The Railway Children

Spruced up in preparation for a fortieth- anniversary DVD release, Lionel Jeffries’s 1970 adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s homely children’s novel still basks in a warm, rosy glow of universal nicety. Set in the early 1900s, the story – about three well-bred kids (Jenny Agutter, Gary F Warren and the excellent Sally Thomsett) having to leave their plush London home when Father is jailed for selling state secrets – is a celebration of old-fashioned British fortitude set in an environment of steam engines, buttercups, top hats and smocks. They then spend their days by the railway, waving at passengers, preventing disasters and hanging out with Bernard Cribbins’s waggish station master. Putting aside its fusty look and feel, Jeffries’s film remains an enjoyable evocation of the time. Of course, whether today’s kids get it is open to debate.