The Complete Collection (Thomas the Tank Engine)

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The only minuses there are (which are few), are some very advanced railway terminology, outdated phrases (I've never before heard "Play him out" yet it's mentioned countless times in the book), and the artwork - which while charming, can sometimes also look like nightmare fuel! This elegant slipcase brings together all 26 books from this famous Railway Series in one stunning volume. The 70th Anniversary edition was published on the same day from thirty years, after the television series had made its debut on UK televisions on 9 October 1984. You can absolutely tell the Author was a big fan of Trains, and the research done must have been extraordinary to turn seemingly everyday events on the railways of the time into great adventures, must have taken great imagination! So yes, as I've already pointed out a little - I really enjoyed how authentic the stories were (minus the talking locomotives obviously!), and there's enough differing stories to not make them boring (not every story is introducing a new engine etc.)

There is a definite storybook feel to the first twelve books, as if it is the perfect English idyll, populated by these sentient vehicles where nothing bad happens, or if it does it is soon resolved and the engine in question learns an important lesson. The endpaper features Bertie with a yellow face, Harold without rotors, Edward on top and bottom left side without his tender and Percy on the top and bottom right side without his face. William Middleton | Reginald Payne | C. Reginald Dalby | John T. Kenney | Gunvor and Peter Edwards | Clive Spong | Stephen LingsThis compilation contains all 26 of The Reverend W. Awdry's "Railway Series" books. It doesn't contain any of this son, Christopher's additions to the series, however, so the claim that this is "The Complete Collection" is slightly disingenuous.

I owned many of these separate story books too, but it's only after finding this collection and rereading them all over again that you realise just how clever these books are. Each of the 26 books consists of four stories each, that's plenty of adventures to share for bedtime stories over many nights. New types of engines and their railways begin to appear, including the Skarloey narrow gauge railway, the Culdee Fell mountain railway and the Arlesdale miniature railway, all of which are based upon real railways, namely the Tallylyn and Corris railways in Wales, the Snowdon Mountain Railway and the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Wales. I can’t really name one favourite book in the series as they all offered different things to me, so will give a list of those that I enjoyed the most. This book comprised a large part of my childhood. My dad would read this to me and my brothers before bed and I think the influence it had is considerable. The language of this book is incredible considering its context as a children's book; the vocabulary level raised that of me and my brothers many years beyond our age, in the most subtle and enjoyable way possible.

Like a lot of young British lads, I absolutely loved Thomas the Tank Engine, and enjoyed the TV series, being the late eighties baby that I was.