Carnforth canard
Sir: Vitali Vitaliev's article (The Russians are not coming', 26 August) struck a chord.
Five years ago, I first visited Carnforth by train. The station was a picture of unre- lieved bleakness and neglect. Soon after- wards, I read of a plan to refurbish part of the station as a commercial outlet which would highlight the film Brief Encounter (some of which was made there). The arti- cle mentioned, inter alia, that a cinema in Tokyo shows this film round the clock; that the film is especially popular in Japan for its depiction of a chaste and pure love; and that every year, many Japanese people (including romantically inclined couples) visit the station in homage.
Since then, I have seen half a dozen arti- cles which repeat the same three facts; the latest in the Daily Express a week ago. None of them cites the cinema's name, nor shows any independent curiosity about the culture that also produced, for example, Eijanaika or Himatsuri. None of the authors have engaged in Vitaliev's foot-slogging research, nor claimed actually to have seen or spoken to one of the hordes of Japanese pilgrims.
Five years on, Carnforth station is in the same dilapidated condition, and in several visits I have yet to spot my first honeymoon couple. In my view, Camforth station deserves drastic improvement in accor- dance with the interests and needs of the people of the town and the travellers who use it; admittedly, this is an impossibly eso- teric view in the Britain of 1995.
Whether or not Camforth welcomes the exploitation of its role in the making of a still involving but minor and deeply anachronistic film, the Carnforth Station Mystery is a very small example (pace Vital- iev on Blackpool) of the way that much of our press works: by routine inattention to basic facts, passive recycling of cliché, cud- chewing of public relations and marketing material, and thus (ultimately) deceit.
D. Hayes
36 Trinity Lane, York
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