Toller Toller!

In the German language, the word toll is a colloquial expression for great, super, fantastic,
stunning, amazing, awesome. Toller means even more so—toll, toller is like fast, faster or high, higher. When Toller first started skating in Europe,he was understandably delighted to discoverthat headlines screaming Toller Toller! Meant Fantastic Toller! Greatest Toller! Super Toller! Stunning Toller! Of course, he embraced thisadulation. He always liked that his name was Toller although for a short while around the age of 10 he insisted that we call him Anthony.
 
I don’t know when he started referring to himself as Shalitoe, maybe sometime in his twenties— but Shalitoe was not his name. Our father was Montague Shillito. Toller was christened Montague Toller James.
 
At some point in the process of creating an ever more colourful and exotic public persona, he simply ditched the James in favour of Shillito which has for years been mis-reported by pundits and scribes as Shalitoe. Shalitoe…what an interesting name. Where did that come from? I don’t think Toller could have explained and besides, such details were unimportant to him. Itwas colourful, flamboyant and truthy-ish and that was enough.
 
It should be noted that Toller’s rather loose approach to his name caused some real problems when I was trying to get his affairs sorted out in Mexico after he died. His name was different on every important document—passports, credit cards, electrical bills, birth certificate, deeds to the property, residency cards…everything. The lawyers resorted to including everything: Toller Montague James also known as Montague James Toller also known as James Toller Montague also known as Toller. In the end, none of this matters. For most of the world, he was simply Toller.