#wilbert awdry
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“Holy Shit it’s Peter Sam” - Rev. W. Awdry
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“Duncan what’s wrong why have you been so grumpy today? Can you explain yourself?”
Duncan refused to comment.
I wanted to make something for Awdry Extravaganza and this was the funniest thing ever to me had to do it for the meme!! Big shoutout to terrier55stepney for his great commentary and to the talyllyn railway for providing those of us across the pond with a way to attend the event virtually! Hopefully one day I’ll get to go in person. Love the new Duncan face! It’s brilliant!
#ttte#ttte fanart#thomas the tank engine#thomas and friends#railwayseries#ttte skarloey#skarloey railway#ttte duncan#wilbert awdry#awdryextravaganza#talyllyn railway
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Percy and Harold
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did you miss it? Railway Series Book Club - Percy and Harold is out now! join us as we meet Harold the Helicopter and talk about one of the most iconic stories in the entire series!
#ttte percy#ttte harold#railway series#rws#rwsbc#railway series book club#rev w awdry#wilbert awdry#Youtube
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As a long time Sam's Trains viewer, I can safely say that I was not expecting this to ever happen.
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#thomas and friends#sam's trains#thomas the tank engine#ttte#thomas#ttte thomas#Wilbert Awdry#rev. w. AWDRY#model trains#ho scale#oo gauge#Youtube
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whenever you block someone envision rev awdry going “no” in your head
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Was watching a Documentary about Flying Scotsman from 1968 on BBC Iplayer, and who should show up but only the bloody Rev himself!
==
(4472 - Flying Scotsman - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p011vfqw/4472-flying-scotsman)
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If anyone asks, no, I don't consider BWBA, AEG, The Patrick Star Show or Kamp Koral canon in my crossover universe.
I think these spinoffs are very disrespectful to the source material. And to Stephen Hillenburg and Reverend W. Awdry.
#vent#thomas and friends#spongebob squarepants#sbsp#stephen hillenburg#wilbert awdry#rip stephen hillenburg#I'm sorry they disrespected you#dni discourse
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Happy birthday to the author of "The Railway Series" and creator of Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. His legacy will live on forever in our hearts and childhood memories for bringing our favorite characters to life. Thank you and God bless your soul, Rev. Awdry.
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Thomas and the Racial Slur
A reminder that not only was Wilbert Awdry - the guy who created Thomas the Tank Engine - a grumpy old man who hated "political correctness," his origin story for those beliefs ties back to the 1970s when parents asked for a reprint of the 1951 book Henry the Green Engine.
Why?
Awdry used the n-word in it and now the kids who'd grown up reading that book wanted to be able to read it to their children without a slur.
There's tweets going around that say he apologized but the official biography of Awdry basically opens with the writer and him shit-talking political correctness. If he did apologize it was likely due to pressure from his publisher (which likely made the pissy attitude even worse).
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Daisy & Mavis?
Or maybe Sir Handel & Peter Sam?
Ooooh, Sir Handel and Peter Sam have a fascinating dynamic. However, I don't really have much to say that others haven't already said, and probably said better. To the degree that I'm tempted to talk about their Trauma Responses, I have another ask about Sir Handel & Skarloey, so I think I'll fold these thoughts into that post.
So, Daisy and Mavis — love 'em — only wish they got more screen time!
("Screen" time. Do they ever have a significant interaction in the television series? I really want to be told if they do.)
Actually they only have one page in RWS where they exchange a word. But it's such a good page. Posting it here for the uninitiated:
Look at this mess. Look at this absolutely perfect bitchfest. There are a total of zero brain cells in this conversation. Venting to your work bestie and and letting loose your inner mean girl. A classic RWS dynamic! It's just the diesel (& the female) version of the Thomas and Percy relationship: They make each other worse.
But, they need each other.
But, they make each other worse...!
Despite their lack of screentime following this, you cannot convince me that these two don't remain peas in a pod, just like 1 and 6 after 6 is transferred to the branch line.
I do think it's rather sad that Mavis is holed up in the quarry. :( There's a real bummer of a line when she appears in a later Christopher story...
"Besides, she sometimes finds it dull up at the Quarry with no one to talk to but trucks." I know it's realistic, but I want better for her. LET 👏 HER 👏 OUT 👏
Once smartphones became a thing, I like to imagine that they videocalled from the quarry to the carriage shed every night. (Annie, Clarabel, and Henrietta are very understanding about this when the call lasts half an hour. If ever the workers try to indulge Daisy and Mavis with a longer call, however, the coaches start murmuring...)
One great thing about this convo is that it's the first time I feel like I'm really, genuinely looking at lasting steam/diesel coexistence on Sodor's 'big railway.' Coz this is a target Awdry has been trying to hit for at least a dozen books now, yeah? Due mostly to his publishers' pressures, he's been trying to have beloved diesel characters while keeping his 1920-cosplay steam railway too, and this is where I think he finally hits the target. Daisy's first appearance was hamstrung because the turning point where she changes her haughty new-engine attitude and where the others accept her despite all the shit she's already pulled is off-screen, we're just told "they're friends now" and have to be all "right. sure." Probably because he got negative feedback on his Daisy hash, Awdry played it suuuuper safe with BoCo and Bear — less so Bear, but that's another post; for now I will just say that in contrast to Daisy they are presented as very clean-as-a-whistle, and their acceptance by the railway is made so much of that it doesn't feel natural, they both feel like one-offs. But then, ahhh. Now we've got Mavis, and Awdry has the bright idea to let her talk to Daisy, and BANG. Now we're here. This doesn't feel Informed, or starch-and-stiff, or tokenistic. You read this and you're like oh, yeah. Even the sleepiest branch line on this railway is now part dieselised. They're acting like characters! Everybody is acting like squabbling coworkers! It's like sinking at last into a warm relaxing soak. Ahhhhh. Here's the good stuff.
Because they don't need to be Representatives of dieselkind? They can just kinda suck for a moment, without being villains? When TVS subs out Daisy for Diesel, it automatically gives this conversation a sinister air. He's the devil on Mavis's shoulder. But in the original, there's nothing sinister here; it's homey. They're just venting to each other. Their behavior is kinda crappy, but also very normal and recognisable. New work besties fr. They are both three drinks in.
Daisy: He said what to you? Omg babe. I cannot believe that old garden shed said that to youuu.
Mavis: Right?????
Daisy: raising a glass Anything steam engines do, we diesels can do BETTER!
Mavis: hauling herself a bit unsteadily to her feet so that her gesticulation can be its most dramatic and sweeping You are RIGHT and you should SAY IT!
(Narrator: mildly ... Daisy was not right and, being probably the most specialised and least versatile engine then on her railway, she definitely should not have been saying it.)
(Above: The quintessential moment. Mavis & Daisy are commiserating/carping, and Annie & Clarabel are trying so hard to not hear their shit.)
Now, I've always had a question here...
Did Toby really say that only steam engines can shunt trucks?
The text indicates only that he was annoyed that she kept re-arranging things, they had a tiff, she rejected his input and left.
Then again, the text doesn't reveal that Percy calls Mavis's shunting "a ---- ------ ------ mess!", so, y'know. We get the minimum detail necessary in these stories. ;)
We never see Toby express any such sentiment about diesel engines. I'm inclined to think he never said this — and I suspect we're not supposed to believe he said this, only that Mavis is in stroppy teen mode and exaggerating and embellishing her grievances to the point where she's straight-up making shit up.
Still, I'm not sure. Usually in the RWS if a character is lying they are slyly or explicitly called out for it in the nearby text and this time the claim is just... sitting here.
Ultimately, I don't think he ever said that to her, but (considering how salty everyone on the Ffarquhar line can get: some have quicker fuses than others but they're all so provoke-able) I don't think Mavis just made this up completely. If she were making up stories from whole cloth, that would be... well, that would be 'Devious' Diesel behavior! I suspect, however, that Toby and Percy (comparing notes on her shunting) are at least thinking it, or have said it to each other, and Mavis has picked up on these vibes. All of which would be incredibly realistic.
Anyway, I bring this up because the answer does color my read of this conversation a little. If Mavis is completely making up attitudes that Toby never dreamed of having, and Daisy just eats it up and eggs her on, that makes this conversation somehow even 10x messier (and somehow I'm still rooting for their friendship). If this is a sentiment that is real or implied when Mavis or Daisy annoy the other Ffarquhar engines (and they can both be annoying, no question) then the bond between these two characters, with their very different personalities, just becomes even more 'understandable.'
Anyway, about those differences. Mainly, Daisy is ultimately very conventional. (This reminds me I have a nearly-finished essay about Daisy lying around somewhere. For now...) Mavis is the original, creative one, the mover-and-shaker. All Daisy's initial behaviors, as Hazel observed recently, are things we've seen from proud new engines before! She wants lots of attention, she boasts, she tries her damnedest to get out of work that she thinks is beneath her. What Mavis wants is to improve things, to have more responsibility, to get to stretch her wheels. Furthermore, Daisy by nature is keen to avoid work that's too heavy (she's a railcar with limited pulling power, so, you know, understandable); Mavis doesn't mind work — she just doesn't like being told how to do it, and she doesn't like being bored!
A point where they can be contrasted is in how they accept Toby's help and friendship at the end of their initial... "arcs." (All right, Daisy's "arc" is ended so clumsily that you can barely call it that, but you get me.) I'm not saying Mavis is devious or calculating, but for her Toby's offer of friendship is just as important as a pathway to her getting out of the quarry sometimes as it is for his forgiveness. It is her ticket out. For Daisy, Toby's offer of friendship was important because she wants friends, now she's making a friend yay!! — and I think that was pretty much it. Daisy just wants positive attention; that's what all her 'modern and right-up-to-date' stuff was about, but that failed to get her the positive attention she wanted and it turned out that being a team player did, so she had little trouble re-orienting herself. She resisted the pressure of everyone on the platform for her first train because she clung to the memory of her friend the fitter, but I don't think she's one to resist peer pressure in general, and as time passed and the Ffarquhar line residents became her peers, it was completely inevitable that she start to conform to their ways.
So (although, again, annoyingly — we aren't shown) I reckon that Daisy panicked after Percy's accident when she realized that she would be in trouble too (all right, someone probably had to point it out to her). And so for the first time she pitches in and does some hard work. Toby can't help but own "you did well to get all your half cleared, Daisy" and Daisy's entire system lights up because compliment, baby!!! That's all she ever wanted. She's Toby's man now (so to speak).
I can also easily imagine that, in trying to get adjusted to Mavis, Toby remembered how thing went last time. He must have tried from the first to tell himself, through slightly gritted teeth, "Just find something to compliment the new engine on, just anything. Helps build trust." But he was stymied twice over. 1) She keeps re-arranging the trucks in some crazy-ass unapproved way and he can't find ANYTHING nice to say! 2) It wouldn't have worked, anyway. Mavis wouldn't have been satisfied with just some friendly attention. Mavis wants to do. shit.
Mavis is bright — possibly has little common sense, but she's bright. I do wonder sometimes if her shunting arrangements are actually bad, or if they're just different and Toby and Percy can't adjust. (The text does own that due to the siding arrangements it's inefficient to put the trucks where Toby expects them. She probably does optimize things — from her point of view, anyhow.) Either way, though, here is an active and creative mind at work. Plus, her ploy to slo-o-owly expand her pathway down the line in "Toby's Tightrope" shows long-term planning, which is hardly something we've ever seen any vehicle do! So yeah, she's well above-average bright for an engine.
Hilariously, in Their Own Scene she is easily impressed by Daisy's lofty confidence (another classic RWS dynamic — it's giving Duncan staring amazed at James's boasting), but she's also super young, hasn't been Toby-fied yet, and in short I expect that as the years go by Mavis is likely to see Daisy as less of a role model and more of a crony/partner-in-crime. Daisy might instigate things sometimes — but she needs Mavis and Mavis's bright ideas before she really makes much headway! And I expect Mavis is often the instigator anyway. In her literary-device role of Second Coming of Thomas (Dieselised Flavour), she probably continues to want all sorts of things that engines aren't supposed to pine for (silly stick-in-the-muds!) Daisy is quite content to grumble but put up. Mavis will find a way to make stuff happen.
(Which is the only explanation we're going to get for how Mavis is at large on every quarry and some not-remotely-a-quarry sets on the island, come TVS!)
That was a light rap on the TVS there, but not a very hard knock; at least TVS insisted (in spite of all logic) on using her character for stuff. Christopher lets me down, personally, by finding so little for Mavis to do — and never having her and Daisy interact! I want more of this shit so badly.
However, in the Author's Note of Thomas Comes Home, Daisy apparently has a bee in her bonnet about fans who think the series has no female engines and is like 'me and Mavis tho!!!!!!' Which... I like seeing Daisy mention Mavis. That's all. It assures me that they’re still a duo (although I prefer Wilbert's interpretation that they bond over being The Two Diesels On This Line vs. Christopher's implication that their bond is being The Two Girls On This Line).
#i want them to have more adventures in making things 'better' (worse)#like the lucy and ethel of the ffarquhar maybe?#(i haven't actually seen i love lucy... this is just osmosis)#i would also be all right seeing them kiss#highly acceptable#just give me more daisy & mavis content. please.#d1+fqc#great ask!#thank you#chatter#ttte daisy#ttte mavis#ttte toby#wilbert awdry really said 'someone on the ffarquhar needs to civilize these headstrong young half-feral engines'#' ... and it ain't gonna be thomas lmfao'#i think he's WRONG to discount thomas and percy but i think it's very funny that his attitude is just 'they're toby's problem coz no one#else is qualified'#'thomas and percy are out there causing wrecks and playing dress up and being chaos gremlins themselves'#ttte analysis#ttte headcanon#also 'no one to talk to but the trucks' IS big 'i was desolate. all alone in the empty manor. me and a staff of eighteen servants.' energy#the SOLITUDE mwahaha#... but yeah i get it#get 👏 her 👏 out 👏
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I really like Wilbert’s Gordon.
T’was a heavily modified princess, which @the-secondman and @theflyingkipper pointed out, sounds incredibly trans.
Honestly that sounds cool lol
#ttte#ttte gordon#model trains#model train stuff#00 gauge#Wilbert Awdry#I wonder where it is now#I hope it’s alright#We need trans Gordon#lol
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I'm not too sure how many of you know, but the Talyllyn Railway is hosting a diorama challenge to celebrate Awdry Extravaganza 3. This my entry.
From Wilbert the Forest Engine. It was either this illustration or the cover, as I wanted to include more an emphasis on DFR.
I had been wanting to make a themed backdrop for my forest fleet for ages.
Even long boi 5541 fits (just)
#ttte#thomas and friends#thomas the tank engine#awdry Diorama Challenge#wilbert the forest engine#ttte wilbert#rws wilbert#ttte art#green speaks#my art#OC 5541
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Thomas was a tank engine, who lived at a Big Station. He had six small wheels, a short stumpy funnel, a short stumpy boiler, and a short stumpy dome.
Thomas as originally drawn by Rev. Wilbert Awdry did not resemble closely any real locomotive class (though there are a few engines with similar sloped tanks, most popularly the GNR J50 class). This is probably because of Thomas' origin as a somewhat crude toy made from a broomstick
The original wooden model of Thomas.
when Awdry sent in sketches to the publisher he still thought of the character he was telling stories about as the toy he'd built for his son, rather than as a particular locomotive. Although Awdry still had a certain attention to detail in his sketch--he remembered the axles, brakes, buffers, brake pipe, chain coupler, and connecting rods--all details that the wooden toy lacked. Let it not be said that Awdry didn’t still think of Thomas as a full-size machine.
Two of the sketches Awdry sent in to the publisher.
In this case I imagine Thomas as a freelance design. Maybe he was built in-house by the No Where Railway's motive department, maybe he's a one-off industrial locomotive; either way he's a truly unique engine in this alternate depiction.
Folks--if you look at the wooden Thomas model and the sketches Awdry drew of Thomas, one thing becomes abdundantly clear: When Awdry said "short and stumpy," he MEANT "short and stumpy."
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Y'know, I'm a little surprised Wilbert was never introduced during any of the show's anniversary years. Like of all the ways to celebrate the 75th or 60th or whatever anniversary of the franchise, why not include the engine named after the man responsible for the series?
#ttte#ttte wilbert#thomas and friends#roller's ramblings#oomf haven't used that tag in a while#heck‚ they wouldn't even need to acknowledge that he's named after awdry#just being there would be enough
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So How Many Engines Does the NWR Actually Have?
Eighty, according to the Reverend Wilbert Awdry - but this includes British Rail and Industrial engines. It also seems excessive for an island the size of Sodor which has, according to TheUnluckyTug, an 87.7 odd mile mainline and another 30 odd miles of branchline, especially when compared with several other railways of similar size. I am going to warn everyone here, this post is long.
The neighbouring Furness Railway built roughly 247 engines during its lifetime, of which a good fifty-five were 'Sharpies' - however that railway had 190 miles of railway and served some of the largest steelworks and dockyards in all of England. In contrast, the Northern Counties Committee Railway in Northern Island had a maximum route mileage of around 282 miles and only 73 engines. This same NCC ran nearly half of all trains in Northern Island at the time, sharing a duopoly with the GNRI. After amalgamating together into the Northern Ireland Railways and shrinking the full network of Northern Irish railway down to 225 miles, they today run 47 locomotives.
The railway network that serves the entirety of Northern Island is bigger than Sodor in length and requires less engines. It also calls at 54 stations, in comparison to Sodor's 27 stations that the NWR serves. So, let's do some maths and logic puzzles to try and figure out how many engines the NWR actually needs to serve the Island of Sodor.
Firstly, let's look at how many the books name: eleven NWR steam locomotives, six diesel engines, one track maintenance vehicle, as well as three industrial engines and an unknown number of electric engines. This means that the Peel Godred line could have any number of engines, however we can make a reasonable estimate at two multiple units for the four stops, and two or three goods engines to look after the aluminium traffic and other goods work. That makes five engines needed for the branchline.
The Ffarquhar branchline similarly does not require that many engines. Its primary industry is the Anopha Quarry, with a number of farms making up the rest of the freight traffic the line would have. In the books, the line is run by Thomas, Percy, Toby, Daisy and Mavis - the private industrial engine who manages the quarry. This means that there is one dedicated railcar, one autotank-fitted tank engine, a tram engine, a dedicated quarry diesel and Percy to run the line. The only addition possibly required would be an engine to run dedicated stone trains from Ffarquhar to the junction or the harbour, a task that seems to already be covered by Toby, Percy and Mavis. That adds another five engines to our list of standard-gauge engines on Sodor.
Another branchline that does not need any extra engines would be the Little Western, which was only refurbished by Sir Charles Hatt to access the ballast from the old MSR mines. With Duck and Oliver running passengers, Duck managing most of the limited freight traffic that isn't ballast and Donald and Douglas covering most ballast trains, there is no need for any extra engines, and adds another four engines to our list.
After that, Edward's branchline is where we may see some additions. The branchline may be quite short, having only three stations on its route, but it also has Brendam Harbour, which is a major port for the island, as well as the China Clay Pits, which are served by Bill and Ben - the other two industrial engines mentioned in the books. They are known to shunt Brendam Harbour on occasion, while Edward and BoCo run the branchline itself, with Donald and Douglas helping. This line would need more engines as freight traffic through Brendam Docks increased, as well as a dedicated shunting engine for the harbour. That adds up to seven engines to our list to run this section of the line - being Bill, Ben, Edward, BoCo and three new helpers.
Potential candidates from the TVS for filling these roles could be: Salty, Neville, Molly or perhaps Whiff - all of whom are either shunting engines or medium-sized engines who would be able to compliment Edward and BoCo well.
After Edward's branchline, we have to talk about the Kirk Ronan and Norramby branches. The Kirk Ronan branchline has three stations, and was once part of the Sodor and Mainland Railway. We know passenger traffic is poor, and the freight traffic was solely dedicated to mineral traffic from the Skarloey Railway heading to the port. It's highly likely that this line is either kept operational for a token service, or has one engine running it. Either way, we can add one engine to the list, of whom I would suggest Arthur.
The Norramby branchline is currently served by the Other Railway, according to Awdry - this would mean multiple units running passenger trains from Barrow and potentially a freight service, though that would have likely been discontinued in the 1960's during the Beeching cuts. Currently, 26 trains operate out of Barrow up the Cumbrian Coast Line per day, while the Furness line sees roughly 24 trains per day, according to the Northern Rail Timetable. Most likely, one of these two lines would have their services extend to Norramby, meaning up to 24 trains per day for the line. However, it is highly unlikely that each train to arrive on this service is a new engine, with it being more likely to be four or five engines. This adds five engines to our list, for a current total of twenty-seven.
To this figure, we can add the Works Diesel, Bloomer, and the austerity engine referenced in 'Wilbert the Forest Engine', making thirty.
This leaves the mainline as needing 50 whole engines to reach Awdry's figure of 80 - and of this potential number, we know Henry, Gordon, James, Bear, Pip and Emma. To understand how many engines are needed, we need to understand what jobs these engines would do - of which, there is passenger trains, the express, freight trains and shunting.
If the mainline has eleven stations, 87.7 miles of track and they wanted to have a train arrive every hour to meet their Northern partners... well, they'd need more engines. It takes one hour for a train between Lancaster and Barrow - a distance of 28.6 miles, so we can safely assume that tripling the distance would triple the time - for a trip time of around three hours. Now, this time would most likely be shortened by the chance for the engines to achieve higher speeds between stations, as the number of stations on both lines is roughly equal - 10 on the Furness line to 11 on the NWR mainline - but even still, it would require the railway running six separate stopping trains per day. Considering that only four of the six engines above could even run commuter trains, I would say that there is need for more engines.
There are currently two express trains that run on the Island of Sodor: The Limited and the WildNorWester, however it is not certain that the Limited is still running, as it only appeared for 'Enterprising Engines'. In any case, Pip and Emma are enough to handle fast trains on Sodor.
Freight is an interesting variable - we know that Sodor produces aluminium near Peel Godred, and that the alumina needs to be transported up there, and the finished product moved to the mainland, as well as general goods trains, farm produce trains, and freight trains bound for the harbours or from the quarry or China Clay pits. Based on these key requirements, it is safe to say Sodor needs a few more engines.
So, for the mainline we have Pip, Emma, Gordon, Henry, James, Bear and at least eight other engines of various sizes. Two of these engines would be built to run passenger trains alongside Henry, James, Gordon and Bear, while the other six would handle goods traffic, in particular bulk traffic or local goods. Fourteen engines, with potential help from Donald, Douglas and BoCo seems more reasonable as a number of engines on the mainline of a primarily agricultural island.
Suggestions for these engines include Murdoch, Derek, Emily and Rebecca - which is a shorter list than it should be due to the lack of large, mainline engines in the Thomas series who could feasibly run in the UK.
Finally, two shunting engines - one for Tidmouth and one for Barrow-in-Furness - can be added to the list, as since Duck gained his branchline, we have not been introduced to the new station pilot at Tidmouth and since the rise of the multiple-unit, Barrow station would require an engine to act as station pilot there too. Options for here include Diesel, Charlie, Dennis, Rosie and Paxton.
All of these numbers added together equals: 46. Twenty-three branchline engines, three industrial engines, two maintenance engines, one austerity engine, one preserved engine, fourteen mainline engines and two station pilots. Considering at the beginning I said that Northern Ireland Railways runs 47 engines currently and has a network of over double the size of Sodor but doesn't run freight, I would say that this is a pretty respectable estimate.
In direct contrast to this estimate, my ERS has 34 engines who cover the entire NWR and the neighbouring Furness Line. My reasoning: Donald and Douglas are magic, and scarily efficient. Having the two of them around means Edward and BoCo need no help on their branchline, and also Sodor would not need a commuter train every hour - it's a rural, agricultural island with three major population centres at Peel Godred, Vicarstown and Tidmouth. And also cause I have enough characters to balance already, Awdry had the right idea keeping the cast relatively small.
#ao3 stuff#railway series#thomas the tank engine#railways#weirdowithaquill#island of sodor#sodor#very long post#long post#long reads#thomas and friends#brendam branchline#how did maths get into my Thomas and Friends stuff?#rev w awdry#Awdry headcanons#80 engines my foot come on
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The Devil's Foot
Originally published in 1910 and part of His Last Bow.
Poldhu, which means "black pool" in the Cornish language is located on the Lizard Peninsula, the southernmost tip of Great Britain.
Cornwall has historically been popular for smugglers. Another common pasttime due to the frequency of shipwrecks was "wrecking" i.e. locals taking the cargo from the vessels dashed against the shore, which is legally considered theft. In 2007, a damaged cargo ship was run aground on the Devon coast to avoid an environmental disaster and the locals started looting the cargo, including a bunch of BMW motorbikes. The police eventually closed the beach and told people to contact the Receiver of Wreck - those who did were allowed to keep the bikes or sell them back to BMW for a £3,000 reward.
The Cornish language was pretty much extinct in terms of actual speakers by 1897, but there has been a revival movement since then.
Church of England vicars are generally, but not always, given a stipend instead of a regular wage along with use of the vicarage to live in; they can supplement their income by things like going on satirical news shows (Richard Coles) or writing tales about sentient steam locomotives (Wilbert Awdry).
Helston had a workhouse with an infirmary - it was a hospital until the 1990s. The main Cornwall asylum was in Bodmin and closed in 2002; "going Bodmin" became a local term for going crazy.
Lodgers are not the same as sub-letters, as the latter have exclusive use of part of the property. The former tend to be a lot more acceptable to social housing authorities than the latter.
There was a common belief that traders from Phoenica (mostly modern-day Lebanon) had visited Cornwall, but there is no archaeological evidence to back this up.
Cornwall had a tin-mining industry from c.2000 BC until the last mine closed in 1998; a number of former mines are now museums. The Poldark series of books, along with the TV adaptations, revolve a lot around it. There is now a lithium carbonate mine.
Dr. Sterndale would probably have to wait a couple of weeks for another ship to Africa.
"Cool motive, still murder".
The Ubangi River, a tributary of the Congo, today forms part of border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.
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