thousand loaded, engines changed and some of the English crew exchanged for Scots." From left to right, platforms 5, 4, 3 and 2 at London's Broad Street station, opened in 1865 by the London and North Western Railway and the North London Railway, serving as the latter's main terminus.

A platform remains empty where the train from Holyhead should be standing. The southern end of the now disused and derelict platform 1 at Crewe station in Cheshire.

The roofless and trackless platform. PW

Postal Staff stand waiting as the sound of a Wheeltapper checking the train's wheels echoes across the platform. Broad Street station on Liverpool Street in EC2. The station's concourse appears in 'Give My Regards to Broad Street' and 'The Very Edge'..

With the Holyhead in, the platform becomes a hive of activity. After many years of decline, Broad Street station closed and was demolished in 1986 to be replaced by Broadgate, a retail and office development.

The Postal Supervisor boards the train as it pulls out of Crewe station. Broad Street station at the meeting of Eldon Street, Blomfield Street, Liverpool Street and Old Broad Street in EC2.

Smoke from the engine clears as the carriages and sorting vans pass the Station Master. The cross-girders to the top confirm the location to be Broad Street station in London

"North, with a hundred tons of new letters to sort. The Postal Special picks up and distributes the mails in industrial England."

"The mines of Wigan. Steel works of Warrington. And the machine shops of Preston."

To ensure that leather mail pouches are swung out of the mail van at the right moment, a Postal Worker counts the beats as the train passes over rail joints.

Lineside apparatus catches a pouch as the Postal Special passes. The West Coast Down Main Line approaching Wembley Central station on High Street in Wembley, Middlesex with the Watford DC Lines curving away to the left beneath the footbridge linking Lyon Park Avenue with London Road.

There's the footbridge from 90 years ago. PW

Wind whistles across the bleak landscape before Stuart Legg reads W. H. Auden's 'Night Mail' . . .

"This is the night mail crossing the Border, bringing the cheque and the postal order."

"Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, the shop at the corner and the girl next door."

"Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb, the gradient's against her, but she's on time."

"Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder shovelling white steam over her shoulder."

"Snorting noisily as she passes, silent miles of wind-bent grasses."

"Birds turn their heads as she approaches, Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches."

"Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course; They slumber on with paws across. In the farm she passes no one wakes, But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes."

John Grierson takes over the narration "Dawn freshens, her climb is done. down towards Glasgow she descends. Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes. Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen. All Scotland waits for her. In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs, men long for news."

"Letters of thanks, letters from banks, letters of joy from the girl and the boy. Receipted bills and invitations to inspect new stock or to visit relations, and applications for situations, and timid lovers' declarations, and gossip, gossip from all the nations, news circumstantial, news financial, letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in . . ."

" . . . Letters with faces scrawled in the margin, letters from uncles, cousins and aunts, letters to Scotland from the South of France, letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands, notes from overseas to the Hebrides, written on paper of every hue, the pink, the violet, the white and the blue. The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring, the cold and official and the heart's outpouring. Clever, stupid, short and long, the typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong."

"Thousands are still asleep, dreaming of terrifying monsters or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's." A view across Edinburgh from Calton Hill with the spire of Tolbooth Church extreme left, the Castle towards the centre and clock tower of the North British Station Hotel as well as Sir Walter Scott's Monument on the right. The footage is reused in 'We'll Meet Again'.

Malcolm Tinnelly captures all the major elements of the screen capture for this comparison taken on Carlton Hill.

"Asleep in working Glasgow . . . "

"Asleep in well-set Edinburgh . . ." Looking up at the walls of Edinburgh Castle from the west.

" . . . Asleep in granite Aberdeen, they continue their dreams." Looking across Victoria Dock in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire with the spires and towers of the Municipal Buildings on Castle Street, Marischal College, St. Andrew's Cathedral and the North & Trinity church crossing the skyline.

"But shall wake soon and long for letters." Looking southward at the multiple tracks and signal gantries on the approach to the Caledonian Railway Bridge on the line into Glasgow Central station in Glasgow, Lanarkshire.

"And none will hear the postman's knock without a quickening of the heart." The Caledonian Railway Bridge over the River Clyde which was remodelled in 1966 when one span was removed.

"For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?" Looking towards Clyde Place Quay alongside the River Clyde from above Bridge Wharves on Broomielaw in Glasgow.

Dawn continues to brighten as the film's final pan continues as Benjamin Britten's music builds to a crescendo. Coming into view on the left are the Caledonian Railway Bridge and King George V Bridge.

The shot continues to bring more of Glasgow's Caledonian Railway Bridge and King George V Bridge into frame.

With its task over, the Postal Special's locomotive rests at an unidentified Motive Power Depot where Cleaners and Firemen prepare other engines for traffic.