An Alan Fernie arrangement that is enough to give you watery eyes and take you back to the days of steam age
- Piece: Ticket To Ride;
- Composer: Lennon/McCartney;
- Arranger: Alan Fernie.
A great tune could transport us back to a particular point in our lives. On a personal note, Freddie Mercury’s Living On My Own takes me back to Blackpool in 1993. It’s Immaterial’s Driving Away From Home always reminds me of the Ewing School in West Didsbury. There are few tunes that could get us longing for steam power over the Pennines instead of state-of-the-art Azuma trains on the East Coast Main Line.
Alan Fernie’s arrangement of The Beatles’ Ticket To Ride takes us back to that point when Stalybridge station had gas lamps. There was still steam traction, but the Type 3 and Type 4 diesel locomotives were making inroads into Trans-Pennine services. As did the Trans-Pennine diesel units (BR Class 124).
The Beatles’ original featured in their 1965 film Help!. It is claimed to be one of The Beatles’ harder rock works. Four years later, it was covered by The Carpenters. Both versions are good, but you cannot whack the original. For the purpose of this Advent Calendar door, we have Sale Brass Band’s version.
Tomorrow’s piece will take us back to the late-1980s. It is a song from a film that has been described as ‘Star Wars for girls’.
Behind the door
Any old train picture could have done, but we chose to give you a shot of a British Railways Mark 1 Second Class carriage instead. Well, the interior shot of one seen on the West Somerset Railway, heading for Minehead.
S.V., 07 December 2020.
East of the M60 