Night Mail
Article by Harry Claude Corbett
Night-Mail 1936 GPO documentary train 6115 in station. GPO Film Unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
A celebration of Heavy Engineering, Towns and Cities in Great Britain and the Arts.
I was a thirteen-year-old schoolboy in October 1971 when the last Travelling Post Office picked up and deposited mail bags on the move.
I remember reading it in the newspapers at the time and rather lamenting the occasion.
Night Mail celebrated this practice and the transportation of mail with a film by the General Post Office Film Unit in the summer of 1936.
This film initiative decided to follow the journey of the Down Special Travelling Post Office between London and Glasgow.
This was a challenge for any film unit because the Down West Coast Postal departed from Euston at 8.30pm and therefore this was mainly night-time filming which in 1936 was a challenge.
The cameramen were Henry Fowle and Jonah Jones who clearly made waves on this documentary because they went on to provide more seminal work a few years later on the Blitz in London and the build-up of the military and other preparations before D-Day.
On the journey between London and Glasgow we are able to observe the professionalism of those sorting the mail on the train and the railwaymen who were working through the night in order to provide the safe arrival of the post through offices, shops and the front doors of homes as well as satisfaction for those people receiving a letter.
The train leaves Rugby and takes the Trent valley line through Tamworth to Crewe.
The scene at Crewe is awesome where the train has 13 minutes to change locomotives and 500 mail bags to be offloaded and 1,000 mail bags loaded on to the train.
The locomotive and crew that would have backed on to the train at Crewe (Crewe North Shed driver and firemen) would have two large challenges ahead of them and they were the gradients of Shap in Westmorland and Beattock in Scotland.
The train travels through Towns and Cities such as Wigan and its coal mines, Warrington and its steelworks and Preston with its machine shops.
Then the poetry of W. H. Auden (who grew up in the Birmingham suburbs) and music of Benjamin Britten (born in Lowestoft) take over this documentary and take you on the last leg of the journey into Glasgow starting with the ascent of Beattock Bank.
If you have never listened to this, then I implore you to do so.
Not only had Great Britain been responsible for the invention of the modern steam railway but also the Travelling Post Office Carriage that could set down and pick up the mail whilst on the move.
In addition, the railway professionals at all levels were to be celebrated for their skills and dedication.
Those towns and cities between London and Glasgow are also to be celebrated for their industrial heritage.
Clearly the environment in the Birmingham suburbs and Lowestoft were conducive to the forming of two world class artists.
So when I think of Night Mail I think of the fusion of innovation, industry and the arts and the celebration of the past with much hope for the future.
Night-Mail 1936 GPO documentary interior TPO sorting carriage. GPO Film Unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
