Thomas Bowater Vernon (23 April 1939 – 11 September 2013)[1][2][3][4] was a British broadcaster and writer, best known as the titular "Fat Man" of a number of popular travelogues.
[5] After graduating Vernon worked briefly as a teacher and then a Public Relations Officer for the Royal Shakespeare Company before joining the British Humanist Association.
[7] While working for the British Humanist Association, Vernon started writing topical current affairs songs for the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
[5] Vernon returned to Radio 4, and wrote and produced The Boy from the Blacking Factory, a play about Charles Dickens' early life, starring Alan Badel.
[5] As the title implied, Vernon was obese, and the first episode followed the health tests he had to undergo before setting off on his journey, which took him from Muswell Hill, north London, to the Mediterranean coast of southern France.
The former featured Vernon talking to people working in factories, while the latter was a cookery programme filmed in his own kitchen in Muswell Hill, in which each edition was devoted to the cuisine of a different country.
[2] Vernon's second marriage was to Sally Langley (née Pearce) in 1967 in Hampstead, north west London, after meeting her while working at the Elizabethan Rooms, Kensington Gore.