As The Railway Children happens to be one of my favourite children’s classics and I have Jacqueline Wilson to thank for my love of reading growing up, it felt only right that I should read this modern adaptation and see how they compare.

Besides being set in the present day, the most notable difference in The Primrose Railway Children is that the story presented through the eyes of the youngest child. Though the original centres around the perceptions of the oldest child Bobbie (or Becks, in this new version), Jaqueline Wilson introduces us to protagonist Phoebe, a bright and imaginative nine-year-old who lives in the stories in her head.

We also meet her older brother Perry, who we learn is neurodivergent. His special interest of trains nicely pays homage to the original book and allows for more of the railway station’s events and debacles of E. Nesbit’s version to happen more authentically in this modern-day setting. However, this does hinge on a widely critiqued and stereotypical belief that trains are the special interest of many autistic boys. Despite this important point to acknowledge, I appreciated the way that Perry’s neurodivergent traits are woven into the story – they aren’t really a storyline in and of themselves, but they represent Jacqueline Wilson’s classic knack of introducing new or difficult topics about adversity or difference to young readers in her natural and engaging way.

The inciting incident of both stories remains the same – the father of the family is sent away and the children cannot know why. In the original version, the mother moves herself and the children to a remote cottage in the countryside to distance them from the people of their former life. In the adapted version, it was also necessary to share that the cottage the mother moved her family to had no signal or WiFi. In the original, physical isolation was enough. In today’s version, it was important to establish that the children were digitally isolated too. It was something of a culture shock to me, reading about TikTok and influencers in a Jacqueline Wilson book, but in the overwhelmingly online world we live in, the absence of these things was crucial to the narrative.

‘The Railway Children’ 1970

The Primrose Railway Station becomes a safe haven for the children in Wilson’s version, much as the local railway station does in the original – they make good friends with the staff there, find their little routines, and become a part of the station’s everyday life. One of the most striking moments of Nesbit’s version was when the children prevented a serious train accident by alerting the driver to the blockage on the line ahead, and the heart-stopping moment that Bobbie stepped onto the tracks to ensure their warning was heeded. A very similar incident appears in the adapted version… even though instead of waving red flannel made from their petticoats, protagonist Phoebe waves her Manchester United football shirt instead.

Many of the changes in the modernised version of the story were fairly situational – made on the basis that life as we know it today looks extremely different to what it was over a century ago. However, there was one plot point that I felt profoundly reflected our changing world. In the original book, the children’s father is wrongly convicted for a crime he wasn’t responsible for. At the end of the story, he returns to and is immediately accepted by his loving family… and by the reader too. After all, he was wronged, rather than being the one in the wrong. In the newer version, the children’s father is also imprisoned – but to serve time for a white-collar crime that he did commit. The family has to grapple with their love and affection for him, alongside the humiliation of his crime and the disgrace and repercussions it’s brought on the whole family. This is something that the youngest child Phoebe struggles with most of all – she has missed her Dad so badly, but now that she knows the truth and her core beliefs about him being the most wonderful person in the world have been challenged, she’s unsure whether she even wants to see him at all.

Jacqueline Wilson’s story concludes with the family visiting the father in prison, and like the children, the reader is in a position to make a judgement: are we willing to accept that this person has done wrong and move forward? Phoebe finally finds that she is – her Dad is her Dad and always will be. In past generations, I feel it would have been much harder for families and society to show this same level of acceptance – the disgrace may have been too deep for a positive resolution. To me, this indicates how our moral judgements have differed and evolved over time. In the world we live in now, there seems to be a much greater acceptance of the idea that people may do bad things, but this doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person. We seem to look at each other in a much more three-dimensional way, acknowledging our flaws and not allowing them to influence our overall judgement of a person’s character, as much as they would likely do in the past.

However, Wilson’s alternative ending is a powerful way of showing that despite the many cultural differences between the two stories, the themes at the core of them remain the same. Both versions celebrate the bravery of a young protagonist in the face of immediate danger, the desire of a family to band together in challenging circumstances and in the face of the unknown, and above all else, the profound absence of a father figure and a desperate longing for him to return.

Modern adaptations of stories can be an effective way of reaching new audiences and encouraging them to engage with the original. However, I personally don’t think that a young child who enjoyed Jacqueline Wilson’s The Primrose Railway Children today would immediately reach for E. Nesbit’s version. Instead, I think that publishing an updated version of the book does something far more powerful – it shows that The Railway Children is indeed a timeless story, with characters and emotions that resonate with young people a century later, and will no doubt resonate with others for generations to come.

Main image: Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Image above: Scene from the 1970 film of The Railway Children. Credit: M.G.M/EMI / Album/ Alamy Stock Photo

Jacqueline Wilson’s The Primrose Railway Children can be found here

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It was only very recently that I read Black Beauty, an iconic Children’s Classic, for the first time. Although I enjoyed the story, it wasn’t one that I personally treasured and felt as though I connected with… that is, however, until I learned a little more about author Anna Sewell’s background.

Sewell’s family may not have thrived financially, but her upbringing is thought to have been full of peace and contentment. Close family bonds taught her the value of love, and her natural surroundings sparked her respect for nature and allowed her to explore this through writing and drawing. Her innate creativity was nurtured from an early age, and remained something of a constant even through the turbulent times that were to come.

What were simply thought to be a sprained elbow and a sprained ankle, typical childhood injuries, marked the beginning of a lifetime of ill health for the young girl? From the age of fourteen, she struggled to stand or walk without a crutch for more than a few moments, and despite the family seeking all the help and treatment they could access, her overall health also began to decline.

We now have reason to assume that Anna Sewell was suffering from a severe form of Lupus, an incurable immune system condition that can have a devastating impact on multiple organs in the body. To this day, there is no cure and only limited treatment options for individuals with lupus, and in Sewell’s lifetime, treatments are likely to have been experimental: one doctor ‘bled her’ using bloodletting, a now strongly-condemned technique that could well have exacerbated her issues rather than relieving them.

Anybody who has experienced chronic illness will be quick to tell you that it can affect every element of your life and make even the simplest of tasks an impossibility. The writing of Black Beauty commenced during the author’s six years of being housebound, and to think that such a celebrated book was at this time being written by somebody fighting unrelenting fatigue and pain during every moment of existence is incredibly humbling. She was often so weak that she couldn’t move from her bed to the sofa, dictating the text to her mother or interminably scribbling on scraps of paper for her to transcribe.

Taking things one baby step at a time, she completed her novel. In doing so, she immortalised the story she wanted to tell.

Sewell’s health declined further still after the publication of Black Beauty, and she found herself completely bedbound and haunted by unrelenting pain. One small mercy is that she lived long enough to hear of the book’s immediate success and acclaim. Five months later, she was relieved from her suffering. Anna Sewell passed away in 1878, aged 57, but as well all know, her legacy lived on.

Learning of the author’s personal story gave me a reason to reflect on Black Beauty through a whole new lens. It was as though something clicked, and I began to see the story of one horse evolve into the narrative of something much bigger. Like Anna Sewell herself, horse protagonist Beauty enjoyed a peaceful and contented upbringing, made all the richer by the love of his family. However, it wasn’t long before the world began to inflict inescapable pain and suffering on him.

One of the key themes of Black Beauty is how much damage the ignorance and neglect of humans can inflict on horses and other living creatures. The health and happiness of each horse relied on the morals and values of the person responsible for them, and the story paints a clear picture of the importance of social justice and considering the needs of the voiceless. The well-being of animals is a cause that was close to the author’s heart, as can be seen in the appreciation of nature and living beings that coloured her life. However, could it be that Sewell was also making a statement on behalf of other voiceless people in the time she was living in?

The author was living in a period of history where disabled and chronically ill people were considered ‘invalids’, unable to make any meaningful contributions to society and pitied or resented by those around them. Sewell will have no doubt faced multiple challenges due to her health issues: not only of a medical nature but social barriers and stigma from the world around her too. Like Black Beauty, her only choice in the face of adversity was to hold her head up high, attempt to minimise her suffering and keep on moving forward.

With this in mind, I did wonder about Sewell’s decision for concluding Black Beauty the way she did. The book certainly doesn’t shy away from trauma and hardship throughout the story, and I was personally surprised that the story concluded in a realistic yet ultimately uplifting way. Given the novel was originally intended for adults, would it not have been the ultimate statement to conclude with devastation, forcing readers to really confront their own ways and pledge to make changes in support of the voiceless?

However, if Anna Sewell really did see herself and her own circumstances reflected in the story she was crafting, maybe there was more to her decision to end on a positive note. By the time the book was concluded, she must have suspected that the end of her life was nearing. She was suffering and likely knew that there was no real end point to what she was going through. Perhaps this author gave her protagonist the comfortable retirement that she herself would never have.

Learning more about the life of Anna Sewell added a whole new layer to my perceptions of this story, and caused me to look at everything in a whole new light. It reinforced to me the importance of not only considering the social and cultural backdrop against which iconic books are written, but also the unique circumstances of the individuals who put pen to paper to write them.

This is my pledge to, at the very least, make a conscious effort to read the foreword and the notes that accompany acclaimed novels. If I hadn’t returned to the ‘Appreciation and Life Of The Author’ chapter at the beginning of my own beautiful copy of Black Beauty, I would never have been led down the train of thought that prompted this blog post. And if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have had the privilege of learning about Anna Sewell’s life and what she managed to create in even the most trying of circumstances… something that I know will stay with me for years to come.

For details of Pippa’s work, see www.lifeofpippa.co.uk

Image: Peter Davison and Jim Carter in the 1995 film of ‘Black Beauty.

Credit: Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

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Set in rural North Yorkshire over a century ago, The Secret Garden follows Mary, a contrary child who has spent her affluent early years in India, indulged in money but distanced from and unconnected to any other living being. When her parents and household of servants are killed by a cholera epidemic, the orphaned child is sent to live with a distant British relative, Mr Craven, in Misselwaithe Manor.

Being a self-centred, sallow, and all-around difficult child, Mary’s initial response to her circumstances is one of disdain and remarkable indifference. However, as the Yorkshire Moors and the outside world begin to spark her curiosity, the reader is treated to a journey of discovery: not only of the immediate setting and the secrets lurking within it, but also of the child’s personal growth and self-development.

In no time at all, Mary has discovered and become completely besotted by the Secret Garden hidden within the vast grounds, later learning that it had previously belonged to Mr Craven’s late wife, who had passed away ten years ago and left him stricken with grief. Her wanderings and curiosity also lead us to be introduced to Colin, Mr Craven’s weak and sickly son. With everybody around the boy convinced that the child would die sooner or later, and him being bearing too much resemblance to his late mother to be embraced by his father, Colin too has spent his early years segregated from the love and affection of any other living being.

Following the lives and character development of two unlikely protagonists, in this remote and highly unique environment, you would be forgiven for being sceptical of just how much we as readers could take away from The Secret Garden, specifically in reference to the global pandemic the world is currently experiencing.

However, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s tale bears an important narrative that recently struck a timely chord with me, reading the book for the first time in years. Both Colin and Mary, at the beginning of the story, are solitary beings. Their physiological needs are completely catered for, with both children having an abundance of people to wait upon them, feed them, and essentially bring them any physical toys or items they could desire. Neither, however, are rich in the love or fondness of others.

The theme of isolation is rife throughout The Secret Garden. With our society today experiencing the effects of being stationary and unable to move about freely, and socially distanced from loved ones for prolonged periods, there are certainly elements of this classic book that translate all too well to our present circumstances.

Mary and Colin are too, in a sense, confined by their circumstances. Although the mansion and grounds of Misselwaithe Manor are vast and seemingly unending, the world beyond this estate is almost completely omitted from the story. Mary, in her first impressions of the surrounding moors, described them as ‘bleak’, a ‘wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land’, and the contrast between her bustling home environment back in India compared to these new surroundings is evident. As the story progresses, we feel a sense of disconnect from anything outside of these immediate surroundings: perhaps similarly to the way people in these present times are reportedly feeling segregated from anything outside of their own homes.

Colin, too, is confined in a more physical sense by his ill-health: refusing to go outside and experience the fresh air, his short life has so far been spent almost entirely in just one room. Although Colin’s stubborn isolation is somewhat self-inflicted at this stage, feeling that the outdoor world would worsen his health, his experience can also be seen mirrored in those with long-term health conditions living through this current pandemic. Those most vulnerable have been ordered to stay within their own four walls for the foreseeable future, experiencing heightened levels of isolation and mental vulnerability as a result of their physical ailments. This patient group, and Colin at the beginning of the novel, have been compulsorily confined in order to protect them from physical harm, but the effects of this isolation on individuals’ mental health form a whole other topic of debate.

As the story unfolds, however, The Secret Garden teaches us something profound about not only coping with but combatting, feelings of isolation. Through tending their land and getting to know wild-hearted Dickon, both Mary and Colin begin to connect with the physical world, finding comfort and even euphoria in nature and the presence of living things. Their encounters with various plants and animals spark their curiosity, forcing them to really begin to think about the world around them. In time, they learn to consider things other than only themselves and see the bigger picture. By connecting with nature, they’re learning to connect with each other, and becoming much healthier and well-rounded people in the process.

For those currently experiencing the effects of isolation, it could perhaps be argued that such personal development and mindfulness would be much easier to achieve in the setting of this novel: the vast grounds and almost unlimited access to nature that the estate offers are no doubt an advantage. However, I truly believe that a related key theme of the story, finding happiness and Colin’s concept of ‘Magic’, can be applied much more universally, regardless of a person’s own situation and immediate environment.

After being introduced to and immersed in the secret garden by Mary and Dickon, Colin experiences a transformation that is far from being only physical. He becomes somewhat enlightened by his awakening to the outside world, finding peace, serenity and joy with what he is learning about his own mindset and wellbeing. He begins to realise that challenging his own negative core beliefs and replacing them with positive ones has made more of a radical difference than one could ever have realised, and begins to consider how this finding may generalise far beyond his own lived experiences. After all, there is now no doubt in his mind that he will live a long and healthy life.

“Of course, there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen.”

Colin’s above sentiment, in my opinion, holds particular significance in these trying times. At present, it’s all too easy for our thoughts to spiral and for despair to consume us, particularly for those whose lives have changed so significantly in such a short space of time, and for those who have lost loved ones. Finding positivity in these circumstances is no small feat, and by no means will it singlehandedly right all wrongs, but as The Secret Garden so eloquently demonstrates, even the smallest shifts in our own mindsets can elicit radical changes in our coping and wellbeing.

The ‘Magic’ that the young protagonists discover and begin to internalise doesn’t exclusively belong in the setting of this novel. Rather, the same wonder and euphoria could well be found elsewhere, if only we know to look for it. Although the novel frequently connotates these abstract ideas of Magic with faith and Christianity, I personally believe the same concepts could be interpreted much more widely, primarily as an appreciation of and gratitude for the small wonders all around us.

With this in mind, I feel that The Secret Garden is a story ideally placed to help us reconnect with the simple pleasures of life. Even when we’re faced with fear and grief, the world will keep on turning, and there will always be things to be thankful for. By making the effort to appreciate the positive elements of our lives, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem, we too can experience this inner peace can combat these feelings of isolation, and help us to thrive even in the most difficult of circumstances.

To read more about Pippa’s work, visit www.lifeofpippa.co.uk

Image: Martin Gstoehl through Shutterstock.com

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