Wistful nostalgia for the past can be seen across the cultural landscape of the 1960s in books, poetry, music, television and film. As Britain’s post war austerity and increasingly lesser role in the world gave way to Harold Wilson’s modernising ‘white heat of technology’ Britain’s ‘cult of the past’ took greater hold. The engine, a standard bearer of British engineering excellence and modernity in the 1920s, became, in the 1960s, a symbol of the dying age of steam.
Flying Scotsman is arguably the world’s most famous steam locomotive.
