One thought on “A No Award 2015 in Review”

1. I’m sorry I missed the genius of “The Prison Island of Sodor” when you first published it. However, it’s raising still more questions – like which book the speech by Duke comes from.

   I have “Duke the Lost Engine,” Railway Series, No. 25, first published 1970, fifth impression 1984. Here’s the corresponding page:

   “No. 2,” said Duke, “was American, and very cocky. He rode roughly and often came off the rails. I warned him to be careful.
   “‘Listen, Bud,’ he drawled. ‘In the States we don’t care a dime for a few spills.’
   “‘We do here,’ I said, “but he just laughed.
   “But he didn’t laugh when the Manager took away his wheels, and said he was going to make him useful at last.”
   “Why? W-W-What did he do?”
   “He turned him into a pumping engine. That’s what. He’s still there, behind our shed.”
   Stuart and Falcon were unusually good for several days!

   Unfortunately I can’t find our copy of “The Thomas the Tank Engine Man” by Brian Sibley. It acknowledges some smaller changes; in the story “Henry’s Sneeze,” the phrase “black as soot” contained a racial slur in the original publication. The biography mentioned above also acknowledges that the Rev. W. Awdry quite intentionally placed moral messages in the books. He also wrote under self-imposed rules about how much autonomy the locomotives had independent of their drivers. It wasn’t much.

   January 5, 2016 at 12:23 pm

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