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Thomas
the Tank Engine is fifty years old. The stories
were first created by an Anglican clergyman,
the Reverend Wilbert Awdry, as a way of entertaining
his young son Christopher as he recovered, in
isolation, from scarlet fever. Christopher demanded
that he be told the stories again and again
and, in the way of small children, corrected
his father whenever inconsistencies crept into
the retold stories.
In self defense, the Rev. Awdry wrote the first
stories down on available scraps of paper. To
add to the story telling, the Rev. Awdry drew
simple pictures of steam locomotives on the
paper along with the stories. A head on view
being the easiest to draw, he drew a row of
locomotives standing in an engine shed with
a human face and expression on each locomotive's
smokebox door.
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