GCSE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Paper 2 Writers’ viewpoints and perspectives

Insert
The two sources that follow are:

Source A: 20th Century literary non-fiction

One’s Company by Peter Fleming

An extract from a travel book, published in 1933

Source B: 19th Century non-fiction

Records of a Girlhood by Fanny Kemble

An extract from a letter, published in 1878

Please turn the page over to see the sources

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Source A

Source A is an extract from a travel book in which Peter Fleming describes his train journey on the
Trans-Siberian Railway in 1933. The journey is over nine thousand kilometres and takes more
than a week to complete.

1 And now the journey was almost over. There is no more luxurious sensation than what may
be described as the ‘end of term’ feeling. I felt very content. After tomorrow there would be
no more trips to the dining-car; no more of that black bread, in consistency and flavour
suggesting rancid peat; no more of that equally earthy tea; no more of a monk’s existence; no
5 more days entirely blank of action. It was true that I did not know what I was going to do,
that I had nothing very specific to look forward to. But I knew what I was going to stop
7 doing, and that, for the moment, was enough.

I wandered along the train to my compartment, undressed

and got into my bed. As I did so, I noticed for the first time
10 that the number on my berth was thirteen. For a long time,
I could not sleep but eventually I drifted off.

12 All of a sudden there was a frightful jarring, followed by a crash. I sat up in my berth. From the
rack above me my heaviest suitcase was cannonaded down, catching me with fearful force on
either knee-cap. This is the end of the world, I thought, and in addition they have broken both
15 my legs. My little world was tilted drunkenly. The window showed me nothing except a few
fields. It was six o’clock. I began to dress. I felt very much annoyed. But I climbed out of the
carriage into a refreshingly spectacular world and the annoyance passed. The Trans-Siberian
Express train sprawled foolishly down the embankment. The mail van and the dining-car,
which had been in front, lay on their sides at the bottom. Behind them the five sleeping cars,
20 headed by my own, were disposed in attitudes which became less and less grotesque until you
got to the last, which had remained, primly, on the rails. Fifty yards down the line, the engine,
which had parted company with the train, was dug in, snorting steam, on top of the
23 embankment. It had a defiant and naughty look; it was definitely conscious of indiscretion.

It would be difficult to imagine a nicer sort of railway accident. No one was hurt. The
25 weather was ideal. And the whole thing was done in just the right sort of theatrical manner,
with lots of twisted steel and splintered woodwork and turf scarred deeply with demoniac
force.

This was great fun: a comical and violent climax to an interlude in which comedy and
violence had been altogether too lacking for my tastes. It was good to lie back in the long
30 grass on a little hill and meditate upon that sprawling scrap-heap. There she lay, in the middle
of the wide green plain; the fastest train, the Trans-Siberian Luxury Express. For more than a
week she had bullied us. She had knocked us about when we went to clean our teeth in the
little bathroom, she had jogged our elbows when we wrote, and when we read, she made the
print dance tiresomely before our eyes. Her windows we might not open on account of the
35 dust, and when closed they had proved a perpetual attraction to small, sabotaging boys with
stones. She had annoyed us in a hundred little ways: by spilling tea in our laps, by running
out of butter, by regulating our life. She had been our prison. We had not liked her.
Now she was down and out. We left her lying there, a broken, buckled toy, a thick black
worm without a head, awkwardly twisted: a thing of no use.

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Source B

Source B is an extract from a letter written by Fanny Kemble to a friend about her first ride on a
steam train in 1830, when she was 21. The steam engine had recently been invented by George
Stephenson and he was also on this ride.

A normal sheet of writing paper is enough for love, but only a large sheet can contain my
raptures about my railroad journey. And now I will give you an account of my excursion
yesterday…

A party of sixteen persons was ushered into a courtyard where there stood a carriage of a
5 peculiar construction, prepared for our reception. It was a long-bodied vehicle with seats
placed across it, back-to-back; the one we were in had six of these benches and was a sort of
uncovered carriage. The carriage was set in motion by only a push and rolled with us down a
slope into a tunnel which forms the entrance to the railroad.

Here, we were introduced to the little train engine which

10 was to drag us along the rails. She (for they make these
curious little fire-horses all mares*) consisted of a boiler, a
stove, a small platform, a bench, and behind the bench a
barrel containing enough water to prevent her being thirsty
on our journey. She goes upon wheels which are her feet
15 and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons which are
propelled by steam. The reins of this wonderful beast are a
small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or pistons, so that a
child might manage it. The coals, which are its oats, were under the bench. This snorting little
animal, which I felt rather inclined to pat, was then harnessed to our carriage. Mr Stephenson
20 and I took our seats on the bench of the train engine and we set off at about ten miles an hour.

As the steam-horse was unable to go up and down hill, the railroad was kept at a certain level,
and appeared sometimes to sink below the surface of the earth, and sometimes to rise above
it. It was most incredible. Almost from the start the track was cut through the solid rock
which formed a wall on either side of it, about sixty feet high.

25 You can’t imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus, without any visible cause of
progress other than the magical machine, with its flying white breath and rhythmical,
unvarying pace, between these rocky walls. Then, when I reflected that these great masses of
stone had been cut asunder to allow our passage far below the surface of the earth, I felt as if
no fairy tale was ever half so wonderful as what I saw. Bridges were thrown from side to side
30 across the top of these cliffs, and the people looking down upon us from them seemed like
dolls standing in the sky. You cannot conceive what that sensation of cutting the air was; the
motion is as smooth as possible. I could either have read or written; and as it was, I stood up,
and with my bonnet off, drank the air before me. When I closed my eyes this sensation of
flying was quite delightful, and strange beyond description. Yet, strange as it was, I had a
35 perfect sense of security and not the slightest fear, as this brave little she-dragon of ours
flew on.

We had now come fifteen miles and stopped where the railroad traversed a wide and deep
valley. Mr. Stephenson escorted me from the train down to the bottom of this ravine, over
which, to keep the track level, he has thrown a magnificent viaduct of nine arches, the middle
40 one of which is seventy feet high, through which we saw the whole of this beautiful little
valley. It was lovely and wonderful beyond all words.

Turn over ►
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We then re-joined the rest of the passengers and the carriage set off at its utmost speed,
thirty-five miles an hour, swifter than a bird flies, on our return journey.

When I add that this pretty little creature can run either backward or forward, I believe I have
45 given you an account of all the train’s abilities.

Glossary

* female horses

END OF SOURCES

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