After their father is mysteriously abducted by strangers, Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis move with their mother from their comfortable city home to ‘Three Chimney’s, a tiny cottage in the countryside, next to a railway station. Soon the children find enough to amuse themselves with at the station, befriending everybody from the porter and the stationmaster to an old gentleman who waves at them from the 9.15 each day. But the mystery of their father’s disappearance looms large over them. Where is Father? And how does the old gentleman hold the key to the mystery?

Told in simple, lucid prose, Nesbit’s classic is one of the most endearing coming-of-age stories ever written.