Wheels within wheels

Perhaps in the past, if someone had told me that living in the countryside would be a dull affair, I would have agreed. After all, what is one supposed to do there?

There are no amusement parks or well-stocked libraries that you can head over to when you’re bored.

There are no theatres that you can visit each weekend. One would expect the most exciting event there to be the monthly cattle fair! But after I read ‘The Railway Children’ by E Nesbit, I changed my mind.

‘The Railway Children’ tells us the story of Roberta, Phyllis and Peter — three siblings who lived a comfortable life in a beautiful villa in the city. They had a multitude of lovely toys, scrumptious food and everything children could possibly want. But one night, two strange men came to visit them and a number of startling things happened.

Their father was whisked away on an important business trip from which he never seemed to return, their housemaids were mysteriously dismissed and they had to leave Edgecombe Villa for ‘Three Chimneys’, a small cottage in the country. And nobody would tell them why!

Everything was different in the country. There was the Railway, for starters. It had the most splendid trains rumbling through (though Peter did insist they were dragons). There was the ‘Worm of Wantely’, the ‘Fearsome Fly By Night’ and the ‘Green Dragon’, the most important train of them all. For it was by the ‘Green Dragon’ that their secret friend travelled.

Though the three children occasionally squabbled, as most brothers and sisters do, they were kind, helpful and brave. Life certainly wasn’t dull for them because there was always so much to be done. When an unexpected landslide covered the railway tracks, it was up to them to stop the oncoming train from hurtling towards certain doom. Could they do it? After all, they were just three children. How would you prevent a catastrophe of that sort?

With a Russian exile persecuted by the Tsar, traitors who sell state secrets to enemy countries, misadventures upon river barges and red flannel petticoats that come in useful more than once, the children find that life in the country can be a lot more exciting than life in the city. But what was the humungous secret that was being kept from them? Read the book to find out!

Edith Nesbit has authored a number of other fascinating books: ‘The Phoenix and the Carpet’, ‘The Stolen Amulet’, and ‘The Enchanted Castle’ to name a few. Although written over a hundred years ago, ‘The Railway Children’ remains one of the most popular classics in print, having been adapted for the screen six times to date!