Village line chugs on to TV special

CADEBY Light Railway is to feature in a new year’s eve small-screen tribute to the romance of train travel. The narrow gauge railway is billed as the smallest working example in the world. It is in the village’s Old Rectory garden and will appear alongside the likes of the world-famous Orient Express and excerpts from classic films The Railway Children and Brief Encounter, in The Train Set, an hour-long special dedicated to locomotive lovers, to be broadcast on ITV at 12.30pm on Saturday. Viewers are given a tour of the collection amassed by the late Rev Teddy Boston in his village home and garden, by his widow, Audrey, who continued to open it regularly to the public since his death nearly 20 years ago. It recently closed to visitors and is now for sale, along with the house. “I’ve done my whack,” says Mrs Boston, who is hoping a railway enthusiast will be willing to take it on. “The least I want to do is preserve the model railway. It represents over 40 years of work by a very dedicated team under Teddy’s guidance and it would be a crying shame if the shed had to be gutted.” Hopefully, the programme will prove the best advertisement and a sympathetic buyer will come forward. Among the railway’s admirers is Coventry-based enthusiast and pop music guru Pete Waterman, who is seen theorising on the reasons for the clergy’s love of locomotion. There is vintage footage of Mr Boston, and Jenny Agutter, star of the most famous children’s railway film, reads an excerpt from Wilbert Awdry’s The Lost Engine, which features The Fat Clergyman, a character based on the village vicar. Awdry’s most famous creation, Thomas the Tank Engine is also represented in the Cadeby collection, with a model railway of the fictional Island of Sodor, donated after the author’s death. Villagers will spot the specially-carved Cadeby sign, featuring the village church and a train, which was put up by his widow to mark the new millennium, and the memorial window to Mr Boston, in the ancient church of All Saints. It is a great showcase for the little railway and a must-see feature as a matter of modern local history in its own right, irrespective of its interest to railway enthusiasts. So, set your video recorders, and enjoy.