Your Queries
This may sound a bit silly, but my wife tells me The Fat Controller, he of Thomas The Tank Engine fame, has a real name. What is it? – T.
The Fat Controller is a character in The Railway Series of books written by the Rev W Awdry and his son, Christopher.
In the first two, The Three Railway Engines and Thomas The Tank Engine, he is known as the Fat Controller. In the sixth, Henry The Green Engine, his name is revealed to be Sir Topham Hatt.
When I was a kid, my grandad had a great car, a Vanden Plas Princess. I’ve always wondered where the name came from. – B.
The Princess was a version of the Austin A99 Westminster, made from 1959-68.
Latterly, it was produced under the Vanden Plas marque.
Vanden Plas was a company of coachbuilders, founded in Belgium in 1870 by Guillaume van den Plas.
You have to tell me about a golfer a mate has just told me about – Boo Weekley. How on earth did he get that name? – K.
According to Boo – real name Thomas – his favourite TV show when he was a child was Yogi Bear.
“My dad would imitate Yogi Bear,” he said.
“He’d come in while I was watching and say, ‘Hey, Boo Boo.’ and I’d giggle.
“He thought that was cute, I guess, so he just started calling me Boo.”
My daughter has kind of befuddled me by announcing that her favourite singer, Beyoncé, is related to the Queen. Sounds unlikely. – J.
But true! Beyoncé is the Queen’s 25th cousin, once removed, and they share an ancestor in Henry II.
Other celebs with royal connections include Celine Dion, a distant cousin of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.