THE half term holidays have started and Didcot Railway Centre will be open every day until February 18.

For Valentine’s Day, however, visitors can enjoy a special Brief Encounter.

In 1936, Noel Coward wrote a one-act play named Still Life, which was turned into a film, Brief Encounter, starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard.

In the film, Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson), is a respectable middle-class British woman who, like most women of the time, goes to a nearby town every Thursday for shopping and a matinee at the cinema.

One day she meets Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) in the tea room at the railway station, and the two begin to fall for each other, despite both being married.

The film depicts their romance growing until they realise they can never be together.

In 1999, the British Film Institute voted Brief Encounter the second best British film of all time, only behind spy-drama The Third Man (coincidentally also starring Trevor Howard).

Today, we are inviting our visitors to recreate the iconic scene of the two lovers on the platform of the fictional Milford Junction station. We realise the film was made in Carnforth Station in Lancashire but we hope our carriage display area will be a suitable substitute. We will provide a photographer, as well as requisite props, and the photos will be uploaded to our Facebook page ready for you to tag and share to your heart’s content. We will also be selling special Valentine’s Day items in our refreshment room, so come and enjoy a date with a difference at Didcot!

This weekend we will be offering unlimited train rides and all our other attractions will be open.

The GWT Museum has a new set of displays depicting many different aspects of the Great Western Railway. We have an amazing collection of crockery, cutlery and silverware, all marked with the relevant Great Western Railway crest or logo as well as menu cards from the dining trains and from special events. We even have genuine unopened Great Western Railway wine on display and have recently acquired a beautiful GWR wine holder that could be used for both bottles and half bottles.

Our conservation and restoration work continues and we have different carriages and steam engines in the Loco Works and Carriage Display areas. We have also moved things around in the Engine Shed – some say just to confuse ourselves when an engine is not where we expected it to be. But that’s what makes visiting and volunteering at Didcot Railway Centre so interesting. In the words of a well-known TV show – such fun!