RS Book Reviews - Duke the Lost Engine (Sir Handel)

Duke the Lost Engine

Reviewed by Sir Handel

Engines come and engines go,

Granpuff ‘goes on’ for ever!

I suppose I should preface this review with a little bit of context: I was born with profound deafness, something which has majorly affected my life. Deafness is one of the ‘invisible’ disabilities, and I reckon most people don’t fully appreciate the impact it has on a person’s life. When I was growing up, I struggled to fit in at school. I didn’t have many friends, and I found the work to be uninteresting. It didn’t help either that a number of my teachers and support workers didn’t really do an adequate job of meeting my requirements. On the whole, therefore, my childhood could be very lonely at times.

Despite this, however, I don’t see my childhood as having been tragic. Difficult in parts, yes, but tragic – no. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, over the years, I’ve come to accept my disability. It isn’t something to be pitied; it’s simply a part of who I am, and it’s something that won’t change or go away. Secondly, as a child, there was something that made me happy, no matter how hard things might have been. Something that let me escape into another world, a place that was warmer and friendlier than real life, where things always worked out OK. I’m talking about, of course, the world created by the Rev. W. Awdry – and, in my opinion, Duke the Lost Engine is the book that best represents this world.

From the very beginning of this book, we know we are in for something different:

ONCE upon a time three little engines lived in their own little shed on their own little railway. Duke was brown, Falcon blue, and Stuart green.

Those words – “Once upon a time” – speak to the idyllic, enchanting feel that pervades this book. The world of Duke the Lost Engine is a quiet and peaceful one, safely enclosed by its mountainous valleys and coloured by lush foliage. Narrow-gauge railways, to me, have always felt a bit more personable than their standard-gauge equivalents, and the Edwards’ illustrations capture this perfectly; little details like the passengers’ changing fashions make them all the more evocative. It’s genuinely affecting, then, to see this charming little railway crumble into decrepitude and ruin right in the very first story. This might seem like a cosier and gentler book than others, but it doesn’t shy away from dark situations – especially when we learn that His Grace has been ‘killed in the war’. In fact, ‘Granpuff’ has to be one of the saddest stories in the Railway Series. There’s something really poignant about how the engines try to laugh bravely in the face of tragedy, but we’re still told that ‘not one of them’ thinks they’ll ever be reunited. Duke’s driver and fireman, meanwhile, show him one last act of kindness – oiling, greasing and sheeting him snugly – and then they leave him. Poor Duke suffers a pretty heart-rending fate: being left in the darkness, alone and eventually buried. It’s hard not to feel for old ‘Granpuff’, and you’re left wondering what will happen to him.

Duke is ultimately the heart of this book; Awdry not only tells us that Duke is ‘wise and kind’, but also shows it. In ‘Bulldog’, he wisely tells Falcon to keep an eye on the track rather than bothering with the view – and, when Falcon recklessly ignores this advice, it’s Duke who saves him from injury. In ‘Granpuff’ and ‘You Can’t Win’, we see how he hates to disappoint his friends, and will try to stay stoic in the face of tragedy. Yet wisdom and kindness are not the only facets to Duke’s character. He can be impish and rascally, with a keen sense of humour – ‘“It’s no good, Stuart; you can’t win!”’ – and there are flaws to his personality, too. At times, he’s irritable, proud and set in his ways; these flaws make him more real as a character. I think many of us have known somebody like Duke: an old, wise and much-loved figure who seems less like a person and more like an institution; one who, you think, could easily go on forever. It’s for these reasons that Duke is one of my favourite characters from the series.

‘You Can’t Win’ and ‘Bulldog’ are a lovely pair of stories. They show the different sides to Duke’s character, as he rescues Falcon and gets the last laugh over Stuart, and ‘Bulldog’ has one of my favourite lines in the book: ‘You’d just had a new coat of paint. It would have been a pity if you’d rolled down the mountain and spoilt it. That would never have suited His Grace.’ The humour in these stories helps to balance out the tragedy of ‘Granpuff’ – and yet, reading them, it’s still hard to forget what will ultimately happen to Duke and his line. Enter ‘Sleeping Beauty’, which caps off the book perfectly. The people of the Railway Series get their chance to shine; we see how determined the Small Controller and the Clergymen are to ‘find him, and mend him, and make him happy again.’ There’s a fair bit of comedy in this story – from the Fat Clergyman dropping in uninvited on Duke (literally!), to Duke asking him if he’s a vandal – but what really stands out is how heartwarming the story is. Yes, Duke the Lost Engine isn’t afraid to be dark or sad – but ‘Sleeping Beauty’ shows that there’s always hope. No matter how bad things are, there’ll still be a chance that a ray of sunlight will break through the darkness.

The way I see it, memory is an important part of this book. In ‘Granpuff’, we’re told that Sir Handel and Peter Sam ‘never forgot Granpuff, and often talked about him when alone.’ Then there’s the poignant yet subtle line in ‘Sleeping Beauty’: ‘“So they did remember,” said Duke softly’. Duke gets a happy ending because his friends loved him and shared stories about him – and that remains a valuable lesson to me. Growing up doesn’t mean you have to leave behind the things you once loved; they’ll stay with you, for as long as you remember them, and keep them in your heart. The Railway Series, and the world it contained, brought me a lot of happiness as a child, and I’ll never forget that. So then, there’s not much else I can do but quote the beautiful image that concludes Duke the Lost Engine…

“Impudent scallywags,” murmured Duke; but his old eyes twinkled, and for the first time in years he smiled as he dozed in the sun.