Author: Stuart Butler

I was inspired by reading about Rev Awdry and the first two books in the Railway Series.  How he eventually wrote the stories after telling them to Christopher, especially when he had measles etc; Thomas really first appears in the second book.  Thomas to me, was/still is a great metaphor for how we have to bide our time for our chance to get in the team, get on the road/train/plane etc. To break free  and be what we long and want to be in  an Incredible String Band Gandhi  type way

It’s written to the rhythm of the train in ‘From A Railway Carriage’ by R.L Stevenson (1885) which my grandmother used to read to me and which follows the poem; I’m sure you know it well).

Crispin

Thomas The Tank Legend

Thomas the legend where do we start ?

drove his blue train into the heart

Thomas the engine never will fade

how did he get here where was he made ?

the person who made him lived in this place

gave us a hero a smile on his face

to Awdry and Christopher trains were alive

characters breathing burning with life

Wilbert loved trains so did his son

when he had measles stories were spun

first there were Edward, Henry and Gordon

crowds on the platforms waiting there for them

children all waved whenever they saw them

railway enthusiasts loved and adored them

three railway engines* chugging along

pulling those coaches singing their song

huffing and puffing their smoke to the sky

rivers and fields went thundering by

Thomas was diff’rent Thomas had plans

Thomas was dreaming of racing the land

Thomas just longed to get out there one day

stuck at the station they kept him at bay

but Thomas was cheeky and painted in blue

did what they told him the way engines do

finally one day the moment arrived

Thomas the Tank Engine burst into life .,…..

2.

… endless adventures out on the tracks

off in the morning and all the way back

short stumpy boiler short stumpy funnel

six little wheels steam though the tunnel

past all the stations the guards and the porters

past all the grown ups their sons and their daughters

past all the villages past all the towns

past all the passengers waiting around

on past the trees on a long winding track

past all the places until he was back

back to the station back to his home

back to the place and the life that he’d known

when we’re all little it’s new and it’s true

longing and yearning of what we can do

there on the platform ready to go

dreaming of going to where we don’t know

to Awdry and Christopher trains were alive

characters breathing burning with life

’cause Wilbert loved trains and so did his son

when he had measles stories were spun

tales of an engine who fought to be free

longing for something like you and like me

taking his chance with his face on the train

something about him you cannot explain

smiling with joy as he climbed up the hill

and that’s why the children all love him now still

c Crispin Thomas April 2025 (*Three Railways Engines: First Thomas The Tank Engine book).

From A Railway Carriage

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as the driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle on by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a boy who stands and gazes;

And there is the grass all covered in daisies

Here is a cart run away in the road

Lumping along with a man and his load;

And here is a mill and there is a river:

Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

Robert Louis Stevenson

From A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)

Rev W. Awdry 1911-97

(Jottings made from a reading of The Thomas the Tank Engine Man Brian Sibley

The Story of the Reverend W. Awdry and his Really Useful Engines 1995)

In the Beginning was the Word,

But there was also a tunnel at Box,

Where a young child christened Wilbert

Lay awake in his bedroom, dreaming

Of steam-coal railway conversations

Between sleek express and workaday tank engines.

Twenty-odd years later, in wartime,

Wilbert reprised this conceit

With stories to Christopher,

His measles-stricken son, in 1943;

Stories jotted down on odd bits of paper,

With a devoted father’s drawings too –

A format that Margaret thought worthy

Of seeking some sort of publication,

But relentless wartime austerity,

And a national shortage of paper,

Resulted in a series of rejections,

Until a new format was decided upon:

Four tales per book with the Reverend

Also providing draft illustrations

As a guide for the eventual artist:

“We should require eight illustrations, oblong in shape,

with appropriate text matter of about 80-90 words for each of the drawings.”

And so, Edward, Gordon and Henry were born:

The book sold well and then along came Thomas,

Not just in text and illustration,

But also at home in the Awdry household:

A bit of a broomstick and metal tube,

A paper-fastener, too, of course,

Finished off with some carpet pins and screws:

Lo and behold!

Thomas the Tank Engine!

Meanwhile, over in the real world,

The Railway Gazette proved invaluable –

Providing inspiration for further stories,

A branch line to Wilbert’s imagination;

But relationships with the artist,

Clarence Reginald Dalby

Finally hit the buffers in 1957,

On seen as a slightly fastidious pedant,

And one seen as slightly cavalier;

But Wilbert’s brother, George, was a God-send:

Fellow cartographer and historian

Of the mythopoeic Island of Sodor

(Sodor’s original provenance lay

In Wilbert’s mapping of the race between

Bertie the Bus and Thomas the Tank,

To show Christopher it was fair and square),

But what of devoted wife and mother, Margaret?

A busy life as a ‘railway widow …’

For Wilbert had his parish duties,

His time-consuming model railway,

His commitments to preserved railway lines,

His research for further railway stories,

And yet …

“If I hadn’t had the books to write, I should have gone crackers”

Although …

“I had no sooner finished the manuscript for one volume … than I had to start thinking about possible stories and looking for new characters for the next book. There was a gap in parish life, between the end of July and Harvest Festival, and it was then that I would start getting things down on paper.”

John Kenney took over as artist in 1957

(Dalby: “I was sorry to give up … but …my patience became exhausted”;

Awdry on Kenney: “We got on splendidly. He was as different from Dalby as chalk from cheese. He was interested in the work and used to go down to his station and draw railway engines from life.”)

And back in those still Imperial days

The books and associated merchandise –

Including an LP with the Rev’s voice –

‘Precise’ and ‘slightly singalong’ according to Sibley –

Made their way across five continents;

But, just like Steam, Empire was ending too,

And despite the famous City of Truro

Appearing in the illustrations,

With ‘The Thin Clergyman’ alongside,

So did Diesels …

“I keep thinking about the Dreadful State of the World, Sir. Is it true, Sir, what the diesels say?” “What do they say?” “They boast that they’ve abolished Steam, Sir.” “Yes, Gordon. It is true.” “What, Sir! All my Doncaster brothers, drawn the same time as me.” “All gone, except one.”

With this dystopian melancholy,

Was industry as much as imagination

Now driving the Reverend’s writing?

There was no Christopher now to test a tale upon,

But Margaret and a tape recorder helped,

But declining eyesight sadly meant

That Gallant Old Engine was Kenney’s swansong;

But the Reverend liked the new artist:

Peter Edward’s depictions of engines,

People and landscape were just the ticket,

As was an appearance on Desert Island Discs;

Choosing two records of steam trains and Johnny Morris

Recounting the Edward and Gordon story

Blew Roy Plumley’s mind in 1964.

1964 and 1965 were signal years:

First of all, retirement and then the decision

To move across the country to Stroud.

The Move to Rodborough Avenue

Stroud was ideal: on the railway line

To ageing parents in London and Worcester,

With a house big enough for a model railway;

So, with the gift of a front gate from Emneth,

A determination to clear the back garden

(“You couldn’t see out the back windows”),

The addition of LMS bridge plate number 30,

The renaming of the house as ‘Sodor’,

All meant that Rodborough Avenue became home,

And with joint involvement with Margaret

In the busy life of the local community,

And with a joint definition in text and picture

Of The Tin and The Fat Clergyman,

All was sweetness and light in Stroud …

But, alas, nothing lasts forever …

‘I felt I was getting rather stale … it was uphill work’ …

And in 1972 came the last of that wonderful series –

But we’ll now jump on a decade again,

To the era of Britt Allcroft’s drive and funding:

Here she is, speaking about a new medium:

“Television … could offer children and their grown-ups an experience that is similar to that which they have when they sit down to read a book together”,

And then, of course, along comes Ringo Starr

With that half-mythologised visit

To the Rev Awdry and Margaret in Rodborough Avenue:

Ringo and the Rev in Rodborough

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/ringo-and-the-rev-in-rodborough/

or at

https://sootallures.wixsite.com/topographersarms/post/ringo-and-the-rev-in-rodborough

But we jump on another decade:

What did Wilbert care for his entry in Who’s Who,

Grieving for Margaret who had died the year before,

‘I and our children are still in something of a daze at the suddenness of it’,

‘Margaret was a wonderful wife for a diffident author to have. It was entirely due to her, when The Three Railway Engines existed only in pencil on the back of old circular letters, that they ever got off the ground at all…’

Wilbert took flowers weekly to Margaret’s grave,

But Wilbert had to use a taxi,

But then fell and fractured a hip –

It was obviously a difficult time

Both for him and the wider family,

But he recovered to visit Didcot

For a ‘45^th Thomas Anniversary’

And then the National Railway Museum,

Where his work was acknowledged as having

‘Played an enormous part in arousing children’s interest in railways’;

1994 was a watershed year,

With Wilbert President of the Dean Forest Railway,

And an engine named after him as well,

Christopher writing Wilbert the Forest Engine,

Where Thomas the Tank Engine and Wilbert meet:

So, a watershed year but also one

Effecting a certain circularity.

But then, in October, George died.

The final paragraph in the book

Concludes with an interview with Wilbert:

‘How would you like to be remembered?”

‘I would like my epitaph to say,

“He helped people to see God in the ordinary things of life,

and he made children laugh.”’

I’m so glad I got the book out of the library rather than off Amazon. A previous reader had written in neat pencil beneath the above ‘Amen 23/3/97

I thought the epitaph was almost William Blake-like:

‘To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.’

Ringo and the Rev

Song to be sung roughly to the tune of Octopus’ Garden

It’s strange but true

In Rodborough Avenue

A big car arrived with Ringo Starr

(Big car arrived with Ringo Starr),

Church tower and steeple

Gazed upon the Beatle

As he had a drag upon his usual fag

(Drag upon his fag)

His partner, Barbara,

Looked in the Awdry’s larder,

While staring at a railway mag –

SHE couldn’t find a bite to eat,

And so, bored, she almost fell asleep;

I’d like to be with the Reverend Aw-d-ry

With Ringo in that garden in the shade

I’d ask my friends to come and see
That meeting in the garden

That changed history –

Oh, what joy for every girl and boy
With Ringo in that garden in the shade

We would be so happy, you and me
Seeing Wilbert telling Ringo what to do;

I’d like to be with the Reverend Aw-d-ry

With Ringo in that garden in the shade

With Ringo in that garden in the shade

My notes from Brian Sibley’s biography are quite extensive but when I get to pages 23-24 in my note-book I can’t remember which bits are from Brian Sibley’s commentary and which bits are from the Daily Mail reporting on the meeting and whenever I’ve popped into the library to have a reacquaintance with the text, the book, alas, has been out on loan … so I’m not quite sure which bits are which in the section coming up … but I think the bits in quotation marks are mostly from the Mail on Sunday.

Ringo arrived in Rodborough Avenue clad in a blue satin jacket; the car was equally flamboyant: a bronze Mercedes, hotfoot from some Berkshire mansion or other, and so to Stroud with ‘Its soft Cotswold features scarred and pitted by roadworks’. He was accompanied by his wife, Barbara Bach. What happened next?

Wilbert ‘began to demonstrate the first part of the timetable of the Knapford-Ffarquhar branch line … a cream-lined jacket over his spare, slightly stooping frame. Round his neck hung a small wooden control-box from which he governed the movement of his engines … “Tell me when you’re bored” … “Not yet,” said Ringo.

Mr Awdry detached a couple of trucks from a line of goods-vans at the touch of an electrode. “Cool” said Ringo.

What happened next? They went out into the back garden. Ringo pulled out a packet of fags and asked Mr Awdry if he fancied ‘a ciggy’: the Rev, of course, was a pipe-smoker. He declined. He then had to correct Ringo on something far more important: Ringo unfortunately referred to the famous engine as ‘Tommy’.

And then this tantalising meeting of two very different worlds began to draw to a close: Wilbert ‘Reminiscing … in that gentle spell-binding way of all good story-tellers, when Ringo said he was sorry, but he had to go. His wife roused herself from a state of almost catatonic boredom … Mr Awdry bade them a courteous abstracted farewell.’

What is about the Style of the Awdry Books?

Here is Brian Sibley in his biography The Thomas the Tank Engine Man:

‘So what is the reason for the success of these books? Is it their text: sharp and tightly written with sly little jokes and rhythmic sounds but, nevertheless, always true to railway lore? Or is it the illustrations: capturing the hustle and bustle of the station and shed and those trackside scenes – embankments of spring flowers, rolling meadows of summer lushness, whirling autumn leaves, brooding clouds of winter rain and frosted Christmas-card landscapes – depicted in vivid, iridescent colours? Or is it because of their size – or rather, lack of it.’

And here is Brian Sibley with Marjery Fisher who described the successful style suitable for children as artfully artless: a prose style that might seem simple to read and be enthralled by but which was by no means simple to write.

What did I notice on a re-reading in 2025?

The artfully artless conversational tone that runs through the stories. The Rev addresses the reader in an engaging companionship:

‘Have you guessed about Stuart and Falcon? Yes, you’re quite right.’

And another example: ‘But we must say no more, or we’ll spoil the next story.’

And another: ‘Now, have you remembered that in those days he was called Falcon. And painted blue? You have? Now we can begin.’

And for those of a certain age, note the Listen with Mother reference at the end of the final example above.

The artfully artless use of ellipsis for humour:

‘They were excited to hear that the Duke was coming to Skarloey’s and Rheneas’ 100^th birthday, but most disappointed with the Duke who actually came. For he was only a man …’

The artfully artless use of Alliteration:

For example: Trevor the Traction Engine

The artfully artless fact that these stories stand at the Interface between Oral and Textual Culture:

They are read by individuals and to individuals.

The artfully artless conjoining of Page of text and illustration:

Even though each story has a narrative arc whereby each page contributes to the narrative’s progression, each page is complete within itself and is embellished by the illustration opposite. Each page and illustration simultaneously both stand alone in their completeness and yet contribute to the totality. A bit like a train, on reflection …

The craft of 80-90 words per page and each page, as it were, a chapter in itself …

And Wilbert didn’t have a typewriter until 1953 – and yet he redrafted and redrafted – it was artful composition.

The artfully artless use of Old School vocabulary:

For example: Impudent, scallywag, impertinent, ruefully, indignantly, imperiously, sagacity, impudence, and so on and so and so on …

The artfully artless use of Embedded narratives:

For example: ‘Here is one of the stories that Peter Sam and Sir Handel told about Granpuff!’

And another example:

“Are you writing another book, Sir?”

“Yes,” said the Thin Clergyman, “but not about you …but, if you’re good, the artist might put you in the pictures.”

“Ooooooh! Thank you, Sir!”

The artfully artless use of Hats as a motif:

Bowlers and top hats run like a motif through the stories.

The artfully artless use of Onomatopoeia

The artfully artless use of Self-referentiality:

The revelation that the story is a conceit.

For example: in the introduction to Percy the Small Engine, the author appears in the text beside the characters – ‘we were afraid (The Fat Controller and I) that if he had a book to himself, it might make him cheekier than ever … But Percy has been such a Really Useful Engine that we both think he deserves a book. Here it is.

’

The artfully artless use of the self-mocking authorial voice:

See above.

It’s all a bit meta: ‘The People of England read about Us in their Books; but they do not think that we are real …”

“Shame!” squeaked Percy … ‘so … I am taking My Engines to England to show them.’

“I’m not really clever … I was just drawn like that.”

See the introduction to number 21 Main Line Engines for post-modernist self-referentiality meta etc where the characters attempt to wield the pen and become the authors – I immediately thought of Flann O’Brien and At Swim Two Birds when I read that introduction.

The author appears in both text and illustration in number 22.

Small Railway Engines: The fat and the thin clergyman who ‘writes books.’ “The Thin One’s writing about me in a book. He promised he’d write about you too. Think of that!”

The bantering go at the editors and how an engine becomes a sentient being who lies outside and not just inside the story’ (see introduction to 24)

The artfully artless use of the rule of three:

For example: ‘If you worked more and chattered less, this Yard would be a sweeter, a better, and a happier place.’

The artfully artless use of the Oxford Comma:

The Oxford comma is the comma placed before the final conjunction in a list of three or more items.

The artfully artless use of Anthropomorphization:

‘There are seven engines, one of whom …’

The artfully artless use of Imagery:

‘so with 7101 growling in front, and Henry growling in the middle, the long cavalcade set out for the next Big Station.’

The artfully artless use of an Old School outlook:

“Excuse me,” enquired Duke. “Are you a Vandal? Driver told me Vandals break in and smash things.”

The Fat Clergyman ruefully felt his bruises. “Bless you, no!” he laughed. “I’m quite respectable.”

“Pay Percy Out.”

‘The nasty smell of bad manners.’

‘The Duke smiled … Duck thinks that Dukes were Great Western engines, but Dukes are really people …

“I am a real-life Duke …”

“Thank you, your Grace …”’

The artfully artless use of Adverbs:

“Don’t put that silly story in,” said Thomas crossly.

Ruefully, indignantly, imperiously (see above for Old School Vocabulary)

The artfully artless use of Short sentences

And yet – The artfully artless use of a Varied Authorial Tone

The artfully artless use of Free Indirect Expression: ‘In literature, “free indirect expression,” also known as free indirect discourse or free indirect style, is a narration technique where a third-person narrator subtly conveys a character’s thoughts and feelings, blending the narrator’s voice with the character’s internal perspective.’

The artfully artless use of Rhythm and Repetition:

For example: ‘Rock and Roll in the railway lines.’

The artfully artless use of similes:

‘The passengers buzzed out like angry bees.’

‘Diesels baying and growling like hounds.’

The artfully artless use of Italics and Exclamation marks and Capitalisation for emphasis

The artfully artless use of Jokes:

“Not by the smoke of my chimney, chim, chim!”

“I’ll chuff and I’ll puff, and I’ll break your door in!”

“All ship-shape and Swindon fashion.”

Duck crashes into a barber’s shop: “that was a very close shave.”

‘Pop goes the Diesel.’

Daisy the Railcar: “I’m highly-sprung and anything smelly is bad for my nerves.”

‘Train stops play.’

“That’s one in the headlamp for old Diesel!”

“Perhaps that went to his smokebox and made him conceited.”

‘He soon got too big for his wheels.’

“I think that Duck was pulling your wheels.”

“Show us a wheel.”

‘Coughs and sneezles spread diseasels’

“Pulling your wheel”

‘Before you can say Small Contoller.’

‘boiler ache’

‘DONALD’S DUCK’

“What right has Oliver poking his funnel in here?”

The artfully artless Avuncular tone:

An older and wiser head speaks to his young readers in a tutelary but friendly manner. The epistolary introductions create this feeling of belonging to a club – we all know it’s a conceit but we like being taken in and want to be taken in.

The artfully artless use of Dickensian Repetition:

‘Duke’s story soon spread. The engines told Mr Hugh; Mr Hugh told The Thin Controller; The Thin Controller told the Owner; the Owner told His Grace; His Grace told The Small Controller; The Small Controller told The Thin Clergyman, and The Thin Clergyman told the Fat One.

That is why, one morning, the two clergymen and The Small Controller were looking at maps.’

The artfully artless use of semi colons:

For example: see above.

Conclusion

Given that the stories could appear repetitive and formulaic, the bantering conversational tone and content that runs seamlessly between writer, reader, and engines prevents that appearance of formulaic repetition becoming an obvious reality. The triumph of artful artlessness.

Let’s finish with some content rather than comment on form and style:

‘Sometimes, on Market Day, Ruth, Jemima and Lucy were so full of people that the Guard would allow third-class passengers to travel in Agnes. She didn’t like that at all, and would grumble. “First – class – coach – third – class – people.”

“That made me cross. ‘Shut up,’ I’d say and ‘or I’ll bump you!’ That soon stopped her rudeness to my friends.”’

Duck GWR 5741

“Duck, explain this behaviour.”

“Beg pardon, Sir, but I’m a Great Western Engine. We Great Western Engines do our work without Fuss; but we are not ordered about by other engines.”

18.Stepney, The “Bluebell” Engine 1963

The sadness of page six:

“…engines on the Other Railway aren’t safe now. Their Controllers are cruel. They don’t like engines any more. They put them on cold damp sidings, and then,” Percy nearly sobbed, “they … they c-c-cut them up.”

“Ye’re right there,” agreed Douglas. “If I hadn’t escaped, I’d have been cut up too. It’s all because of yon diesels. They’re all devils,” he added fiercely.

“Fair play, Douglas, “reminded Percy. “Some are nice. Look at Rusty and Daisy.”

“Maybe so,” answered Douglas, “I’d never trust one myself.”

In a prominent place in the Rodborough churchyard, the ashes of Wilbert, Margaret and Wilbert’s brother George, have been laid close to one another. Wilbert’s epitaph, cut in stone is: “He helped people see God in the ordinary things in life and he made children laugh.”

It’s strange but true

In Rodborough Avenue

A big car arrived with Ringo Starr

(big car arrived with Ringo Starr)

Sir Topham Hatt

(aka The Fat Controller)

Apparently, Master T. Hatt started his railway career in 1894 at the GWR Works in Swindon as an apprentice. I imagine he was quite slim then. I also imagine that his father probably worked ‘inside’ in the factory and that Topham might well have been born a Swindonian. There’s food for thought as you ruminate upon social mobility.

My great grand-father, Charles Butler, moved to Swindon from Clerkenwell after the carriage & wagon works was opened In Swindon; in 1886, I think it was. So, there is the tantalising possibility that my great grand-father knew this fictive young cove, Master Topham Hatt. And, of course, correspondingly, Master Topham Hatt knew my great grand-father. This is almost on a par with the Great War song chanted as troops marched to the front: “Lloyd George knew my father, Father knew Lloyd George.”

I have my great grand-father’s plane. Stamped GWR and stamped with Charles Butler’s name, it sits proudly on the bookshelves in ‘the study’ upstairs that also serves as a bedroom for our grandson. I also have my gramp’s GWR Swindon Works clocking-in token. Perhaps the young Topham had something similar. ‘All ship-shape and Swindon fashion’ as Wilbert put it.

The young Topham might also have come across Alfred Williams, the ‘Hammer-Poet’ who wrote Life in a Railway Factory. Have a look at this link if you are interested in Alfred: https://radicalstroud.co.uk/life-in-a-railway-factory-alfred-williams-the-hammerman-poet/

In conclusion, I grew up with the sound of the factory hooter: morning, early afternoon and early evening. So that’s something I also share with the Fat Controller. My brother, Keith, has written about the factory hooter and you can hear it at http://www.thewheatsheaf.info/hooter2.html We hear its ghost still.