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This article is about the 1953 adaptation. You may be looking for the original story or the 1984 adaptation or the magazine story.


The Sad Story of Henry was the episode of the BBC Children's Television series which was broadcasted on 14 June 1953. It is based on the story of the same name and Edward, Gordon and Henry from The Railway Series book, The Three Railway Engines.

Characters

Locations

Production

In November 1952, a person named Robert Mitchell, who had just heard about The Railway Series books on the radio, wrote a letter to Freda Lingstrom, who was then in charge of the BBC's Children's Television Department, asking if they could adapt Wilbert Awdry's stories for television. She agreed, and in February of the next year, she approached Eric Marriott, the editor of the Railway Series, to get the rights to adapt two stories from The Three Railway Engines for TV.

In her letter to Marriott, she stated that these episodes were scheduled to be broadcast during BBC Children's Hour on the 14 and 28 June of that year[3], in offering of £1 per minute. In order for the story to fit the ten-minute time slot, R.G. Walford of the BBC's Copyright Department, pointed out that the stories required adapting.

Eric Marriott accepted the deal, and on May 1st, 1953, Douglas Mair was assigned as the director for the TV show. Mair decided to use miniature locomotives on a set, which would be made to look like the characters from the books. He got in touch with Meccano Ltd, who provided a layout and the necessary model trains for the show: three Duchess of Atholl models and a N2 tank engine. However, they had some conditions, including not altering the models and only putting faces on the smokeboxes.

The BBC went on to try and convince Wilbert Awdry that the models were "similar if not identical" to the engines in the illustrations, as depicted in The Three Railway Engines, but Awdry did not agree with their statements. Upon the models being delivered by Douglas Mair, Edmund Ward hired P.R. Wickham, an occasional collaborator of Wilbert's, to suitably adapt the models so they would look as close to the ones in the illustrations as possible.

Wickham used balsa wood to build the shells of what would become James and Edward and repainted the two remaining Duchess of Atholl models, most likely to create Henry and Gordon. Wickham also helped modify the Hornby layout based on C. Reginald Dalby's illustrations. The changes Wickham made were approved by Awdry, and the models went on to be used in the broadcast.

On 10 June, Eric Marriott delivered the modified models to Lime Grove Studios in London where the episode was due to be filmed, but was greatly disappointed to see that the set was not ready for the transmission. The producers then displayed him a collection of railway sound effects that were going to be used for the episode.

Later that day, the BBC crew began rehearsing the episode. P.R. Wickham accidentally put the wrong type of back coupling on Henry, which caused issues with him pulling a train. However, by the time they did the second rehearsal, in the early hours of 14 June, it appeared that they were able to fix the problem. That was not the case.

At 5 P.M. on the same day, the program got broadcast. As intended, it lasted ten minutes and had many complex shots, including superimposed people shown pulling and pushing Henry out of the tunnel, along with music and a narration by Noelle Middleton. However, it also had a lot of mistakes.

Eric Marriott, in an interview for Brian Sibley's book, The Thomas the Tank Engine Man, mentioned that early during the broadcast, the model depicting Henry derailed. A volunteer from the Talyllyn Railway, Robin Webb, recalled watching the broadcast and said that Henry was facing away from the camera and moving towards the left of the screen when it derailed. Then, someone from the crew reached down from the top right of the screen and tried to put the model back on the rails. Douglas Mair explained in a letter that the derailment likely happened due to the faulty coupling that had caused trouble during the rehearsal. While the engine derailed, Noelle Middleton had to adapt the script on the spot to fit the situation on the screen.

Later during the broadcast, as reported by the programme's organizer, J. E. Rich, the model portraying Edward broke down. As a result, they had to replace Edward with James, right before a scene that was originally meant for Edward. These mistakes, along with the "jerky" model railway operation, angered Wilbert Awdry and Edmund Ward.[4]

On 22 June, Wilbert Awdry sent the BBC an ultimatum, stating that unless they avoided these mistakes in future episodes, he wanted them to cancel the show completely. The story of his ultimatum was later featured in a Daily Mail article titled "What A Way to Run a (television) Railway," and Awdry said it became a matter of almost national concern.

Cecil McGivern, Head of Programmes at the BBC at the time, agreed with the Reverend's comments and dubbed the entire endeavour "pathetic."[1] A lot of parents sent Wilbert Awdry letters complaining about the broadcast. These complaints, combined with negative media attention, resulted in the next episode's delay and soon cancellation of the show. The second episode of the show was quickly replaced with a programme called "John Glyn Jones Tells a Story."[5] Despite the chaos of transmission, however, audience research carried out by the BBC reveals that the broadcast was not terribly received by audiences in general. It achieved an approval rating score of 61% against an average of 66% for children's programming at the time.

Preservation

Footage for this episode no longer exists, as being a live broadcast, it was likely never recorded, and due to the BBC's track record of wiping their archives, any recordings that may have existed most likely were wiped. Other than that, it is now only known from eyewitnesses. In October 2022, however, it was revealed that the BBC's Written Archive Centre possessed multiple documents detailing on the production of the broadcast, including a picture of the model of James, listed as File T2/171.[1]

In July 2023, the Awdry Extravaganza 3 held a display dedicated to the full production history of the lost episode, including all the BBC's documents, a higher quality image of the James model, and the previously unseen camera script. The latter reveals that the broadcast had combined the Sad Story of Henry with Edward, Gordon and Henry to extend the length of the broadcast, as well as mentioning events from Edward's Day Out.

Trivia

  • This is the first example of an attempt to adapt the Railway Series books to television, the second being a series planned by Andrew Lloyd Webber in the 1970s. The third, and altogether more successful attempt came in 1984, and became Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. However, the stories were first adapted to radio by the BBC in 1950 for the popular children's show "Listen with Mother".
  • The official name of the broadcast was The Three Railway Engines.[3] However, the working title was incorrectly called as "The Three Little Engines."[6]
  • According to Nottingham Evening Post the second planned episode would have been an adaptation of James the Red Engine planned for 28 June.
    • A model of Thomas was being prepared for this proposed episode by P.R. Wickham.
  • In July 2022, a letter (dated 26th June 1953) from Wilbert Awdry about the programme was put up for auction by Bellmans. The letter was sold for £320.

Gallery

News articles

The Sad Story of "The Sad Story of Henry"

Camera Script

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Prospero February 2021, page 2 on the BBC Prospero past editions
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Daily Herald 23rd June 1953, page 3 on the British Newspaper Archive
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Radio Times 12th June 1953, page 14 on the BBC Genome Project
  4. The Thomas the Tank Engine Man
  5. Children's Hour, 28 June 1953 on the BBC Genome Project
  6. Charles E. Stidwell on Sodor Island Fansite
  7. Leicester Evening Mail 4th June 1953, page 2 on the British Newspaper Archive
  8. Daily News 23rd June 1953, page 3 on the British Newspaper Archive


Source

External Links


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