What started with a handmade wooden toy train during World War II has ended in a landmark tax victory for the family behind one of Britain's most beloved children's characters.
In 1942, Reverend Wilbert Awdry crafted a small wooden train from a broomstick for his ailing son, Christopher. Painted blue and bearing the number 1, the toy inspired the stories that would become Thomas the Tank Engine. Those tales were first published in The Three Railway Engines in 1945 before reaching an even wider audience through the television series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, which debuted in the UK in 1984.
