Just call me The Fat Controller
IT HAs been reported that visitors to the Thomas The Tank engine attraction at the Watercress Line heritage steam railway have been told to refer to sir Topham Hatt, not The Fat Controller, because the word ‘fat’ is a slur.
I played The Fat Controller on the Watercress Line for five years at easter and August and that’s what I insisted I was called. Children loved having their photograph taken with me. The only people who didn’t like to call me The Fat Controller were American visitors, but after I explained I was playing the part as written in the Thomas The Tank engine books, they were happy to use this name.
PATRICK TARRANT, Lyndhurst, Hants.