“O

akworth, Oakworth”, cries the porter in the evergreen 1970 film adaptation of The Railway Children. Conjure up any visual image of the location of the story and the Keighley& Worth Valley Railway ( KWVR) immediately springs to mind. Where, however, is the real place where the well- to- do Victorian children who had fallen on hard times befriended the railway, waved to trains and watched in horror as cuttings slipped onto the tracks?

Certainly not Yorkshire! The KWVR was merely a convenient location for filmmakers to record steam in action two years after it had ceased on BR. The 2000 Carlton TV adaptation was shot on the Bluebell Railway featuring some of that line’s South Eastern Railway ( SER) locomotives. Whether by accident or design, this was much closer to the mark.

Conjecture

There has been a certain amount of conjecture around the precise location that inspired Nesbit, who lived in a variety of locations around south east London, including Eltham and Grove Park ( at the latter, town planners have been eager to name a road after the novel) and it may be that the book takes