Thomas and Friends

The Railway Stories - Percy the Small Engine and other stories

based on Reverend W. Awdry's stories

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Thomas and Friends - The Railway Stories, Percy the Small Engine and other stories - Audio Book CD  

Brand New ( 1.25 hours 1 CD):  

About Percy the Small Engine and other stories

A collection of stories featuring Thomas the Tank Engine.

Four Little Engines -
This book features the first appearance of the Skarloey Railway, and introduces four new engines, Skarloey, Rheneas, Sir Handel and Peter Sam together with the Thin Controller. Rheneas is away being mended, and the Skarloey Railway has recently acquired Sir Handel and Peter Sam.

Percy the Small Engine-
Percy lives on the Island of Sodor with many other locomotives, and is the smallest, youngest and probably cheekiest, of all the engines! In these stories he plays a joke, get's helped with his work by Duck, wins a race with a helicopter and saves the day after the rain.

The Eight Famous Engines -
Featuring eight of the most popular engines, in these stories Percy's curiosity gets the better of him, Gordon gets to visit London, James' self-importance gets the better of him, and all the Engines go to England.

About Reverend W. Awdry

Wilbert Vere Awdry, OBE, (15 June 1911 – 21 March 1997), better known as the Reverend W. Awdry, was a clergyman, railway enthusiast and children's author. He is best known as the author of The Railway Series of books in which the character Thomas the Tank Engine originated. Reverend W Awdry was born in Romsey, Hampshire in 1911. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Dauntseys School, West Lavington, Wiltshire; St Peter's Hall, Oxford (BA, 1932), and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He was ordained into the Anglican priesthood in 1936. In 1938 he married Margaret Wale, and two years later took a curacy in St. Nicholas' Church, Kings Norton, Birmingham where he lived until 1946. He subsequently moved to Cambridgeshire, serving as Rector of Elsworth with Knapwell, 1946-53, and Vicar of Emneth, 1953-65. He retired from full-time ministry in 1965, and moved to Stroud, Gloucestershire.

The characters that would make Awdry famous, and the first stories featuring them, were invented in 1943 to amuse his son Christopher during a bout of measles. After Awdry wrote The Three Railway Engines, Christopher wanted a model of Gordon; however, that was too difficult. Instead, Awdry made a model of a tank engine from odds and ends and painted it blue. Christopher christened the model engine Thomas. Then Christopher requested stories about Thomas and these duly followed and were published in the famous book Thomas the Tank Engine, released in 1946. The first book (The Three Railway Engines) was published in 1945, and by the time Awdry stopped writing in 1972, The Railway Series numbered 26 books. Christopher subsequently added further books to the series.

Awdry's enthusiasm for railways did not stop at his publications. He was involved in railway preservation, and built model railways, which he took to exhibitions around the country. Awdry wrote other books besides those of The Railway Series, both fiction and non-fiction. The story Belinda the Beetle was about a red car (it became a Volkswagen Beetle only in the illustrations to the paperback editions). Wilbert Awdry was awarded an OBE in the 1996 New Year’s Honours List, but by that time his health had deteriorated and he was unable to travel to London. He died peacefully in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 21 March 1997, at the age of 85. He is interred at Gloucester Crematorium. A biography entitled The Thomas the Tank Engine Man was written by Brian Sibley and published in 1995.

Thomas and Friends - The Railway Stories, Percy the Small Engine and other stories - Audio Book CD