Tess of the D'Urbevilles and various shades of dubious green.

Did you see that?

The first episode of this recent, and otherwise excellent, BBC TV production was roundly criticised on Points of View for using the hymn How Great Thou Art. That was composed in the 1930's (?) by Carl G. Boberg and R.J. Hughes, and well after TH's Victorian setting for the story.

Then, in the final episode, why, oh why, do we find Angel Clare traversing Dorset in a train hauled by a locomotive of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway? Horror of horrors! GWR, I could forgive, but the SECR belongs in Kent!

In know that Tess is a very sad story, but this travesty brought unnecessary tears to my eyes.

I recognise the loco used in the film as the Wainwright class 01, number 65, preserved at the Bluebell Railway in East Sussex.


Isn't she lovely in Wainwright loco green?
Yes, BUT, with an 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, you would expect her to be hauling freight.

Then we saw Fenchurch, another loco preserved at the Bluebell, and originating with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. This is an example of what was known as a Brighton Terrier. Wonderful, here she is:

The livery shown here is described as umber, introduced in 1905, a bit late for Tess (published in one volume in 1892).


Mr. Stroudley (C.M.E. of the LB&SCR) had colour blindness and was famous for inventing 'improved engine GREEN' which was, in reality, an attractive shade of ochre. Here is Gladstone, so adorned:




Gladstone is a Stroudley 'B' Class 0-4-2, no 214, built in 1882 and now preserved in her resplendent so-called-green at the National Railway Museum in York. I want to take her home with me!

Dorset in Hardy's time was largely served by the London and South Western Railway, the Great Western, and the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, but never the SECR nor LB&SCR!



A more realistic passenger locomotive might have been an Adams 4-4-2T 'radial tank' of the LSWR. There was one in steam (No. 488, built in 1885) the last time I visited the Bluebell. OK, that was a long time ago, and I believe she now needs a new boiler.


Note the authentic LSWR passenger livery (described as 'apple-green') and the stove-pipe chimney, so characteristic of Adams' locomotives. The coaches, in Maunsell green, however, are the wrong colour. LSWR livery for passenger rolling stock was described as 'salmon and pink': a bizarre purplish hue (not to be confused with GWR chocolate) below the waist, and cream above, thus:

Very few LSWR coaches survived 'grouping' into the so-called 'big four' (1923) and subsequent nationalisation (1948). I have yet to discover a restored example correctly liveried. Above is somebody's commendable model of a six-wheeler.

Is my anorak showing yet? Does my bum look big in it?

Couldn't BBC producers have anticipated that fans of Thomas Hardy might be knowledgeable clergymen, who know about hymns, and sad, frustrated, aspirant engine-drivers like me, who know a little about the history of Britain's railways?

After that excursion into arboriculture (you know: 'wood', 'trees', visual impairment and all that!) I have to commend the producers of Tess. The scenes were credible and gave an authentic feel to the conditions, tribulations and moral hypocrisy of the time. The Snow it Melts the Soonest...was a charming, and probably contemporary, inclusion. Here are the lyrics as sung by Anne Briggs:

Oh the snow it melts the soonest when the winds begin to sing
And the corn it ripens fastest when the frosts are setting in
And when a young man tells me that my face he'll soon forget
Before we part, I'd better croon, he'd be fain to follow it yet

Oh the snow it melts the soonest when the winds begin to sing
And the swallow skims without a thought as long as it is Spring
But when Spring blows and Winter goes my lad and you'd be fain
With all your pride for to follow me, were it 'cross the stormy main

Oh the snow it melts the soonest when the winds begin to sing
And the bee that flew when Summer shone in Winter he won't sing
And all the flowers in all the land so brightly there they be
And the snow it melts the soonest when my true love's there for me

So never say me farewell here, no farewell I'll receive
You can meet me at the stile, you kiss and take your leave
And I'll wait it till the woodcock crows or the martin takes its leave
Since the snow it melts the soonest, when the winds begin to sing

(Courtesy of www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/anne.briggs/songs/thesnowitmeltsthesoonest.html)

After correcting the punctuation, I must learn that song.

There's something else to do in my spare moments!