THE CHURCH NEWSLETTER Emerald/Fernlees Uniting Church Cnr. Borilla & Yamala Sts., Emerald www.emeraldunitingchurch.org.au 30TH MAY & 6TH JUNE Minister:Jim Pearson th 49 Yamala St., Emerald Jim’s Jottings 30 May 2021. PH: 49821405 The Rev Wilbert Awdry (1911-1997) first penned Thomas the Tank Engine Mobile: 0408756364 Email: [email protected] in 1945. www.emeraldunitingchurch Excerpted from a story in The Guardian, 23rd May 2015, by Joanna Moorhead. .org.au Image: A Thomas the Tank Engine themed JNR Class C11 train in Japan, 2014. Wikipedia commons licence. Christopher Awdry doesn’t re- member having measles – he Mission Statement was only two at the time (1945). As Followers of But he does know, from family Christ we seek to legend, that he was already a know Him:worship railway enthusiast, like his fa- Him and share His ther and grandfather. So it was love with all people entirely predictable that, during his brush with measles, his fa- ther would entertain him with stories about trains; stories Regular Meetings Christopher enjoyed so much st that they continued when he was 1 Sunday: Bring & share lunch after restored to health. “Father used church to tell them to me every night,” 3rd Tuesday: he says. “But they were never Church Council/ exactly the same and I was a Worship & Pastoral stickler for detail.” That is why Care Meeting at the his father, Wilbert Awdry, wrote Church office the stories down. Thomas the Tank Engine was born. The family home was near the Brunel-designed Box Tunnel in Wiltshire, England. Wilbert would lie in bed at night, listening to the trains puffing up the incline, imagine their personalities and hear them Lam 3: 22-23 egging one another on. These were the memories he drew on decades later when Christopher was ill, The steadfast and the colourful characters of industrious Edward, pompous Gordon and impish Thomas emerged. There were two big passions that ran down the Awdry line: one was trains, and the other was the love of the Church of England. Wilbert’s father Vere was a clergyman and Wilbert had followed him into the LORD never ministry. The parish, recalls Wilbert’s daughter Veronica, always came first in his life. ceases; his mer- “If there was a sermon to write he’d always do that before the stories,” she says. But days off were cies never come spent writing about Thomas, or at narrow-gauge railways or railway museums. It was on one such to an end; they outing, in the cafe at the Bluebell railway in Sussex in 1979, that he got talking to a TV producer, are new every Britt Allcroft, who told him she’d love to make a series out of the Thomas books. Allcroft re- morning; great is mortgaged her house to raise the funds to make the series. With Ringo Starr providing the narration your faithfulness. (his successors in the job included Alec Baldwin and Pierce Brosnan), the programmes became one of the most enduring chapters of TV history, and raised Thomas and his creator to a new level of fame. The Awdrys were astonished by how it all took off. “Father was very surprised by it,” says Christo- pher. “But it gave him an income for his retirement, and meant my parents were able to buy their own home after a lifetime of living in vicarages.” The personalities of the engines enabled Wilbert to use the stories to teach children about Christian principles and morality. If the engines got into trouble (which of course they do) then it’s usually be- cause of their own jealousy, or arrogance, or disobedience. If they repent, they may be punished but they are always forgiven by the ‘Fat Controller’ – and never scrapped. Wilbert enjoyed pointing out the similarities between the Church and British Railways – “Both had their heyday in the mid-19th century; both own a great deal of Gothic-style architecture which is expensive to maintain; both are regularly assailed by critics; and both are firmly convinced that they are the best means of getting man to his ultimate destination.” .