New Simon Armitage poem to mark 100 years of Flying Scotsman
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Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has written a poem to mark 100 years since the locomotive Flying Scotsman first entered service.
His poem describes how the world famous steam engine “coughed into life” featuring “vast steel circumferences” and “rippling bodywork pouring with sweat”.
Celebrations are taking place in Edinburgh on Friday to mark the day Flying Scotsman entered service on February 24 1923.
Mr Armitage rode on the locomotive as part of the process of writing the poem.
He said he was struck by “this incredible coming together of both mechanics and metaphysics”.
The poet told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There’s something very dreamlike about the whole contraption and the experience of standing next to it.”
He added: “There’s just something absolutely incredible when you’re up close and personal with it.”
Mr Armitage said he wanted to celebrate the “analogue world”, when people had “an actual relationship with physical objects”.
He continued: “I think in the digital world it’s often a very detached and dispassionate experience.”
Flying Scotsman is “an emblem of when we could have pride” about the railways, he said.
“My railway at the moment through Huddersfield is absolutely shameful and shambolic.”
Flying Scotsman was designed by Sir Nigel Gresley and built in Doncaster.
Its achievements include hauling the inaugural non-stop London to Edinburgh train service in 1928, and becoming the UK’s first locomotive to reach 100mph six years later.
The York-based National Railway Museum (NRM) has organised a centenary programme featuring events and exhibitions.
NRM director Judith McNicol said there are “many reason” why Flying Scotsman is “so special”.
The locomotive has “style and sophistication”, and it was a “very emotive” experience for people when they first saw it, she said.
