Madeleine Watson: Return to the Railway Tunnel 32 Years Later: 5 May 2018

It is 5 May 2018. Eighteen months have passed since I uncovered the horrific truth of my toddlerhood. I continue to struggle to come to terms with what I have found.

Secret messages to my rape emerged from the manner in which I composed two landscape settings for alfresco painting. The first one was a railway tunnel and and gate, where I produced paintings in the summer of 1985. Feeling that something was amiss, I placed a dead tree against the gate at the mouth of the railway bridge.

My paintings and drawings of the dead tree and tunnel

Messages within the Landscape

The second setting was a tumbledown barn in a field in the summer of 1986. Again, feeling that something was amiss, I placed a plank across the doorway.

My barn sketch with plank at doorway

During this time, I suffered horrific intrusive thoughts, grief and depression. I was also struggling with my novel, TheLessons, expressing an intense inner world that burned within my head. A man whom I believed to be a childhood familiar called Aidan fueled the storyline.

Thirty years later, I would uncover the truth about my toddlerhood and would examine my diaries, novels and artwork. Despair washes over me when I finally see the secret messages beneath my landscape settings.

I make the decision to visit both sites. The prospect unsettles me, yet I can’t leave it alone.

I decide to trek to the railway bridge first.

Walk to the Tunnel

I had not been to the railway tunnel since the summer of 1985 except for a couple of days in February 1986 to produce snow sketches from life. It was exceedingly cold and it was madness. But that’s another story.

One day in April 2018, I visit the village where I grew up. Several building developments have sprouted up since my parents sold the cottage in 1996 and things have changed. At first, I cannot locate the thoroughfare that led to the fields fringing the railway bridge.

Later, I locate a small opening between two houses. I return to the village on the 5 May 2018.

My walk towards the railway bridge. It's a lovely day

Landscape in Time Lapse

It is a sunny day but I feel haunted by the troubled twenty-year old within me as I walk in her shoes. There isn’t a soul in sight.

I see the distant pylons and know I am near. A train roars ahead and I keep moving towards the sound.

My first view of the railway tunnel in 3 decades

And then I see it: the railway tunnel. It looks desolate, derelict and forgotten. The bridge and gate are gone. Only a fence post remains. The cracked brickwork at the top had been bolstered and thick hedges had been removed. But the essence of the place is the same.

I walk beneath the tunnel. It had been overgrown with no way through. Now a large footpath has been leveled. The view from beneath the tunnel is the same except for the missing gate and tree.

View beneath the tunnel. The gate is gone but the post remains

Whilst I was painting the railway tunnel, I was writing my novel, The Lessons originally titled, The Upstairs Room.

The climax of my novel describes an assault at the mouth of a railway tunnel. An enraged psychopath hurls a plank of wood into the tunnel because Aidan intends to leave the clique. The nastiness of the novel had been crime and drug abuse, not rape – or so I had thought.

View beneath the tunnel. with the insertion of my dead tree painting

I have inserted my dead tree painting into the photo above to give an idea of how the location used to look in the summer of 1985.

I leave the site feeling sad for the twenty-year old who didn’t understand herself as she produced oil paintings at the foot of a railway tunnel. My paintings would be used as source material for my degree show in the summer of 1986. I would suffer intrusive thoughts, grief and horrific depression. Not understanding where these feeling came from, I never told anyone but my twin Eve.