The Vicar Who Created Thomas Was… “Difficult”

Sources/References

Artists

  • "he burned through multiple illustrators"

    • This is mostly the case with the first three illustrators of the Railway Series. Awdry felt that William Middleton’s illustrations in The Three Railway Engines (1945) lacked the technical accuracy and was full of errors, such as Henry’s design. Awdry initially disliked Reginald Payne’s illustrations of Thomas the Tank Engine (1946) as Thomas’s design deviated from he’s desired model (based on a model Awdry had carved for his son), but accepted it when he learnt the design was based on a real life engine (Billinton E2 0-6-0 tank engine). There were other errors regarding the technical accuracy, such as the position of points. Awdry had a far more combative relationship with Reginald Dalby who illustrated the next nine books in the series and tended to disregard technical accuracy. Despite this, Dalby was also responsible for redoing the illustrations for The Three Railway Engines to replace Middleton’s and corrections to Payne’s illustrations in Thomas the Tank Engine. Awdry had a much better working relationship with the subsequent artists for his books, John T. Kenney and Peter & Gunvor Edwards.

  • Thomas's Mystery (Western Daily Press - 1995)

    • Missing artist could be owed a fortune

    • “I’m told he had a nervous breakdown,” Mr Awdry said.

    • A later letter to Mr Awdry from Miss Gregorson says: “The artist, unfortunately has since had a nervous breakdown due, I believe, to work at the Admiralty and has disappeared from view.”

  • The Thomas The Tank Engine Man: The Story Of The Reverend W. Awdry And His Really Useful Engines by Brian Sibley (2015)

    • Page 118: ‘Although the pictures I drew were crude,’ admits Wilbert, ‘with “stick men” and very elementary scenery, I was careful with the three engines. Each had a different wheel arrangement and shape so that Christopher could tell them apart easily.’ Wilbert’s sketches for the original manuscript showed Henry as a 4-4-2 engine (four bogey wheels, four driving wheels and two trailing wheels under the cab), but Middleton drew him, like Gordon, as a 4-6-2 engine.

    • Page 200: Long after publication, it was discovered that this illustration contained another mistake. Jonathan Atkinson, aged seven and a quarter, wrote to point out that ‘James’ wheels were wrong’; and, indeed, Dalby had depicted the red engine as having a four-wheel leading bogie, making it a 4-6-0 instead of the 2-6-0 which it had previously been, and still was in other illustrations in the same book!

    • Page 146: ‘During the whole of our ten or eleven year association,’ recalled the illustrator (it was actually only eight years) ‘I only met him twice.’ Reginald Dalby’s reaction to the author of the Railway Series was forthright: in his eyes Wilbert Awdry was ‘a pedantic, remote man with whom co-operation was difficult’

    • Page 192: The trees were duly uprooted and Henry’s front re-worked, but Wilbert’s chief objection was to the way in which Dalby drew Percy: ‘I wrote to him and said: “I beg, pray and exhort you not to make Percy look like a green caterpillar with red stripes!”

      Wilbert’s memory of these events is that the artist took umbrage and resigned. Reginald Dalby, writing in his unpublished autobiography, tells the story differently: ‘Press dates were of major importance yet it became later and later before I received the script, despite many requests. Finally, it was so late that I returned the copy and our association ended.’

  • County Artist Dies At 79 (Leicester Mercury - 1983)

    • Reginald Dalby

World War 2

Diesels

  • The Modernisation Plan (1955)

    • Page 17: Although it is proposed shortly to bring to an end the building of new steam locomotives, there are at present some 19,000 steam locomotives on British Railways, a susbtantial proportion being of modern design. The steam locomotive has a useful lie in service of some forty years, and obviously careful planning will be required to ensure that, as the existing stock is gradually replaced by diesel or electric power, it is still used to the best advantage. There will accordingly be careful selection of types for the condemnation programme, designed to eliminate as quickly as possible the less efficient types and small classes for which it would not be economical to maintain spares. 

  • The Scrap Heap (The Railway Gazette - 1947)

    • The 8 a.m. train from Clacton to London stopped on a lonely section of the London & North Eastern Railway line near Weeley. Essex. And for ten minutes the passengers wondered. Then the guard entered a first class carriage. He said: “Could anyone oblige the driver with a leather bootlace? We've been all along the train…” A passenger was wearing a rare pair [most bootlaces are now made of cotton], and he surrendered one. With the lace and a wad of newspapers the driver mended a vacuum pine which had burst. jamming the brakes. And the train went on.

  • Sodor: Reading Between The Lines by Christopher Awdry (2005)

    • Page 51: Bowled Out; This too is authenticated from the pages of The Railway Gazette in late 1960 or early 1961. A new diesel engine, on trial with BR, had to be towed away by a steam locomotive after an inspector's bowler hat was sucked into the fan duct, thus cutting off the supply of air to the engine. On Sodor the incident takes place in Tidmouth yard.

  • Stepney The "Bluebell" Engine by Rev. W. Awdry (1963)

    • DEAR READERS, Percy is a kind-hearted little engine. He feels sad because many fine steam engines are cut up on the Other Railway (B.R.). Percy’s ideas, however, though natural for an engine, are a little muddled. British Railways Officials are not cruel. They are sad to lose faithful steam friends, and glad to help engines to go to places like the Bluebell Railway at Sheffield Park in Sussex, where they can be cared for, and useful, and safe. THE AUTHOR.

  • Changing Platform Is Tricky Business (Evening Post - 1960)

    • But worse follows, for the Stedeford group have reaffirmed that the modernisation plan has been wastefully conceived.

  • Still growling on – modern traction preservation (Heritage Railway - 2017)

    • When BR published its Modernisation Plan in 1955, the replacement of steam by diesel traction was only one part of the overall plan.

      Dieselisation was carried out very hastily with far too many engines of totally unproven designs being ordered.

TV Adaptations

The Island Of Sodor

  • The Thomas The Tank Engine Man: The Story Of The Reverend W. Awdry And His Really Useful Engines by Brian Sibley (2015)

    • Page 153: Wilbert had written the first few pages and was reading it to Christopher, Hilary and Veronica. He was in the habit of trying out new stories on his children: ‘If they laughed in the right places, well and good; if they showed signs of disapproval, I would have to try again!’ On this occasion, Wilbert described the beginning of the race: ‘The Station Master said, “Are you ready? — Go!” and they were off!’ But when he reached the point where Bertie was left fuming at the level crossing gates while Thomas ‘sailed gaily through’, all three — as one child — said, ‘Daddy, that’s not fair!’

      Hilary remembers the occasion clearly: “We thought that Thomas had got all the advantages, and that there were far more hazards facing Bertie on the road.’

      ‘In fact,’ says Wilbert, ‘in order to be fair, I'd given the bus and the train an equal number of hazards — such as stations, traffic lights and the level crossing — and, in the end, the race really takes place up the final valley where road and rail run side by side.’ In order to prove his point, Wilbert drew a map to show the children that neither vehicle had been favoured in the race. ‘He proved to us,’ says Hilary, ‘that, stupid though it was — an engine and a bus having a race — it was, actually, fair!

    • Page 154: Also, on looking at any map there is an urge to know what lies beyond its borders, and the earliest maps showed unexplored areas as empty blanks, marked with such cautions as ‘Here there be dragons’. So, having made a map to show the race between Thomas and Bertie, Wilbert Awdry decided to explore further and the results of those explorations were to have a far-reaching effect on the Railway Series.

  • The Island Of Sodor by Rev W. Awdry (1987)

    • Page 5: By the accident of history, while the Isle of Man has retained Home Rule, Sodor has, since the 15th Century, been attached to the Duchy of Lancaster; but Sudrians have never allowed that circumstance to disturb their way of life. While paying lip service to Westminster they pursue a traditionally independent course. Throughout their long and stormy history as an appanage of one occupying power after another, Sudrians have learnt the art of putting officious and official people in their place. Anything which does not conform to Sudrian common sense or their idea of the fitness of things is politely, but firmly, ignored. Though nearly all Sudrians are bi-lingual, nevertheless "Nagh Beurla'' ("I have no English") has been, and still is, a time honoured defence against unwanted foreign interference.

    • Page 10: Note Tunnel scenes in 3RE/37,41,43 and 45 were incorrectly interpreted by the artist.

    • Page 29: There has been a Girls’ School on the hills above Brendam since 1873. Lady Margaret Cranstal, the daughter of an East India Company ”nabob”, was a wealthy woman in her own right, besides inheriting her husband’s estate. When she died in 1870 - a childless widow - she left her house and estate for the establishment of a school for girls “so that they may enjoy the same advantages as their brothers do at Cronk Abbey”. At present there are some 200 girls in the school, and the Headmistress is Miss I.M. Bealbus MA.

    • Page 36: Ffarquhar people are fond of their railway, and enjoy (when they are not on the receiving end of course!), its waywardness and eccentricities. But what they do not like is misrepresentation. Your author has been severely criticized for the pictures of the station shown in the early books (TETA and TOBY). The kindest comments, however, came from MR KEVIN VOLLEY, a former stationmaster of Ffarquhar 1936-56. He retired in 1968 and now lives at Ffarquhar. In a letter dated Ffarquhar 23rd August 1983, which is before me as I write, he describes the pictures in TETA and TOBY as "highly imaginative", and then goes on to elaborate. "I cannot think," he writes, "that the artist had ever seen the place he was attempting to draw.

    • Maps available from Page 147 to 153

  • Where it all happens (Evening Post - 1971)

“Henry's Sneeze” Racial Slur

  • Author's Note

    • For reasons I think I are obvious, I won’t be repeating the slur on this page and will censor them. However please be warned that the external links provided in this section will show the word uncensored.

  • The Thomas The Tank Engine Man: The Story Of The Reverend W. Awdry And His Really Useful Engines by Brian Sibley (2015)

    • Page 294: Even though, to all intents and purposes, the engines of Sodor had ceased running, Wilbert could never hope to escape his reputation as their creator — or avoid getting drawn into the controversies that they sometimes generated. In April 1972, a contentious issue had been raised by an article appearing in the ‘Private Ear’ column of the Sunday Times:

      Once upon a time, kiddies, the Rev. W. Awdry wrote a little story about Henry the Green Engine. In book form the story has sold 100,000 copies since 1951. Last week, someone noticed a ‘naughty word’ in the book, the sort of word you wouldn’t expect from a gentleman of the cloth. Henry the Engine got cross with some boys for throwing stones, so he puffed smoke over them until they were ‘as black as [censor]’.

    • Page 295: Despite the fact that the Race Relations Board said it was nothing to do with them, a deluge of correspondence followed; most of which, it must be said, was in support of Wilbert though often expressed in extreme right-wing terms.

      However, it became clear that an alteration had to be made and the eventual solution was one that had already been used when, in the midsixties, Johnny Morris had read the story of ‘Henry’s Sneeze’ on record and he had described the boys as running away ‘smothered in soot and cinders’ and Wilbert wrote to his publishers agreeing to a change in wording to ‘as black as soot’.

      However, as late as 1976, when editions of the book were for some unknown reason still carrying the offending word, a woman wrote: ‘I have just defaced a library book for the first time in my life.’ On finding the phrase ‘as black as [censor]’, she wrote, ‘I blocked out the last two words as I find them highly offensive... I adopted a West Indian baby and thankfully she has not heard the derisory term “[censor]” yet. She starts school after Christmas so no doubt it will come, but I do not expect to find it in a children’s library book!’

      Wilbert was to reply with a humility that betokened a new appreciation of the argument and he apologised for the fact that the publishers had still not amended the text. 

  • Henry the Engine's author insists on writing [censor] (The Daily Telegraph - 1972)

    • “The publishers have mentioned the complaint to me, but I don’t think itr’s necessary to change the word,” said Mr Awdry. “The complaint is rubbish. I understand it was made by someone connected with the race relations industry. I don’t think it was a colour person. The race relations industry is a load of codswallop.”

    • “I don’t know what the alternative will be. If you say ‘as black as chimney sweeps or miners’ you have their unions up in arms.”

  • 1972 Henry's Sneeze Racially Motivated Mention (Thomas The Tank Engine Wiki)

    • In early publications of the book Henry the Green Engine, the story Henry's Sneeze used a racial slur to describe the boys' appearance after Henry sneezes at them. This caused a controversy so notorious that it was reported in The National Press in 1972. Wilbert Awdry later apologised for including this racist remark and changed it for later publications of the book.

    • I feel this description is inaccurate as evident from The Daily Telegraph article and Brian Sibley’s book. Awdry clearly resented the idea of changing the word and resisted it until pressure was applied. The apology was only in the context that after agreeing to the word being changed, there were subsequent publications of Henry book that still included the slur in error.

Autism

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