Spotlight on Brief Encounter 3

Hell is Being a 20th Century Woman

The 1959 film ‘Hell is a City’ contains an interesting scene that has relevance to our Mrs Laura Jesson. In ‘Hell is a City’, the main character is an up-and-coming senior policeman, whose home life is suffering because of his long and unpredictable hours. His wife is bored and unfulfilled and this leads to arguments. In his opinion, she should prove her worth as a woman and have a child. This, it seems, is the only remedy that she needs. She wonders about getting a job but that move is out of the question. A man of his status could not be seen to be “sending his wife out to work”.  Her employment, no matter what it was, would bring shame onto him.

Fred Jesson is obviously a man of some status too – we don’t know what he does but their home is well furnished, they have a telephone, they take ‘The Times’ newspaper and they talk nicely. Very middle class. Definitely no milk bottle on the table. So we can deduce that Laura has no job because it would reflect badly on Fred.

Laura looks on jealously at someone with a life outside those walls

The highlight of Laura’s week is her weekly trip to Milford, where she changes her library book and goes to the cinema. It’s a bit dreary really, isn’t it? At times of frazzlement, I do admit that her lifestyle has appealed to me – but I would have to have my own money somehow. If I lived off another I would never dare treat myself and that would be the height of dreary. Instead, I just take days off work and don’t tell anyone and go off to Sheffield for a day of treats – this is what gets me through the grind. But it’s all the better because there’s no guilt. I’ve earned time off and I’ve earned my spending money.

I wouldn’t live in Laura’s world for anything. Sheer boredom must have been a major factor in pushing her into the doctor’s arms – a fling costs nothing and puts roses in one's cheeks. I wonder how many marriages went that way before society gave us our independence?

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Spotlight on Brief Encounter 2

No Chocolate, No Houses

Interested in the initial reception of ‘Brief Encounter’, I did a bit of digging around in the British Newspaper Archive.  I read somewhere, so long ago that I can’t remember the source, that Britain was divided by the film. This division seems to have been along class lines – the middle classes thought it wonderful while the working classes were incredulous.  Something tells me that there were catcalls in some cinemas along the lines of “Oh why don’t he just give her one and get it over with.” We were at the end of a war where a lot of people had seized life where they could get it, resulting in a plethora of illegitimate babies.

I could find nothing along these lines in the Newspaper Archive. I think that the above is the kind of reminiscence told after the event, and not the stuff for the much more staid newspapers of the 1940s. But I did find two reports that interested me. Firstly, the following appeared in the Nottingham Journal on 4^th March 1946:

“Audiences in London suburban cinemas have been having a brief encounter with balmier days provided by Noel Coward’s film of that title. Reaction to the wittiest comedy lines has been negligible compared with the gasps of astonishment and roars of laughter which have greeted the apparently prosaic requests in the station refreshment room for bars of chocolate at 6d and 1 shilling…a small brandy and the demand of 7d for 2 cups of tea and 2 Bath buns.”

You would think that the reaction to this reminder of a pre-rationing Britain would be greeted wistfully…the roars of laughter seem to me to be an almost hysterical reaction. No doubt people were really fed up that rationing was worse than ever yet the war had been over for months.

Another interesting article came from the Lancashire Evening Post on 13^th June 1946:

A Leyland man tenderly handed an obviously indignant girl into my compartment. She held her wrath until just before she alighted at Chorley. Then out it came. “Call this married life?” she declared to the world in general. “A husband living at Leyland and his wife at Chorley, all because we can’t find a house or room to live in!”

It all added up to yet another tragedy of the housing problem. Here were two people married during the war, both demobbed from the services in December and still seeking somewhere to live.  Until their problem is solved, they must meet each evening and then leave each other on a railway platform. A real life ‘Brief Encounter’ except that unlike Noel Coward’s couple they are married to each other!

Another insight into the audience for the film; and into how unsatisfactory life was for people back then, especially those who had been in the armed forces.

It is easy to fall into the trap of imagining that a film reflects contemporary life when we view it from a distance. As Noel himself said at the beginning of another of his films…”We are QUITE wrong!”

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Spotlight on Brief Encounter 1

The World of ‘Brief Encounter’

My spotlight now moves on from St Trinians to one of our most popular films – ‘Brief Encounter’ starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, as if you needed telling. Who doesn’t love this festival of stiff upper lips among the steam trains? I have loved it for many years and am now going to indulge myself by doing some digging around this classic. I’ll be investigating some historical points thrown up by the film; the people involved in making it, and probably poking a bit of fun too. Because that’s how we British roll, if we love something passionately, we hide our embarrassing feelings by sending up the object of our affections. For the best ever ‘Brief Encounter’ send up, have a look at this Victoria Wood sketch on You Tube.

But now, to work. Let us have a look at what was happening in the news when ‘Brief Encounter’ was released on 26^th November, 1945. What a year that was, the end of the war in Europe, then Japan and a landslide election victory for Clement Attlee’s Labour Government. Rationing though – that wasn’t going away anytime soon. But I had a look in the British Newspaper Archive to find out what the papers were reporting on the very same day that the film was released.

The Daily Mirror was obsessing about the striking gas workers in London.  Terms were being discussed with the trade union but in the meantime there was a bread shortage because the gas ovens used by bakers were out of action. The black-out caused by the gas lamps not working had led to a woman having her bag snatched in Notting Hill.  Memories of the Blitz for everyone, there.  Also reminiscent of the war years was a report of a plane crash near Edale in the Peak District. “Bomber Ace” R D Speare was killed.

De-mobilisation of troops was still a major issue. Forces psychologists were alleging that an alarming number of service personnel were “getting a discharge on mental grounds by conscious or unconscious fooling of medical officers.” I expect a lot of men were desperate to get home.

The Daily Herald mentioned a memorial service that had been held at Deptford Town Hall, to mark the V2 rocket attack that had killed 140 one year previously.  The war was over, but the scars were still very raw.

I also had a look at the Manchester Evening News – the station scenes in ‘Brief Encounter’ had been filmed in Carnforth, Lancashire – so I thought I would go a bit more local.  The front page reported rather a relevant incident. Apparently, a father and his two sons from Chester had been remanded in custody for breaking into a cinema. They stole two axes.

Other titbits included praise for Lancashire miners as they had increased their output despite having fewer men working in this industry – but there was a desperate call for more fire fighters. It seems that people wanted to get out of the forces and the jobs were there waiting for them…but good old bureaucracy was getting in the way.

This then, was the world of ‘Brief Encounter’, one that still needed a good helping of escapism despite the positive developments of the past 12 months.  Keep checking the blog for more insights into the world according to Milford Junction.

My story collection ‘Roads to Corryvrekan’ is set in the latter part of 1945 – have a look HERE