
At Margaret's insistence, Wilbert did so. Awdry was reluctant, but Margaret persisted and mentioned the stories in a letter to Wilbert's mother, Lucy, who replied that she knew the author Michael Barsley and asked that the stories be sent to her so she could forward them to him. Margaret Awdry also liked the stories and told her husband to get them published, as she felt they were better than most children's books in circulation. Christopher would constantly ask for the stories to be retold, even after he recovered and to ensure consistency between tellings, Wilbert wrote them down on the back of old church circulars.

Eventually, Christopher began asking for more stories and Awdry obliged him with "Edward and Gordon" and "The Sad Story of Henry", the latter being inspired by another rhyme he was fond of. Through a series of questions and answers, the story of Edward's Day Out was created. Wilbert replied with the first to come to his head: Edward. One sad-looking engine appealed to Christopher, as it shared his mood and he asked what his name was. Wilbert subsequently drew a picture of several engines standing in a row based on the rhyme and for fun gave them faces with various expressions. Most of them eventually lost their entertainment value, but one that continually appealed to Christopher was the rhyme " Down by the Station". To prevent their son getting bored, Wilbert and his wife Margaret Awdry told him stories and nursery rhymes.

In 1942, Wilbert's son Christopher had measles and was confined to bed.

To him, the noise of the locomotives' exhaust almost sounded like dialogue - for example, the larger engine having trouble climbing the hills would appear to be saying, "I can't do it, I can't do it" and the smaller engine helping them would sound like it was saying, "I will do it! I will do it! I will do it!" He liked to watch trains on the Great Western Railway. When Wilbert Awdry was a child, he was always interested in railways, much like his father.
