The Sad Story of Henry - 1953 Pilot

I don't know. I just don't know. I want to forget about this. Not because it was not a pleasant experience, but because I just want to move on from trying to see if it was actually real. I just want to forget about that memory. 
If you are reading this, you might be surprised to find out that Britt Allcroft's Down the Mine test pilot in 1983 wasn't where the show's run on television officially originated.
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends was the fourth of all of the four attempts to adapt Awdry's books to television. The first was broadcast by the BBC in 1953 as an adaptation of The Sad Story of Henry from the first book, The Three Railway Engines. This is the well-known story where a big green engine named Henry refuses to leave a tunnel in fear of the rain spoiling his green paint with red stripes and ends up being left inside the tunnel behind a brick wall until Gordon the big blue engine bursts his safety valve while pulling the express. The pilot used OO scale Dublo models manufactured by Hornby and was narrated by Julia Lang. Nothing went wrong until Henry's model derailed and a hand had to put it back on the track on live broadcast. The incident, being noticed by everyone watching, including Awdry, made headlines within a week and all this resulted in the next episode's delay and soon cancellation of the show. Attempts to revive the series were unsuccessful. The pilot is now considered lost with only photographs of the models and a news story of the incident left to prove it's existence.
In 1970, A man named Ted Ray would read books of The Railway Series on a TV show called Jackanory, in the episodes of The Railway Series readings from Ted Ray, he would be dressed like an engine driver and would sit inside the signal box and he would tell stories of The Railway Series from 1970 to 1972, the readings are lost now but there is not much information about it existing but only a page from one of the issues from Radio Times and the fact that it was mentioned in The Thomas the Tank Engine Man to prove it's existence.
In 1973, a musical animated adaptation was proposed by English musician and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who read the books when he was a child. The project never went ahead as of 1977, but possibly influenced Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock musical, Starlight Express.
It was in 1983 when the adaptation by Britt Allcroft started production with a successful test pilot, green lighting production of a children's television series beloved by children from all across the world.
Of course, I watched the show myself. I started watching the series when I was much younger during it's run in Australia on ABC Kids. It all started with series 1, which was created in 1984, with that vague memory of Ringo Starr's opening narration of the first episode Thomas and Gordon, the episode where Thomas keeps teasing Gordon, who gets back at him by pulling him down the line behind the express. I gave up on the show when series 12 came out, as I was disappointed with it's new style where lip sync was applied via the usage of CGI.
In recent years, I've been doing a lot of research on the history of both the show and the books. After that, the franchise became more interesting than ever after learning new facts like the real life steam locomotives that the characters are based on and the real life accidents that inspired the episodes and events. It was also interesting learning about the narrators in both the UK and US version, like Ringo Starr in the UK version from series 1 to series 2. Personally, he's my favorite of the narrators. But I don't want to stay off topic. So let's get to why I'm typing this down.
I was scrolling through Facebook, checking updates and notifications and contacting friends. The part where I went into contacts was where this all started. I found that a friend named Jerry Walker has changed his profile picture overnight to what looked like a black and white photograph. Upon closer observation, it looked like a Hornby Dublo model of Henry behind a brick wall inside a tunnel. I greeted him as I usually do and we began chatting about topics like how we were going, any plans we had, social media updates, etc. When he asked if there was anything else I wanted to ask him, I sent a question about his new profile picture. He replied saying it was a still from a 1953 BBC adaptation of The Sad Story of Henry, the same one I mentioned earlier. I asked him about where he found it and he said it came from an old box that was given to him by his grandfather. I asked him if there was anything else that was in there and he said there was lots of other junk like old toys, trading cards, and an old cassette labelled "The Sad Story of Henry". I got curious and asked him what the footage looked like and he replied stating that he never actually watched it. I asked if he could convert it to a Windows Media Player file and he said he'll see what he can do. He does videos of VHS openings on YouTube. I sent a "Thank you" and left to work on my YouTube channel.
Around 3-4 days later, I got a message from Jerry that was a download link of a file labelled "SadStoryOfHenry1953.mp4" and he said that he had no idea what he just watched, suggesting that I should watch if for myself and see if I had a better understanding of it. I thanked him and downloaded the file onto my desktop. I opened it and it started with the 1953 BBC batwings logo before cutting abruptly to the first shot of the episode.
It was low quality and not very well restored. But it was understandable seeing that this came from 1953. The first shot was Henry pulling a passenger train consisting of BR MK1 coaches, accompanied by Julia Lang saying the opening rhyme "Once, an engine attached to a train was afraid of a few drops of rain. It went into a tunnel and squeaked through its funnel and wouldn't come out again.” I was prepared for the moment where the model came off the tracks and a hand putting it back on the rails on camera and it happened just as expected. For four minutes, the story went on unchanged from the original story (with the exception of Henry being in his new shape from The Flying Kipper), Henry refuses to leave the tunnel in fear that the rain would spoil his green paint with red stripes, the passengers try pulling and pushing him out, an engine (which appears to be a Hornby Dublo LMS Coronation class) fails to move him out of the tunnel and Sir Topham Hatt/The Fat Controller leaves him in the tunnel behind a brick wall.
It was after Julia Lang said "He was very sad because he thought no one would ever see his lovely green paint with red stripes again" when things began to seem off. The video stayed on a shot of Henry in the tunnel without anything happening. No trains went through the new tunnel, no sound effects were heard, not even Julia Lang's narration. When it was starting to make me uncomfortable, I checked the running time of the video and, to my surprise, it was 8:43.
Curious to see if there was an adaptation of the Edward, Gordon and Henry story that followed, I kept watching, feeling a bit uneasy as no sources implied that there were scenes based on the last chapter of the book. At the 5:51 mark, it cuts to another angle showing a close up of Henry's cab, which seemed to have cracked windows. The next shot showed Henry's boiler, which looked like it was covered in dust and soot that was obscuring his green paint with red stripes. The shot that followed was one of Henry's wheels, which lacked the coupling rods and pistons. The remainder of the video was a compilation of multiple shots of Henry, looking more and more dilapidated and derelict. I began to feel creeped out when it showed a closeup of the front of Henry, who had a face that displayed a look of pain and suffering. Though they were painted on a plastic face, I could see it in his eyes that he was begging for his suffering to end, though it was very clear that his prayers would never be returned. The shot stayed on Henry's face for about 30 seconds before transitioning to the next shot. The next shot was the same, but this time, he didn't have a face. Just a normal smokebox door, which looked so real it looked like an actual photograph of an LMS Black 5. In fact, I think it was. It looked like a Stanier class 5 on a siding in an industrial yard, rusted and filthy. Not as if it was on the deadline ready to be broken up, but it looked as if it was not well serviced or maintained for months.
That last shot in the entire video was a shot of the tunnel, showing Henry resembling a steam locomotive being broken up for scrap metal, his smokebox door was gone, while an express train, presumably pulled by a Hornby Dublo model of Gordon, rushes through the new tunnel as the shot zooms out and fades to black. Just before the screen turns completely pitch black, Julia Lang's narration returns, saying "But I think he deserved it. Don't you?". The video ends with the 1950s BBC logo.
Struggling to comprehend what I just watched, I tried doing some research. All that showed up in my search was information about the 1953 pilot I already know about. I then tried researching about the story from the original Railway Series book and found that the book was intended to be a three chapter story, ending with The Sad Story of Henry. Publishers weren't pleased that it ended on The Sad Story of Henry and Awdry wrote a fourth story to bring the three engines together for a happy ending.
Using some of my search results, I told Jerry Walker about what I thought happened before he told me what he believed was the reasoning for that additional four minutes of footage; his grandfather, who worked on film and television programs from the late 1940s to the mid 1950s, working on the storyboards of Animal Farm and was on set for the filming of The Sad Story of Henry. Jerry believes that his grandfather, named Barry Walker, thought that the ending of the book was too kid-friendly, believing that it was highly unlikely that the NWR had no other big engines besides Gordon and Henry and wanted to show a more realistic version based on the unpublished three chapter version of the book. Apparently, he filmed the last four minutes of the video after the broadcast ceased for a private video after he was allowed to keep the footage. He placed the footage in a cassette to keep it as a memory of his work on the set before retiring. Around the time of his death, he passed the tape and some other old junk to his son, Samuel Walker, who eventually gave it to Jerry on his 15th birthday. While the theory was very likely, neither of us seem to believe whether it was true.
I intended to keep it and upload it to YouTube, placing it into a folder labeled videos and stuff. However, while clearing the desktop to save disc space, I got carried away and deleted the entire folder, forgetting that I placed the 1953 video into it. I tend to get carried away doing a lot of things, like I unintentionally invite uninterested users to some of my Discord servers while inviting friends. By unfortunate coincidence, Jerry Walker couldn't upload it on YouTube either as his account was terminated for copyright violation in his VHS openings. However, Jerry kindly gave me this still for this article to prove my point.
Ever since then, I never looked at The Sad Story of Henry the same way again. I still rewatch the episode from time to time and look at some readings of the Railway Series book and some remakes done by other people and some Trainz made remakes on YouTube. But every time, I get that memory that this exact story happened very differently in a lost 1953 production.
I know that your point of view may be that this whole story is false and highly unlikely to have happened. I won’t force you to believe me. But I know what happened, I know what I downloaded, and I know what I saw!
Category:Thomas & Friends
Category:Lost Videos
Category:Lost Pilots
Category:Lost Episodes