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Golden Voices - 1 August 2008

Josie Loftus
1/ 8/2008

I'VE JUST finished reading about the unusual and sometimes bizarre names some parent’s call their children especially twins.

In New Zealand there are sets of twins named Fish and Chips, Plum and Duff, Tooth and Ache, Brush and Shovel. You wonder what posses those parents who don’t care a hoot about how their children will be affected throughout their school life and in later life by bearing names out of a commercial directory, recipe cook book and household hints and tips.

Anyway, reading the story immediately triggered my memory about an incident that happened over 30 years ago when I was a lowly civil servant. This happened when there were restrictions on the kind of names parents could choose from. Believe it or not but in those days babies had to have saints' names which were regarded as ‘proper names’.

A man came into the office and queued up at the enquiry desk, smiling like he’d swallowed the sun. When it was his turn, he informed me he had come to register the birth of his twin daughters and he told me how much each baby girl weighed, what time they were born and how delighted both sides of the family were to be blessed with twin girls. As I was helping him with the appropriate form, we had arrived at the part where he had to register each child’s name; he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and carefully copied the writing onto the appropriate form.

As he wrote out each name, I could feel myself getting a bit too hot and I could hear a whooshing sound in my ears as my stress level was beginning to go off the Richter scale. As he painstakingly completed the form and proudly handed it to me, I looked down at the names and wanted for all the world for the words to not be there.

I asked him how had he come to use these particular words to name his children and he said it was his workmates who said it would be a mark of respect for the company that employed him. I remember thinking what rotten rats as workmates this lovely man had but there was no way he could call his daughter’s Crimplene and Terylene.

After I’d asked him to take a seat and wait, I went to my manager who said it would have to be a test case which would take about four weeks. By then I didn’t have the heart to go and destroy this man’s pride so my supervisor (a man) went and explained to him why he couldn’t use those words to name his children. Off the record, we got in touch with the personnel officer at the mill where the man was employed who then reprimanded the man’s ‘workmates’.

A few days later the man came into the office with amended names which apparently had been discussed by the whole of the workforce because the man would not accept any other names that his workmates had originally chosen for him. Thankfully, they convinced him to re-name his lovely daughters and they all put to a collection and funded the twins coming home outfits, new bedroom furniture, a twin pram a bouquet for Mum and a fabulous christening ceremony with a smashing ‘do’ afterwards.

I know it’s a very poignant story and we all know that the workplace like everywhere else can be very cruel but at least for this very proud, honourable and blessed man things did get much better for himself and his lovely family.

Just so as you don’t all go searching around through the windmills of your minds and for the dignity of the now very grown up twins, I have changed the names to protect the innocent and the guilty.

I received a telephone call from a lady, Anne Wright nee Taylor who after reading that I’d lived in Shelmerdine Street, Collyhurst, asked me if I knew a family called ‘Brown or Chapman’.

I told her that I can’t recall anyone of that name and that unless there was a child of my own age living in the street, I wasn’t aware of anyone else around. However, Anne distinctly remembers visiting the house where her half brother Kevin lived and is trying to link up with him before any more time lapses and it then becomes too late.

So if your name is Kevin and you’re 69 years old and you lived with your father John in Shelmerdine Street, please ring Anne on 0161 795 6591.

Barbara from Newton Heath wants to know how is my Cuckoo Clock and everything else that regularly goes wrong in my house. Well Barbara, if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears I’d never believe it happened. One morning last week just as me and Tresley were settling down to our usual first natter of the day; the Cuckoo leaped out of its house and started to … sing its little head off.

Tresley could hear it too and said she’s sick of its antics and if she had a gun she’d blow its head off. It must have heard her because it didn’t come out for days and now it’s just about getting back to normal. By normal I mean it’s at least acknowledging the time of day.

As for everything else it’s been like a massive Feng Shui thing that’s had me clearing out all my kitchen cupboards.

This came about because my daughter-in-law Sharon said for me to de-clutter my pots and pans, some of which I haven’t used and am unlikely to ever use again.

But, it’s so hard to part with casserole dishes that have served the family so well in the past. My favourite was a big brown glazed stew pot that I used for slow cooking lamb stew, hotpot and even curry. Then I had a big shiny colander which was heaven sent whenever I cooked spaghetti bolognaise for at least ten of us. But I was very brave and ruthless and there was too much for me to transport I had to arrange for the charity shop to come and collect it all. I now have plenty of space in my cupboards but … not in the kitchen drawers. Oooh, they’re a bit too much to sort through and she’s not mentioned them yet.

Anyway, after a few cups of tea I ‘phoned my Sharon and told her what I’d managed to achieve. She started telling me about her garden table and chairs which they’ve had all of three years.

My son Keith said he would varnish their present table and chairs and it would look a lot better then to which Sharon then started to go on about quite liking the ‘distressed look’. So now, methinks that anything that looks old, battered, worn out and unkempt has a new perception on it by just calling it distressed. Suddenly, I now not have a badly overgrown garden but I have a fashionable distressed garden. Mmm, much better than saying it’s a mess. Just so long as they don’t start applying the term as a way of complementing us Golden Oldies.

I’ve received a letter from Harold Dunn in Crumpsall and I am replying to you Harold so just hang on in there. Also a message from Bernard Clark who asks if anyone knows the whereabouts of Jack McCall who ran the Northern Sporting Club. If you do please ring Bernard on 0161 681 5073. Look after yourselves and be safe.