Great Western Coffee Shop

No prizes, just for fun. Some of the questions are a little convoluted, some just plain barmy. Let's see who else has the head full of useless knowledge that helps solve this kind of puzzle!

1)   Which British born actor, who went to a school close to the Severn Beach Line, appeared in one film only as Archie Leach?

Answer - John Cleese

2)   Which former Beatle, and occasional rail passenger (tenuous, I know) has the same first name as three post-World War 1 century British Prime Ministers?

Answer - Paul McCartney

3)   Which star of “The Railway Children” worked briefly with my late father for a taxi firm, to supplement his earnings as an apprentice at Oldham Repertory Theatre?

Answer - Bernard Cribbens

4)   Who in the 1970s played cricket for England and football for Scotland, but not in the same year?


5)   Which former chairman of British Rail apparently had a secret life as a web-slinging super-hero?

Answer - Sir Peter Parker

6)   Which London Underground station is principally known for being the only one whose name contains none of the letters of the word “Mackerel”?

St Johns Wood


7)   Who produced a fantastic performance at the 2012 Olympic Games despite mainly being known prior to the games not so much for sporting prowess as for trainspotting?


8 )   Which GWR-managed station has a name which it shares (in the literal translation) with the nearby Indian restaurant Lal Jomi? (Clue: It isn’t Parson Street.)


9)   Which GWR-managed station is at a village whose original name according to the Domesday Book of 1086 translated as “Homestead by the brow of a hill”?

Iver


10)   Which former (and hopefully future) station on the GWR within the Greater Bristol area is adjacent to a holy well visited by King Henry VII – although he didn’t arrive by train (over-running engineering works)

Answer - St Annes Park

That's the station that was going to be called "Acacia Road" before it was opened ...

P.S. Not noticing a one answer per person limit?   I'm a bit sad an know a couple more!

10) St Annes Park?

5. Peter Parker

I spotted an error in question 2, now corrected!

10) St Annes Park is correct - a well is still there, although not the shrine it used to be. Pilgrims seem few in number, no doubt as a result of the closure of the station.

5) Peter Parker is also correct

2. Paul McCartney. I spotted the error too, but got the answer.

Correct - James Paul McCartney shares his first given name with James Ramsay MacDonald, James Harold Wilson, and James Gordon Brown - but not Leonard James Callaghan.

I intended a bit of a trick question, but my original form of the question did not limit the time period, and grahame correctly dug up three Georges, being Grenville, Canning, and Hamilton-Gordon from the 18th and 19th centuries. I had not done my homework properly! A point to grahame also!

1) John Cleese ( A fish called wanda)

Absolutely correct - Mr Cleese went to Clifton College, close to Clifton Down station. He starred in A Fish Called Wanda as the lawyer Archie Leach. This was a deliberate act of homage to Cary Grant, born Archibald Leach, who went to Fairfield School, close to Montpelier Station. The latter changed his name to Cary Grant in 1931, but did not get his first film role until the following year.

He was still called 'Montpelier' last time I was there...

Would 3 be Bernard Cribbins?

It would indeed! For reasons I never fathomed, my grandmother got a Christmas card from his mother until Mrs C's death.

I have updated the post to include answers where they have been given, and re-worded number 8 to add a further clue.

Is 6 St John's Wood?

Would 9 be Iver?  Evreham in the Domesday Book.

It is indeed - it still astonishes me that someone should spot that or make it up.

3 more to get! At least one is just plain unfair.

Spot on! I'm glad you got it, because I didn't write the answer down, and had forgotten it.

So which is the underground station with none of the letters of "Great Western" in it then  ;D

Pimlico?

Indeed - and which two stations aren't in England (and I'll stop at that point and leave your quiz alone!)

Possibly West India Quay and Holland Park? If you include the DLR there is also Cyprus.

I was including the DLR and Cyprus was one of them .. which struck me as really ironic as not in England!

So which two tube stations use all of the vowels in their names?

Without that you have to go for Hainault, and ignore the archaic spelling.
Not far from Waterloo, which is the other obvious one.

Visiting Copenhagen, I was surprised to find something similar to Elephant and Castle as the emblem of the highest order of Denmark. See here. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Elephant)

Mansion House and South Ealing.

South Ealing being unique in using each vowel only once.

And, unusually for me, I got them the old fashioned way. Looking at a paper tube map, rather than Google.

Returning to the original quiz........... as more than 24 hours have elapsed since the original post and with the permission of FT,N, a couple of further suggestions......

Q7 Danny Boyle - producer of both the London 2012 opening ceremony and Trainspotting the movie;
Q8 Redland.

I have a feeling that the 70's international cricketer/footballer is not exactly straightforward.

Very retro, BNM - well done!


Danny Boyle is the very Lancashire born film director I had in mind! And Lal Jomi is a literal translation of Red land into Hindi - well done Phil!

And you are right about the answer to who played football for Scotland and cricket for England in the 1970s, but not in the same year. The correct answer is (drum roll): Denis Law and Ian Botham.

Nice one!  And in a similar vein, which Pakistani father/son combination played international cricket in the 80s (ish) ?

Tsk, beat me to it.

Redland (the Bristol one) is, I believe, unique in that whereas other places called Redland are 'ridded land' (i.e. land which has had all those pesky trees removed), the Bristol one's name derives from the fact that the land there is, er, red. Iron deposits or something.

Simple folk, us Bristolians.

Actually no, I don't think that is correct. There are various theories as to why Redland is so called, but AFAIK a derivation from 'red land' isn't one of them.

The two main possibilities are 'cleared land' (as in 'ridded land') or land that has been divided into three, based on some of its earlier spellings, which suggest the Roman practice of dividing up a man's land into three on their death.

As an aside, there is much potential confusion between derivations from 'red' and 'reed'. Most derivations from 'red' would now be found in names with Reed (or similar) as the Old English form of red was 'read'. Meanwhile, most names deriving from 'reed' are now found in names with Red, as the Old English form of reed was 'hreod', which would have been pronounced more like red. However, one of the only Reds that does certainly derive from red is Redcliffe in Bristol, which does indeed derive from the red-coloured stone.

To quote Bristol City Council's Cotham & Redland Character Appraisal & Management Proposals (https://www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/33832/cotham-redland-character-appaisal.pdf/5f7556f6-1da3-4743-8d2c-10ca1597b323), para 5.6:

Hence Catbrain Hill.