Background
Wilbert Vere Awdry was born on June 15, 1911, in Ampfield, England, the son of Vere and Lucy Louisa (Bury) Awdry.
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Henry the Green Engine has now recovered from his silly habit of staying inside tunnels whenever it rains, but he is still causing trouble to that strict but kind-hearted Fat Controller. All turns out well, however, and Henry has new and refreshing adventures with his fellow engines Thomas, Gordon, Edward, James and Percy.
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priest author cleric railway enthusiast
Wilbert Vere Awdry was born on June 15, 1911, in Ampfield, England, the son of Vere and Lucy Louisa (Bury) Awdry.
Awdry attended Marlborough House School, Hawkhurst, Kent from 1919 to 1924 and Dauntsey's School, West Lavington, Wiltshire from 1924 to 1929. He was a bachelor in St. Peter's College, University of Oxford in 1932 and Master of Arts in the same college in 1936. And he got diploma in theology in Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford in 1933. After that he studied for three years from 1933 to 1936 at St. George's School, Jerusalem.
Awdry worked in Schoolmaster boy's school, Jerusalem for three years from 1933. That same year he became a curate in Odiham, England and held this position till 1938, also he was a curate in West Lavington, England from 1938 to 1940. That year he took a curacy in St. Nicholas' Church, Kings Norton, Birmingham where he lived until 1946.
Afterwards he moved to Cambridgeshire, serving as Rector of Elsworth with Knapwell (1946–53) and then Vicar of Emneth (1953–65). He retired from full-time ministry in 1965 and moved to Rodborough near Stroud in 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.
His 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.
In 1952, Awdry volunteered as a guard on the Talyllyn Railway in Wales, then in its second year of preservation.
Awdry wrote other books besides those of The Railway Series, both fiction and non-fiction. For example, the story, Belinda the Beetle was about a red car (it became a Volkswagen Beetle only in the illustrations to the paperback editions).
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Awdry married Margaret Emily Walein in August 1938 and they had 3 children: Christopher, Veronica and Hilary Margaret.