Rev. W. Awdry

Wilbert Vere Awdry was an Anglican clergyman who made up a story about a sad engine to entertain his son Christopher through measles in 1943. The Three Railway Engines followed in 1945, Thomas the Tank Engine in 1946, and the series ran to twenty-six volumes before Awdry stopped in 1972 and Christopher carried it on. He was a serious railway enthusiast and would not let the engineering slide: readers wrote in when a coupling was wrong, and he took the corrections. Catch Me, Catch Me and Happy Birthday, Thomas! are not among those twenty-six. They are picture books adapted for younger American readers from the stories and the television series, issued by Random House. Awdry lived from 1911 to 1997 and was appointed OBE in 1996.