Satirical journalist Ian Hislop goes in search of a man once dubbed “Britain’s most hated civil servant” in a programme being screened on BBC4 tonight at 9pm.
The Private Eye editor will focus on the 1963 report by Dr Richard Beeching – a physicist born in Sheerness and who went to school in Maidstone – which decimated Britain’s railways, during the Goes Off The Rails show.
Viewed by many as the first penny pinching bureaucrat, Beeching cut 5,000 miles of track and closed more than 2,000 stations.
These included the lines to Lydd and regular services to Folkestone Harbour.
Train fan and Have I Got News For You regular Hislop – who admits his fascination with rolling stock turns to loathing during commutes to London from his home in Sissinghurst – said Beeching’s actions had a huge impact on the UK.
“It marked the end of our romance with the train, the end of public transport and the rise of the car,” he said.
But Hislop admitted some lines had to close and Beeching should take some credit for modernising the country’s transport network.
Despite this in a poll of “worst Britons” he rated alongside mass murderer Fred West, media mogul Robert Maxwell and King Richard III.
POSTED: 02/10/2008 13:12:12
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