12:15 p.m., Sunday, July 27th, 1952

Trevor the traction engine enjoyed working in the vicarage orchard. It was quiet, peaceful, full of beautiful apple trees and the very people he liked most of all, children, who would sometimes visit him at the church fête where he gives them rides on his wooden seat. His black paint shined in the sun along with his golden brass and his face was very friendly to those who met him.

A whole month had passed since Edward the blue engine had saved him from terrible fate at Crocks Scrap Yard, with the additional help of the Vicar of Wellsworth, his two boys and Jem Cole the farmer. Last week, he got to meet Edward's friend Thomas, who he helped in the redevelopment of Knapford Harbour. Now, he was sitting in his shed, dozing happily in the sun when Edward came up alongside him.

"How do you do, Trevor?" the ex-Furness engine asked.

"It's a beautiful day and it's Sunday," Trevor said, not trying to sound too depressed. "All the children are at church with their families and the service seems to be taking a lot longer than usual. I'm the type of traction engine who has provided many gardens and rides with my kind of machinery and as I've told you before when we first met, I have never broken down in my entire life."

He looked out to the church in the distance.

"I wish I could discuss this with the Vicar's sons," he said solemnly. "They would understand me better."

The thought of male children brought a certain someone into Edward's smokebox.

"Christopher would have loved you."

Trevor's eyes widened, looking interested as he asked.

"Who is Christopher?"

"Christopher," explained Edward, "was a very special child who came to us about ten years ago. It was during the war and I was doing my part to help the war effort by delivering ammunition, laundry and medical supplies from Brendam to our soldiers over at the regiment base in Peel Godred. But more of that later. When I first met Christopher, I was asleep. I woke up to see him standing right in front of me, he gave me his full name as Christopher Awdry and it was not until later that I found out that he was the son of Wilbert Awdry, who came with me and Thomas when we relocated to Sodor during the first war."

"Like father, like son," remarked Trevor. "To have two descending members of a family coming to this island during two large scale wars is almost hereditary."

"I'll say it is," said Edward. "And due to his busy schedule, Christopher didn't bother asking me about what his father was like until about two years after his arrival. It was on a nice summer day like this, and the Vicar was offering to give me and some of the newer evacuees a tour of my branch line. Christopher decided to come with us as he had hardly ever visited or even worked at my branch line before. He thought he could use this as an opportunity to ask me more about Wilbert and he did so when we reached the harbour at Brendam."

"'I've been meaning to ask you, Edward,' he said to me. 'What was my father like when he came here?'"

"'He was a very kind soul,' I told him. 'And he too missed his father, your grandfather. Do you remember his name?'"

"'It was Vere. He's dead now.'"

"Christopher managed to push away his thought when we were told that a troupe of RAF pilots from Sheffield were coming over to entertain us with an air show."

"Did Christopher and the children like them?" Trevor asked out of the blue.

"Somewhat," Edward resumed. "They did twirls, loop-de-loops and roundabouts and all kinds of other things they did in their Spitfires and Hurricanes. After that was done, we got to meet the pilots, Christopher shook hands with them and they told him about what they did during the Battle of Britain."

"What did they do?"

"They took down of a couple of German bombers as well as a Stuka as it attempted to dive bomb some ground troops standing at the cliffs of Dover. Last I heard, the remains of that plane were still there on the rocks with its tail facing up. Afterwards, I took some of the children to Suddery where they toured the town and then all the way back to Wellsworth where I suddenly realized from that moment that I was getting old."

Edward paused, making that his memory was still as factual as it was supposed to be.

"Then again, it could have happened either earlier or later."

"What did you do?" asked Trevor.

"I told Christopher about it in private. Ever since that German zeppelin Hugo came to the railway for the beginning of the war, I began to have my moments of self-doubt, but in the end, it was Christopher who pulled me out of that jam. 'Edward,' he said. 'Don't feel too sad if you're getting old and weary, just think of the positive things. Even if bad things do happen you can still live and if you worked harder, you can prove to me, yourself and the Fat Director that you will never be useless in our eyes or anyone else's.'"

Edward paused again, letting in a breath of air relax his past woes as he remembered Christopher's kind words.

"I felt better after that until Gordon told me more about what his driver's ham radio friends had learned from enemy activity up in the war office. Earlier that morning, he told me about a retirement resort in Oranienburg called Sachsenhausen, which we later found out was a concentration camp. When I got back he was telling me and Christopher about other things the Nazis did for a living…like bullying people because they were different…But it was far worse than that."

"I remember my master keeping me up to date with wartime activity back on the mainland. I was in the countryside and I thought it best to push it aside when I gave rides to the city children who were being evacuated from Birmingham and Cambridge."

"But," Edward resumed. "Christopher seemed to like my branch line and offered to spend the next few days there, helping me and the other workers at Brendam."

The voice of Jem Cole prevented Edward from continuing.

"Come on, Trevor!" he said. "The kids are waiting for you."

"I had better get going," Trevor said. "Maybe you can tell me more about Christopher another time."

And off Edward puffed and once he was completely gone from sight, Trevor was making his way to the church. He told the children all about Christopher and while they found it interesting, Edward was spending the rest of his day wondering if he would ever see Christopher again.

But that's another story.