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It's almost 10 years since I was given a late-night cup of tea in this imposing village hall. It's Godmersham and Crundale Village Hall, and if you go to the gallery on its website you will see what an impressive space it is.
Looking for media reports about the accident today, I found one on Kent Online I had not seen before:
Residents and Southeastern employees have been commended for their actions after a train derailed near the village earlier this year.
The awards have been handed out following an incident in July that saw a late-night train hit a herd of cows that had wandered onto the track near Chilham.
None of the 70 passengers on-board were hurt but they were taken to nearby Godmersham village hall afterwards while alternative transport was arranged.
Now Godmersham villagers together with Southeastern employees working on the night, have been given a special executive award for their actions in the aftermath of the collision, that included offering shelter for shocked passengers in the village hall and providing refreshments for those affected. ...
Matthew Gee, the resident responsible for unlocking the village hall for the passengers, said: “When we heard the train had derailed nearby, we immediately wanted to help in whatever way we could.
“It was a real team effort between the Southeastern team and the members of the village hall and I’m really proud of the local residents who helped provide hot drinks and food for the passengers.”
The award also recognises the quick-thinking and conscientious efforts of Southeastern employees Warren Wills, Tim Hewitt, Michelle Harris, and Paul Harris who led the passengers to safety and train driver Daryl Ryan who leapt from his cab to halt an approaching train after realising the derailment had caused his own train’s radio system to stop working.
To get to the village hall, we had to climb down from the train, walk across a field and then wait in a lane for transport to arrive.
I travelled in a police van - in fact in the narrow compartment where they put people they've arrested - with Daryl Ryan, and he told me he thought the train was going down the embankment after it hit the cows.
The RAIB’s [Rail Accident Investigation Branch] analysis of the derailment path suggests that the consequences were mitigated by two external factors. The first was the impact with Trimworth Bridge, which deflected the train back towards the railway. Secondly, the path of the leading carriage was constrained by the right-hand wheels running against the inside face of the left-hand rail. These factors reduced the probability of the train falling further down the embankment.
"The idea of the 'illegal' asylum seeker is a falsehood that has been actively peddled by the Home Office and the Home Secretary in recent years. When people talk about asylum seekers coming to the UK 'illegally', what they really mean is asylum seekers arriving via informal and unofficial routes, such as crossing the Channel via small boat. However, asylum seekers are legally allowed to come to the UK even when making an 'illegal entry'." Amelia Susserott explodes the myth of the illegal asylum seeker.
Peter Hain says British politicians have failed Northern Ireland: "What a colossal, devastating failure by British politicians over Northern Ireland. The current impasse - with the Northern Irish Assembly still suspended and another set of elections now required, the second since May - is the product of terrible neglect by the British government starting in 2010, accelerated and deepened by Brexit, which has shattered the delicate power-sharing balance required for functioning Northern Irish institutions."
A growing number of children with mental health problems are being treated on adult psychiatric wards as services struggle to cope with a surge in demand, reports Shanti Das.
James West is critical of the way the media covers climate change: "This is one area where many people with no qualifications in science, with largely arts and humanities training and who have no authority in science, feel able to express opinions on climate science and expect to be taken seriously."
"Watching that scene we, the excited children of black Jamaican migrants in Luton, let out a collective 'Yes!'. Sidney Poitier was one cool dude on and off screen - and we loved, absolutely loved Virgil Tibbs, the actor who played him and all he stood for." Colin Grant surveys the career of Sidney Poitier.
Robert Edgar traces the roots of folk horror back to Thomas Hardy.
Jacob Rees-Mogg's public personality is as carefully constructed as that of any film star.
So lazy satirists who think they can hurt him by making jokes about him being old fashioned are missing the point. The overegged quaintness is a way of disguising Rees-Mogg's real nature as a thoroughly 21st-century financier.
Another important aspect of that constructed personality is its sheer disagreeability to anyone of a remotely liberal sensibility. "You may dislike me," it seems to say, "but there's nothing you can do about me."
In part Rees-Mogg is playing the public school buck he never was. Because it appears he was seen as a joke by the other boys during his Eton years.
And Matthew Sweet has said that when he heard Rees-Mogg speaking at the Oxford Union he thought he was someone doing a comic turn to send up the politicos. Well, it was an act.
Of course, you can go too far. In November 2019 he said that the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire had died because they failed to show "common sense" by following the authories' instructions to stay put and wait to be rescued.
Following an outcry, Rees-Mogg apologised and was then hidden from the voters in the general election campaign.
But that didn't prevent his being reappointed leader of the Commons after the Conservative victory, so the episode cost him nothing.
My own very limited experience of being involved in an emergency taught me that the last thing, the very last thing, you want in such circumstances is someone lounging about and telling you, in an affected upper-class drawl, to ignore the instructions you are given.
I remember, after the train had come to a halt, that we all sat there wondering what happened next. Soon flashing blue lights appeared on a distant road and we knew that someone had taken charge.
As we climbed down from the train, the police and fire brigade were exaggeratedly insistent that we took our time and took care. They did not want some falling, breaking a leg and making the incident more serious.
My conclusion is that an emergency, whether a minor derailment or a global pandemic, is not an opportunity to display your superiority or you individuality. It is a time to do as you're told.
Though I increasingly name it as my favourite film, I used to worry whenever I watched A Canterbury Tale. It felt such a fragile thing - a rare essay in English mysticism - and I worried that the magic would not work this time.
But it always did and five years ago I learnt that its magic is not fragile at all. This is not a film to take lightly.
******
Filmed in 1943 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, A Canterbury Tale tells the story of three modern-day visitors to the city. They are played by Dennis Price, Sheila Sim and John Sweet, who meet when they get off the train at the fictional Chillingbourne station.
Price plays Peter Gibbs, an Army sergeant who is a classical organist by training but has been making money by playing in cinemas. Sim is Alison Smith, a land girl and former shopworker mourning a fiancé missing in action and presumed dead.
Perhaps both actors are a little too genteel for their parts, but this is infinitely preferable to the way the working-class characters were commonly treated in British films – see Kathleen Harrison in The Winslow Boy for the very worst example. And Price, with his coolness and cynicism, seems a thoroughly modern figure.
John Sweet, the third member of the trio, was billed as Sergeant John Sweet US Army and that is just what he was - a soldier posted to Britain and working on Eisenhower's staff, not a professional actor.
Confused by the black out and lack of signs and mishearing the announcement, his character gets out at the station before Canterbury by mistake, setting the plot of the film in motion.
******
These days caring responsibilities make it hard to get away. My trip to Canterbury in 2015 was the last proper holiday I have had.
I was full of thoughts of the film as I travelled down to Kent, and when I arrived I found my bed and breakfast, a sort of overflow from one of the city’s major hotels, stood bang opposite the Marlowe Theatre. Opened in 2011, it occupies the site of The Friars Cinema where the premiere of A Canterbury Tale was held in May 1944. (John Sweet had to miss the occasion. The film's action takes place while the country is waiting for D-Day and he was busy preparing for the real thing.)
And on my first day I visited The Chaucer Bookshop and asked about Paul Tritton’s book on the film. I had heard it was hard to find and expensive when you did, but they had two copies of the first edition at a reasonable price. (It's a book any lover of the film will want, and I gather the second edition is even more comprehensive.)
So I planned the week’s outings: a day for the cathedral, trips to Whitstable and Reculver, another day for other sights in Canterbury and then Dungeness on my last full day. And, in the middle of it all, I would go to see friends in Hastings.
That Sunday, waiting on Ashford station on the way back from Hastings, I sent a tweet.
Must be careful not to get off at the station before Canterbury
As the three travellers leave Chillingbourne station, Sheila Sim has glue poured on her hair by a mystery assailant. The three learn that this is not the first such attack and join forces to unmask 'the glue man'.
It’s less of a mystery to the film’s audience, who are given a big clue to his identity that the characters do not see. Besides, this is not what the film is really about, though there is great fun to be had from the way the three recruit the local urchins to help them in their investigation.
Closer to its heart is Eric Portman’s portrayal of Thomas Colpeper, gentleman farmer, magistrate and passionate local historian. The part had been written for Roger Livesey, but he disliked the ‘glue man’ element of the film and declined to take part.
Livesey would have brought more warmth to Colpeper, but Portman is mesmerising and it is his public lecture that you remember most from the film.
Yet in what is essentially a film about the war and why we are fighting it, this scene is shot in a way that makes us remember Portman’s turn as a fugitive Nazi in 49th Parallel. It makes his aristocratic Puck of a character, who still lives with his mother, all the more unnerving.
******
Shortly after I sent my tweet the Canterbury train pulled in and I caught it. We sped through the late evening and then it became clear something was wrong.
My carriage began to judder and it was obvious that the one in front had become derailed.
Eventually we came to a halt and then sat out in the dark fields waiting for something to happen. Then flashing blue lights became visible in the distance and I have never been so glad to see them.
While we waited I tweeted a photograph of the coach in front of mine and was fending off media requests for the next couple of days.
One by one we climbed down from the trains and made our way down a slippery embankment and across wet fields to the road where vehicles were waiting to take us to Godmersham village hall. (Godmersham is near Chilham, one of the models for the film's Chillingbourne.)
As I said in a light-hearted blog post that was quoted a little too fully by Kent Online:
I chose the cage at the back as it was the only chance I will get to ride in one unless someone talks
There, late on a Sunday night, tea and cakes were provided for us all. It was just the sort of occasion where Mr Colpeper would look in to ensure all was well. I think I saw his mother serving tea.
******
What A Canterbury Tale is really about is not the hunt for the glue man, nor the powerful role of women in war, nor the beauty and resilience of that city. It is about the blessings received by the three latter-day pilgrims
Denis Price plays the cathedral organ for a congregation of soldiers and rediscovers his vocation as a serious musician. John Sweet receives a stack of letters from the girl he thought had dumped in. Sheila Sim learns that her fiancé is alive and that his father, reconciled to their marriage, is waiting for her at a Canterbury hotel.
Eric Portman receives no such blessing, unless it is the knowledge that he has closed himself of from the world too much and that Sheila Sim or someone like her would be the woman for him.
******
Photo credit: Network Rail
And me? I have always been fascinated by trains and found the experience exhilarating. It was only the next day that I began to think about how lucky I had been.
My train had struck some cows that had wandered on to the line and been derailed as a result. At Polmont in 1984, 13 people died in just such an accident.
And the driver, whom I talked to on the ride to Godmersham village hall in our cage, told me he had thought we were going down the embankment.
In the event we hit the low parapet of an underbridge and were diverted back towards the tracks and safety.
So my blessing may have been that I was still alive to warn you not to take A Canterbury Tale lightly.
Later. It's nothing to do with the film, but I could have mentioned that my friends' young son was quite insistent that I should spend the night with them in Hastings and not travel back to Canterbury. But then his mother is Irish, so he may have The Sight.
This Daily Mail article is a good example, though how they discovered my age I do not know.
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch report on the derailment has now been published. It says the accident took place at Godmersham, which it did, but for some reason all the reports at the time talked about Chilham.
At around 21:40 hrs on Sunday 26 July 2015, a passenger train derailed after striking eight cows that had gained access to the railway at Godmersham in Kent, between Wye and Chilham stations.
There had been a report of a cow on the railway an hour earlier, but a subsequent examination by the driver of the next passing train did not find anything. There were no further reports from other trains that passed before the accident occurred.
The train involved in the accident was travelling at 69 mph (111 km/h) at the point of impact. There were 67 passengers on board plus three members of staff; no injuries were reported at the time of the accident.
Because the train’s radio had ceased to work during the accident, the driver ran on foot for about three-quarters of a mile towards an oncoming train, which had been stopped by the signaller, and used its radio to report the accident.
The accident occurred because the fence had not been maintained so as to restrain cows from breaching it, and because the railway’s response to the earlier report of a cow on the railway side of the fence was insufficient to prevent the accident.
In addition, the absence of an obstacle deflector on the leading unit of the train made the derailment more likely.
I will admit that, as a railway enthusiast, I found being caught up in this accident a little bit exhilarating.
It wasn't until the next morning that I thought about how dangerous it could have been if we were fouling the other track and a train was coming the other way at just the wrong time. In fact someone I knew died in just such circumstances at Great Heck in 2001.
So a big thank you to the driver, whom I spoke to that evening, for his efforts to keep us safe.
Lovers of the film A Canterbury Tale will recognise the reference. The action of the film is set in motion when Sergeant John Sweet (US Army) mistakenly gets off his train at the station before the city.
Shortly afterwards the Canterbury train arrived, I caught it and then this happened and I had to get off before Canterbury...
This is an extract from a South Bank Show profile of the director Michael Powell, dealing with his and Emeric Pressburger's film A Canterbury Tale. (The whole thing is worth watching.)
As Powell says, A Canterbury Tale was a commercial failure. It was all but lost for decades, known only in a heavily cut version made for the American market. Today its critical stock stands very high.
It is one of my favourite films (even though I was derailed at Chillingbourne a couple of weeks ago) and I seem to have more time for Eric Portman's character than Michael Powell did.
What happened to the train derailed at Chilham after the passengers were rescued? I hear you ask. This video explains:
Surely working of the year! On Sunday 375703 and 375612 were working a late evening Charing Cross - Ramsgate service when on the approach to Chilham, 375703 hit 5 Cows and Derailed, the Breakdown Crane came from Bescot to re rail the unit, and 66723 dragged them from Chilham - Canterbury west on Monday the 28th.
Then in the small hours of this morning [30 July] Thumper Power cars from Hastings Diesels unit 1001 were dispatched to collect the damaged units from Canterbury West - Ramsgate EMU Depot. At Approx 0130 this morning, we see 1001 Hauling 375703 and 375612 into Minster working 1Z99 Canterbury West - Ramsgate EMU Depot using emergency coupling.
The person who posted this on Youtube is so excited because the two powers cars hauling the train are from a preserved class 201 (or "Thumper" from the noise their engines make) set that was withdrawn from British Rail service as long ago as 1986.
The rail replacement bus from Canterbury West to Ashford went past Godmersham village hall, where they looked after us on Sunday night, and then the site of the derailment.
What I didn't realise at the time was that it took place on a low embankment. That, added to the fact that there was not a train coming the other way at just the wrong time, made me realise that I may have a luckier escape than I realised at the time.
Anyway, these photographs from the Network Rail Media Centre show the work that has taken place to rescue the train and repair the track and bridge at Chilham.
I have also added a photo of my "Ticket to Cow Hell".
I spent yesterday with Liberator's Stewart Rayment and family at Hastings Pirate Day. ("Arrr!")
I took the train back through Rye to Ashford and then caught another one to Canterbury.
Somewhere between Wye and Chilham there was a loud bang and the train began to judder. It soon became obvious that the coaches (I am not sure if there was one or two of them) in front of mine had become derailed, but we came safely to a stop.
No one was hurt - even the single passenger in the coach you can see in my photo. The train crew took control, the emergency services came (there was even a helicopter) and we waited.
Eventually we all had to climb down a ladder to reach the ground. and then make our way down a muddy back and across a field to a lane.
After a walk up the lane it was a ride in a police van (I chose the cage at the back as it was the only chance I will get to ride in one unless someone talks) to Godmersham village hall.
There tea was provided, our details were taken and eventually a bus to Canterbury and stations further east was provided. I got back to my B&B just before one in the morning.
It was all very British - no one panicked, the emergency services and railway staff were immensely impressive and it all ended with a cup of tea produced without any notice very late on a Sunday night.
It could have been more serious if the train had gone down the bank, but it didn't and no one was hurt.
Because I tweeted the photo above the world's media have been after me this morning. I have said that anyone can use the photo with a suitable credit but I do not want to be interviewed.
Oh, and what I thought was the acrid smell of the brakes being suddenly applied turned out to be the smell of burning cows. I think I shall have fish or chicken this evening.
