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’ 100th 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)