The bespectacled historian has had a good idea.
Stuart (for it is he) said, “Why don’t we have a train ride and a bus ride and a walk and conjoin the Rev Awdry blue plaques at Rodborough and Box?”
Everyone said it was a great notion and so they made a plan.
Some would meet at Rodborough Avenue to view the first plaque and then catch the 9.34 to Swindon, change there for Bath, then catch the bus to Box. Others said that they would drive to Box and meet the throng there.
“What a splendid way to celebrate the Reverend Awdry,” Katie announced.
“And the GWR, too, of course,” Bob added.
The morning of Thursday February 5th 2026 was dark and stormy. But snowdrops lit a path to spring and a robin trilled in the churchyard as the bespectacled historian made his way to the Rev Awdry’s grave at Rodborough.
The bespectacled historian – not in shorts today – tightened his hood against the wind and the rain and descended down to Rodborough Avenue to the first blue plaque of the day.
Here he met the rather wonderful Dorcas. The only person Stuart had met with that name before was from the deep, deep past in deepest Wiltshire and when Stuart mentioned that to Dorcas, she exclaimed, “My great-grandmother was from Wiltshire and she was named Dorcas too.”
There was a pause: “It was an open-air baptism.”
This was the stuff of Thomas Hardy and Richard Jefferies, thought Stuart, as Dorcas carried on, garrulously, “I found out about this walk online and was curious to find out about it. I’m a good walker. The other day I walked from Whitminster to Stroud – I’m from Longlevens in fact – and in the shop doorway in Stroud was a Thomas the Tank Engine book. So, I thought this is a sign. This is meant to be.”
They made their way down towards the railway station through the mud and the mire. Dorcas began to think that she couldn’t face a five-mile trudge through the fields around Box as the rain continued to pour. She decided that she would spend the day in Rodborough and visit the Awdry grave.
Stuart explained how to find the grave and the stained-glass window as they bade farewell. Dorcas entered a café whilst the bespectacled historian turned the corner towards the station.
There was an ominous gathering of wayfarers there laded with suitcases and rucksacks – that augured ill, thought the bespectacled historian.
And sure enough.
Trains were cancelled every way which way.
A break-down on the line.
Not floods in Sapperton Tunnel or embankments slipping…but that might well happen again in this relentless windswept rain.
The bespectacled historian was stricken with a head-cold so perhaps this was a blessing in disguise, he thought, despite losing money on his ticket.
He informed friends and colleagues as well as he could, hoping that no-one would drive to Bath or Box in this inclement weather awaiting his arrival and feeling consequently angry at his absence.
He decided that he would reschedule the walk for later in the year when the sun might hopefully shine. And, after all, he thought, he had already led a group on the Box blue plaque walk in the late spring last year.
But what if the sun refused to shine and the rain continued to fall …
He thought again: if people followed this link, then they could walk around Box themselves without any need for the bespectacled historian’s presence …
https://www.colerne-pc.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/20200319-Box-Heritage-Trail-Interactive-Map.pdf
And so he sent this telegram.