Well, here we are in the snug at the virtual Topographer's Arms. It's where members of Radical Stroud meet and chat and keep good cheer...

Rev W. Awdry 1911-97 (Jottings made from a reading of The Thomas the Tank Engine Man Brian Sibley The Story of the Reverend W. Awdry and...

Ringo and the Rev   Song to be sung roughly to the tune of Octopus’ Garden   It's strange but true In Rodborough Avenue A big car arrived...

What is about the Style of the Awdry Books?   Here is Brian Sibley in his biography The Thomas the Tank Engine Man : ‘So what is the...

Sir Topham Hatt (aka The Fat Controller) Apparently, Master T. Hatt started his railway career in 1894 at the GWR Works in Swindon as an...

The Reverend Awdry and Desert Island Discs  and the Johnny Morris Recording   The Rev appeared on Desert Island Discs  in 1964 in ‘The...

The Books As I said before, I didn’t come across any of the series until I read the Ladybird books to my children at bedtime. I have,...

Memories of the Reverend Awdry   A Lifetime in Rodborough Avenue Oliver Wicks 1999 LOVELL (earlier Devonia – later Sodor) The author (who...

Thomas the Tank Engine Social Context Ye Prologue My childhood - and that of my older sister and brother - roughly straddles that of the...

A MISCELLANY OF HISTORY A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES A TEXTUAL SAMPLER Chapter Five         Now to the subject of...

DIY Christmas Truce   Christmas tree(s) or something similar go up on the German line. “Do you like our tree(s), Tommy?” “Merry...

It came upon a midnight clear     That glorious song of old,  When angels bent down to the earth,  And changed machine guns into harps,  ...

A MISCELLLANY OF HISTORY A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES A TEXTUAL SAMPLER Chapter Four     A few short years after our...

Take a Walk in my Boots Stroud Walking Football Club (SWFC)   History doesn’t have to be about the great and the famous and the...

Football Specials There was, of course, a close association Between late Victorian railways And the formation of football clubs:...

Heritage ADVERTISEMENTHeritageWhat is ‘Heritage’? We all sort of know what heritage means, Don’t we, in a way … Something handed down...

An A to Z of Women’s Work in the Past in the GWR in Peace and War A is for acetylene cutter and assembler and dismantler of automatic...

Titus Okere 1929-2023 Titus Okere, Once captain of Lagos Railways FC, Made history in 1953, When he signed for the Railwaymen Of Swindon...

We thank the Stroud District (Cowle) Museum Service for giving us permission to make transcripts of the two documents that follow....

34 Faringdon Road Stand in the kitchen and imagine this isn’t a kitchen but an open back yard. That’s how it was when this cottage was...