Hello everyone! 🙂

It’s Day 1 of ‘Bradley’s Basement‘s Advent Calendar 2015.

The first thing I’d like to share with you about life in general is something from my childhood when I was a toddler.

Before my love of ‘Doctor Who’ in 2005, I was into ‘Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends’ in the early 1990s. This was a TV show about steam trains that can talk, based on the children’s stories by Rev. W. Awdry. I loved watching the original TV episodes from the late 80s and early 90s when I was a kid.

The original TV episodes were read by Ringo Starr, who I later discovered was one of the Beatles from the 1960s. I’ve been revisited Seasons 1 and 2 with Ringo Starr narrating ‘Thomas & Friends’ recently and remember having such fond memories when I watched these episodes back in the day.

I remembered playing with the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ toys when I was a kid. I enjoyed re-enacting and making up my own ‘Thomas’ stories when playing these toys whilst watching the TV episodes on VHS. I’ve now grown out of watching ‘Thomas’ and given away my toys which is sad.

Today ‘Thomas’ is still going strong for kids to enjoy, although the TV episodes aren’t what they used to be. It’s all now CGI and talking faces, which was different back when I was a kid since it all stop-motion and the expressions on the faces of trains like Thomas, Percy and James were very limited.

I look back fondly on my love for ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ when I was a kid and reflect on how things have changed since I stopped watching the TV episodes and playing with the toys. The stories kept me happy and I hope one day I’ll revisit this era someday when I have a family of my own.

Thanks for reading.

Bye for now.

Tim. 🙂