A national blue plaque has been unveiled at the former home of Thomas The Tank Engine creator Reverend Wilbert Awdry. The unveiling, at 30 Rodborough Avenue in Stroud, Gloucestershire, marked 80 years since the first of the classic Thomas & Friends books, The Three Railway Engines, was published. Rev Awdry first told the tales of an imaginary railway and its engines, Edwards, Gordon and Henry, to his son Christopher to distract him from chickenpox in 1943. Two years later, The Three Railway Engi