Actress Jenny Agutter discusses the landscapes of her work, the life of E Nesbitt and elemental thrills
By Maria Hodson
From English rose to midwife matriarch, Jenny Agutter has graced our screens since her early teens, appearing in more than 40 films and 50 TV dramas over five decades. Some of her most well-known works have shaped our collective consciousness about our countryside, whether the idyllic Edwardian pastoral setting of The Railway Children (1970), the lonely Essex marshes in The Snow Goose (1971) or the dark terror of the moors in An American Werewolf in London (1981).
Much of the work Agutter appears in seems to celebrate the outdoors – is that a deliberate choice on her part? “It just happened that way,” she answers frankly. “An extraordinary privilege of my life is enjoying the places that I’ve been to. The Riddle of the Sands (1979) was on the sea, Walkabout (1971) – travelling across Australia was extraordinary. But that’s just a matter of luck, it wasn’t by choice, just luck.”
Born in Taunton, Somerset in 1952 to a military family, Agutter travelled widely in childhood, spending a great deal of time outdoors. “I feel so spoilt because I was brought up abroad, I was always out in the country, I was going to the sea, I have lots of memories of that. And those memories sustain one.”
At 17, already an established actress, Agutter took the role of Roberta Waterbury in Lionel Jefferies adaptation of E Nesbitt’s The Railway Children. Co-starring Bernard Cribbins and Diana Sheridan, the film became a classic. “It has a really wonderful life. I still get people approaching me about it. About the film – not about being an actor, or my role in it – but about the film and what that meant.”
Set in 1905 in Yorkshire, on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, the story follows the adventures of three siblings who have been forced to relocate from London with their mother after their father is arrested on suspicion of espionage. The children delight in watching the local railway. What is it about the tale that so captured hearts and minds?
“It’s seen through the children’s point of view. That’s what Nesbitt did with her story and Lionel managed to create an innocent view of the world,” says Agutter. “When the children meet them, Perks and all the characters seem a little bit eccentric and peculiar. It’s the way children would see them – nothing is quite o
