ENCOUNTERS

DIARY: VISIT / WATCH / LISTEN / TASTE

WATCH

Brood on the tracks

The Railway Children (1970), based on E Nesbit’s 1905 novel for young people, has endured to become one of the most beloved British family films ever made. Perhaps this in part explains why it has taken more than 50 years for a sequel to arrive – The Railway Children Return, directed by Morgan Matthews and scripted by Danny Brocklehurst.

Jenny Agutter provides the essential link between the two films, reprising her childhood role as Roberta “Bobbie” Waterbury. By 1944, now grown up and mother to Annie (Sheridan Smith) and grandmother to Thomas (Austin Haynes), she’s made her home in the Yorkshire village of Oakworth. Here, during the Second World