Media This article is more than 10 years oldObituaryTom Vernon obituary
This article is more than 10 years oldWriter and broadcaster who created the Fat Man on a Bicycle seriesTom Vernon, who has died aged 74, was a versatile and engaging writer, producer and presenter, known best for being the Fat Man on a Bicycle. In this role, he journeyed charmingly around the world for radio and television across three decades, from Scandinavia to Argentina – a sort of Bill Bryson on a bike.
The first of his well-known series (1979) was for Radio 4, in which he pedalled from his home in north London through France. He soon moved to television and made Fat Man Goes Norse in 1987. For Fat Man in Argentina (1990) he was presented with a medal by the Argentinian government for improving relations between the two countries.
He also made Fat Man in the Kitchen (1985-86), one episode of which prompted outrage when the family cat jumped on to his chopping board. The last in the series, Fat Man in Kent, made for Meridian, went out in 1996. He also published five Fat Man books.
Although now best remembered for those books and programmes, his earlier career also displayed his range and versatility.
Born in London, Tom was the son of a Bengal Lancer turned administrator and a hospital matron. He attended many schools and then went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to study English. There he joined the Pembroke Players and worked with the Cambridge Footlights.
After graduating, he became principal officer and PR for the British Humanist Society, while at the same time working as a minstrel in period costume at the Elizabethan Rooms in Kensington Gore – where he met his wife, Sally, who was working as a wench. He wrote music and got himself a regular slot on Radio 4's Today programme, creating songs during the night around a news story of the day. He joined Radio London at the birth of BBC local radio and was its first presenter. He presented many different kinds of programme, including a ground-breaking classical music show with Michael Oliver, and whole readings of novels in which he played all the characters himself. Most notably, he had a vasectomy live on air.
He returned to Radio 4 and started writing, producing and presenting his own programmes, some of them using high-quality sound equipment in the earliest days of stereo. He wrote and produced a play – The Boy from the Blacking Factory, starring Alan Badel – about Dickens's early life, using only words from the author's books. Among many others, he presented the weekly arts programme Kaleidoscope and Feedback, the listener complaints show. He won many prizes including radio personality of the year, radio presenter of the year, and best radio documentary.
By the late 1990s, British television was changing. Productions were squeezed financially, and those commissioning programmes began to question whether modern audiences had the attention span to cope with Tom's gentle pace.
The last part of his life was passed contentedly in rural France, where he and his wife Sally bought a house in 1990. Having divorced in 1986, they married a second time in 1992 – a wonderful event celebrated in their orchard on the banks of the river Hérault.
During a visit to Tom and Sally at their home in the Cévennes, I had a close-up view of Tom's magic. In the local market in Le Vigan, Tom was chatting with a stallholder selling cheeses when the discussion was interrupted by a loud shout: "Tom Vernon!" Running toward us across the square was a figure clad in Lycra. He was a cyclist from Newcastle: he and a group of friends had hired a coach, towing a trailer to carry their bicycles, and driven to France. On the coach they had a video playing Tom's BBC programme Cycling Through the Cévennes (1995) and they were following in his tracks. Tom introduced him to the stallholder, translated in both directions, and presided over a lively discussion about cheese and cycling. As Tom was taking his leave, the cyclist turned to me and said: "He's just like on TV." The encounter would have been right at home in one of his programmes.
He is survived by Sally, their two sons, Jos and Hal, and three grandchildren.
Thomas Bowater Vernon, writer and broadcaster, born 23 April 1939; died 11 September 2013
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