A song Lamenting the closure of Audlem's own rail station

A song Lamenting the closure of Audlem's own rail station

My 90 year old father, Brian Burrows, recalls a song reminiscing about all the old train stations that are no more. Very wonderfully, one of the lines in the song includes a reference to Audlem:

'The sleepers sleep at Audlem'

The 'Slow Train' is a song by the British duo Flanders and Swann, written in 1963. As well as lamenting the closure of railway stations and lines brought about by the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, and it also laments the passing of a way of life.

The full song is below. You can also hear it with a piano accompaniment:

click here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6OHD2uCpfU

The Slow Train by Flanders and Swann

Miller's Dale for Tideswell ...

Kirby Muxloe ...
Mow Cop and Scholar Green ...
No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road

No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street
We won't be meeting again

On the Slow Train.

I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw

At Long Stanton I'll stand well clear of the doors no more
No whitewashed pebbles, no up and no down
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town
I won't be going again

On the Slow Train.

On the Main Line and the goods' siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Trouble House Halt.
The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate.

No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay

No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives
They've all passed out of our lives
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train.

Cockermouth for Buttermere ...

On the Slow Train, Armley Moor Arram ...
Pye Hill and Somercotes ...
On the Slow Train
Windmill End.