How Britain was duped into falling for the romance of Auden’s ‘Night Mail’ (2024)

Bernard Richards

For almost 200 years, they have carried Britain’s post up and down the country, becoming part of the fabric of the nation.

But from October 10, the Royal Mail’s own trains will no longer be used for our post, signalling the death knell for an era that has become imbued with romance.

The move to more reliance on road transport confines Britain’s dedicated “mail trains” to history, but they will be remembered fondly– in no small part because of a classic film made about their night-time journeys when the service was at its peak.

Night Mail, from 1936, has become a landmark in film-making and combined the talents of the “father of documentary” John Grierson, poet W. H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten. Much imitated since, it even spawned a 1987 sequel,Night Mail II, which included a new poem by Blake Morrison that reworked Auden’s text from the film.

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A set of Royal Mail commemorative stamps based on the film was also issued, and many adverts have referencedNight Mail, with British Rail making one themselves in 1988, again using Auden’s words, and read by actor Tom Courtenay.

The film, which played in cinemas across the country in 1936, enthralled audiences with the excitement of the night trains– especially their travelling sorting offices– as well as Auden’s inspiring words and Britten’s stirring score. And producer John Grierson would go on to become so recognised for his documentaries that one of the most prestigious annual awards for factual films is named after him.

However, all inNight Mail is not as it seems. Although the film succeeded in bringing the mystique of the “mail trains” to the nation, a large amount of fabrication went into portraying them in the documentary. Although W. H. Auden was shortly to become one of Britain’s best-loved poets, his inclusion inNight Mail was almost an after-thought, and his involvement questioned because of his appearance.

Many have said that what elevatesNight Mail from a propaganda film for the General Post Office, which commissioned the documentary, is its “verse commentary” written by Auden. Indeed, it is what has really made the film immortal.

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ButNight Mail’s producer and director Harry Watt had some much less flattering observations at the time about the then young poet. Even though Auden’s poemFuneral Blues, orStop All the Clocks, often cited as one of Britain’s most popular poems, first appeared in the same year asNight Mail, Watt said Auden looked like “a half-witted Swedish deckhand.”

Despite this, Auden was asked to undertake some direction for the film, supervising the film’s scene of the transfer of the mail from one train to a ‘Postal Special’ locomotive.

As with much of the film, Auden was guilty of some fabrication. He claimed that a guard had “dropped dead about 30 seconds” after shooting the transfer scene. This was not quite accurate since a) the man who died had not been a guard and b) he died some weeks after filming.

But Auden’s contribution will be remembered mostly for his rhythmicNight Mail poem, which was commissioned only after the documentary was almost complete. With much of the filming done, producer John Grierson noticed a problem: “What we haven’t got here is anything about the people who are going to get the letters. We’ve only had the machinery of getting from one point to the other. What about the people who write them and the people who get them?” he said.

And so the idea dawned that Auden should contribute a poem to the film.

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The strong rhythms in the poem take their cue from the pounding of steam locomotives. Earlier poems have been influenced by compelling rhythm: Tennyson’sThe Charge of the Light Brigade, for instance. “Half a league, half a league / Half a league onward” captures the rhythm of horses’ hooves, reinforced by the command “Charge for the guns”. And there’s Tennyson’sNorthern Farmer: New Style, written in Lincolnshire dialect: “Dosn’t thou ’ear my ’erse’s [horse’s] legs, as they canters away? / Proputty, proputty, proputty – that’s what I ’ears ’em say”. It has a strong beat similar toNight Mail: “This is the night mail crossing the border.”

The section on the letters themselves is one of the best-loved bits of 20th century poetry: “Letters of thanks, letters from banks, / Letters of joy from girl and boy, / Receipted bills and invitations / To inspect new stock or to visit relations...”

The film also celebrates those “railway towns” that had sprung up along the line chosen by the producers to show the workings of night trains along the London-to-Glasgow route. But, despite its significance on this line, a stand-in was used for Crewe Station inNight Mail. Broad Street Station in London, next to Liverpool Street Station, was used to simulate it.

Particularly notable about the film is how it shows General Post Office employees at work, including how they dropped mail from the train to be caught by nets on the ground. The staff are seen talking, too, although what they said was pre-scripted– which accounts for what, by our standards, are sometimes stilted performances.

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Grierson made many more documentaries about working life. His films provided the opportunity to see citizens at work, and, for us,Night Mail is a fascinating visual record of a lost world. Who now writes letters or sends postal orders? Who now under the age of about 70 knows what it was like to travel by steam as an ordinary matter of course, rather than on some rare heritage outing?

But for all the high intentions of the film-makers,Night Mail is an example of how there are often a good many compromises made with reality when it comes to making a documentary; bits of film from all over the place were stitched together and sometimes one feels that the film crew needed a continuity person.

The film purports to be a night journey, yet many of the shots are in daytime. One train appears at four separate locations with a different locomotive pulling it each time. Things get worse. A train from Holyhead arrives, pulled by the same locomotive that arrived from Crewe earlier.

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One of the film’s charms is that it allows us to see a number of bygone locomotives. Most were scrapped in the mid-1960s. What magnificent beasts they are, and it’s nice that some still exist in reality, not just on black-and-white film.

It is the marriage of the mechanical and the poetic that makesNight Mail such a success, which is why Auden was perfect to contribute to it. His view was that everything was potentially accessible as a poetic subject, and especially industrial scenes. InLetter to Lord Byron,he wrote: “Clearer than Scafell Pike, my heart has stamped on / The view from Birmingham to Wolverhampton.”

So he was all ready when it came toNight Mail, which helped make the film as a piece of art very fine. But as a documentary, it’s something of a dog’s breakfast.

How Britain was duped into falling for the romance of Auden’s ‘Night Mail’ (2024)
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