The train that dare not speak its name
As users celebrate fifty years of the Hengistbury Head ‘Noddy’ train from Southbourne to Mudeford Spit, an exhibition at the former’s visitor’s centre reveals it was not always such a universally popular service, as Angus Rich discovered
Published in June ’18
No sign of the ‘N’ word adorns the Hengistbury Head Visitor Centre’s Land Train exhibition as the current Noddy rights holders –Dreamworks Animation, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal– forbade it, despite 50 years of usage
The story of Noddy is almost the polar opposite of the train that bears his name. In the Enid Blyton story, after Noddy is carved by a woodcarver, Big Ears takes him to Toyland, where he is put on trial to see if he is really a toy or just an ornament, and if a toy, whether he is a good toy. He later becomes a self-employed cabbie.
In 1968, when the idea of a land train from Southbourne to Mudeford Spit was mooted after private vehicles were banned from the road down to the spit, some councillors thought that the train would be neither use nor ornament. Others believed that far from being a benign toy, it would destroy the spit by taking thousands of holidaymakers down to it. Opposition to the idea was fierce: some councillors even threatened to lie down in front of the train to stop it from passing.
At the actual launch of the service, the atmosphere was less febrile. The Christchurch Herald reported it thus: ‘A police car, a motor-cycle patrol, three park keepers, the parks chief, two reporters and a television cameraman all turned up to see the fun at Hengistbury Head on Monday morning, but there wasn’t any.
Day one of the Noddy Train service: not quite the hotbed of demonstrations that was expected – Credit Bournemouth Echo/BNPS
‘Whether the freezing wind and lowering clouds had deterred the chants and banners, no-one knew, but the only hairy demonstrator in sight was a small dog, and far from protesting at the new ”toytown train” service to Mudeford Sandbank, he blessed it.’
Five days after the service started, though, it had to be replaced temporarily by a Land Rover-towed alternative after sharpened roofing nails that damaged the two locomotives’ tyres vandals were scattered on the road.
The first use of the train’s ‘Noddy’ soubriquet was as a disparaging adjective to show the lack of sophistication of the ride. In that gentler time, though (25 years before the Blyton family would sell the Noddy brand), the train service, run by the Faris family, would be dubbed the ‘Noddy’ train by pretty much everyone. Generations of children were thrilled to ride in it, while generations of parents and grandparents were thrilled not to have to carry tired children for the 1.6 miles from the end of Mudeford Spit to the Hengistbury Head car park after a day’s swimming and running around.
The Noddy Train with Little Haven and Christchurch Harbour beyond. Credit – Jane Monteith
The Town Clerk, Mr A Lindsay Clegg, was reported in the Echo after the initial 1968 trial period as saying that: ‘Although there were many objections to the original idea, [there were] but few written objections at the end of the experimental period, with no rate-payers’ organisations objecting again.’
After the first year’s operation, what had been a whole nest of controversies was largely reduced to three minor points of consideration. The first was whether Christchurch Borough at one end and Bournemouth Borough at the other could bring themselves to build bus shelters for use by patrons on inclement days. The second was a whether the ride could be smoothed out as the bumpy road led to a bumpy ride. Perhaps these dreams of smooth-suspension vehicles gave rise to the third issue: whether the name should remain as the ‘Noddy’ train. Councillor Bill Wareham went on the record to say that he ‘liked the present train’s bumps and swerves and did not want “a Rolls Royce train”.’
In less brand-conscious times, The Noddy Train was feted as a visitor attraction in that name
In all other respects, the new Noddy train had been a runaway success and the mood was for a three-year extension to be granted to the operators, in return for an increased take of £1000 (as opposed to the initial £750) per year.
In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek report about the rapprochement between the two boroughs, the Echo wondered whether they would replace the Noddy train with ‘The Headland Terraplane Daily Pullman service’. Bournemouth councillor Alderman Arthur Iggulden appeared to share that view, saying that it would be much better to have a train that looked the part and to ‘get rid of that stupid engine’. Fortunately, the wiser head of the committee chairman, Alderman Harold Benwell, prevailed. He said that far from a term of detraction, the name Noddy ‘had now become an advertisement for the train’. And so it proved.
Over the next 46 years, the Faris family plied their trade with generations, sometimes dynasties, of young drivers for their trains. Sideburns and trousers got wider then narrower, the world became less beige and all was well with it until 2014, when there was an existential threat to the service. After rumours floated that the train might be halted (along with the Land Rover bags and luggage service), a public campaign to save it was launched. When the owner of the train, Joyce Faris, decided to retire on her 90th birthday, Bournemouth Council took on the running of the ‘Noddy’ train with the owner’s and the public’s approval, and its future now seems assured. An exhibition marking 50 years of the Noddy train will continue at Hengistbury Head visitor centre until 5 August.
www.visithengistburyhead.co.uk/Land-Train/land-train-home.aspx
