%0 Journal Article
%T Flying Scotsman: modernity, nostalgia and Britain’s ‘cult of the past’
%A Andrew McLean
%D 2016
%V Special Issue: Science Museums and Research
%N Spring 2016
%K Alan Pegler
%K British Railways
%K Flying Scotsman
%K London & North Eastern Railway
%K National Railway Museum
%K Sir Nigel Gresley
%X Flying Scotsman is arguably the world’s most famous steam locomotive. The engine, a standard bearer of British engineering excellence and modernity in the 1920s, became, in the 1960s, a symbol of the dying age of steam. As Britain’s post war austerity and increasingly lesser role in the world gave way to Harold Wilson’s modernising ‘white heat of technology’ Britain’s ‘cult of the past’ took greater hold. Wistful nostalgia for the past can be seen across the cultural landscape of the 1960s in books, poetry, music, television and film. With a marked increase in the rise and popularity of preservation groups across the country this was a decade when interest in Britain’s ‘national heritage’ enjoyed enormous growth. Viewed within this context the remarkable saving of a steam locomotive from the scrapyard as Britain’s railway abandoned nineteenth century technology illustrates how the past has increasingly shaped Britain’s cultural landscape. This raises wider questions about what it means to preserve cultural objects and how, if at all, their authenticity can be preserved.

    
        
    

%Z See, for example, Awdry, W, 1958, Duck and the Diesel Engine (London: Edmund Ward)

%Z The phrase ‘the World’s most famous steam locomotive’ has been used since at least the 1960s (see reference to John Noakes in the text). A 2015 YouGov Global poll saw Flying Scotsman named as the most famous train or locomotive in the world. See, for example, ‘Flying Scotsman steams to head of world's most famous trains list’, Daily Telegraph, 30 November 2015

%Z BBC Blue Peter first broadcast 13 October 1966: www.bbc.co.uk/archive/steamtrains/7320.shtml (accessed 3 January 2016)

%Z Later the steam locomotive named Blue Peter would be rescued from being scrapped, in large part due to interest and support generated by viewers of the programme.

%Z The Macniven and Cameron Flying Scotchman pen was extensively advertised in the 1880s and 1890s in national newspapers and magazines, e.g. Illustrated London News, 5 April 1884

%Z The first trip was a jolly excursion in 1864 and the second, shortly after he had almost been killed in a rail accident in Kent, a more traumatic affair, exacerbated by the speed of the service. (Dickens’s fears were not overplayed: in 1876 the ‘Flying Scotchman’ crashed at Abbots Ripton in Huntingdonshire killing thirteen people.)

%Z The LNER produced a publicity poster and book, 1925, The Flying Scotsman: The World’s Most Famous Train, 1st edition (London: LNER). The book was updated at regular intervals into the 1930s.

%Z Gill not only designed the Flying Scotsman’s headboard but he hand-painted the original too, which he hand-fixed to the hauling locomotive 4475 Flying Fox. As part of his fee Gill would later be given a footplate ride on the train.

%Z The train still runs today. At the time of writing this is currently a one-way service only from Edinburgh to London, leaving at 5.40am – the fastest run between the two cities in the timetable. It is operated by Virgin Trains East Coast.

%Z BBC Desert Island Discs first broadcast 13 January 1969: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y1d0 (accessed 4 January 2016)

%Z See Rolt, L T C, 2001, The landscape trilogy: the autobiography of L.T.C. Rolt (Stroud: Sutton)

%Z Strong made this comments after the hugely successful and heritage changing V&A show ‘Destruction of the Country House’ in 1974. Quoted in Sandbrook, D, 2010, State of Emergency: The way we were: Britain 1970–1974 (London: Allen Lane), pp 196–197

%Z The phrase being used, for example, in ‘The Protection of Ancient Buildings’, The Times, 7 June 1883, p 6

%Z This was an 1897 carriage of the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway NRM 1988-7002

%Z For example, the Caledonian Railway ’Single’ locomotive number 123 was restored to her appearance from the time when she starred in the famous 1895 ‘Races to the North’, thus removing her later history in the service of the London Midland Scottish Railway and latterly British Railways.

%Z Awdry, Enterprising Engines, p 10

%Z The present writer recalls receiving just such a model for Christmas in 1978. My own recollection was one of confusion when comparing my model to historic photographs of the locomotive from the 1920s and 1930s.

%Z The question of Flying Scotsman’sappearance – especially livery and number – is one of the most frequent issues raised by members of the public with the National Railway Museum today.

%Z Subsequently, the myths surrounding this trade mission grew to suggest it had been financially supported by Wilson’s Government (for example, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A3_4472_Flying_Scotsman accessed on 26 February 2016) and only failed when the new Conservative Government under Edward Heath withdrew support. Other than a short letter of support from Wilson there is no evidence to support the belief that the mission had full government backing, the mission being entirely a private venture – see, for example, Pegler’s bankruptcy papers held in the National Archives (TNA B9/1647), which clearly show that the mission was funded by Pegler and other private individuals.

%Z Flying Scotsman was rescued for a second time by a wealthy businessman, this time Sir William McAlpine who acquired her in 1973 and transported her back to Britain.

%Z ‘Official Receiver’s Report to Court on the bankrupt’s application for discharge’ heard on 6 December 1974 in Pegler’s bankruptcy papers (TNA B9/1647/1).

%Z Letter of 15 March 2005 held in NRM Technical File NRM/2004-7103/004

%I The Science Museum Group
%@ 2054-5770
%B eng
%U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/flying-scotsman/
%J Science Museum Group Journal