{"id":9495,"date":"2023-06-17T23:44:13","date_gmt":"2023-06-17T22:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=9495"},"modified":"2023-06-18T11:48:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-18T10:48:21","slug":"art-life-rev-awdry-at-elsworth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=9495","title":{"rendered":"ART & LiFE: Rev. Awdry at Elsworth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Holy Trinity church, Elsworth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today I discovered, thanks to an old pal, Justin, that Rev. Awdry, of Thomas The Tank Engine fame, was the vicar of a local village. That village, Elsworth, was Justin\u2019s home for many years. And, for a period, the workplace and home of the clergyman and children\u2019s author. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wikipedia page on Awdry tells us the following: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018In 1940, he took a curacy at St Nicolas church, Kings Norton, Birmingham, where he lived until 1946. He subsequently moved to Cambridgeshire, serving as rector of Elsworth with Knapwell (1946-1950), rural dean at Bourn (1950-1953), and then vicar of emneth, norfolk (1953-1965). He retired from full-time ministry in 1965 and moved to Rodborough in Stroud in Gloucestershire.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Rev. Awdry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As with so many kids of the last 60-70 or so years, Thomas and friends were a part, albeit a smallish part, of my childhood. It\u2019s kind of nice to know Awdry wrote much of the series whilst living and working locally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not long ago, 2020, I believe, a blue plaque was added to the Elsworth rectory to commemorate this local connection. Sadly the Elsworth plaque isn\u2019t quite as pretty as the one in Box, another location proud of its Awdry connections. But hey, never mind! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an artist, writer and illustrator, I have a desire to perhaps get hold of the complete \u2018Railway Series\u2019, if it can be had? With the beautiful old fashioned illustrations by \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, it turns out there were a number of illustrators on The Railway Series. I garnered a bit more info on them, which I reproduce below, here<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C Reginald Dably<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1948, the man who was to ‘set the style’ for the Railway Series books came onboard with his gem-like illustrations – read about him and his work here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reginald Payne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Middleton failed to impress, Edmund Ward brought in a new illustrator, who went on to be the first artist to depict Awdry’s most famous engine – Thomas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Middleton<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original illustrator of the Three Railway Engines, whose artwork was replaced in favour of new work by C. Reginald Dalby – read about him here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clive Spong<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Awdry’s faithful illustrator across sixeen books, and encompassing the best elements of the three illustrators who had contributed to the series before him  – read about his work here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter & Gunvor Edwards<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rev. Awdry’s final illustrators, husband and wife team Peter and Gunvor put a different slant on the style of the Railway Series books   – read about their work here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John T Kenney<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenney took the Railway Series’ illustrative style in a bolder direction when he joined the team in 1957 – read about his work here!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I discovered, thanks to an old pal, Justin, that Rev. Awdry, of Thomas The Tank Engine fame, was the vicar of a local village. That village, Elsworth, was Justin\u2019s home for many years. And, for a period, the workplace and home of the clergyman and children\u2019s author. The Wikipedia page on Awdry tells us … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “ART & LiFE: Rev. Awdry at Elsworth”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-2t9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9495"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9501,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9495\/revisions\/9501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}