Whenever I’m asked for my name, I’m never quite sure what to say. When the restaurant asks for a contact name, do they want both of my names? When booking via a credit card, do they want my middle name as well, which is printed on it?
When I first started work at Procter and Gamble, the older employees simply answered the phone with their surname. “Cooper”. “Clasper”. “Murphy”. As did the bloke who sat over the partition from me who used to be in the army, had fought in the Falklands, and for whom I sensed first names were a bit effeminate. “Fraser”. I compromised by using both my names when I answered the phone, which I continued to do throughout my career in advertising, much to some of my colleagues’ amusement.
In my first year at the grammar school, suddenly I was just “Forth”, which seemed a bit unfriendly. Mind you, I would have found it just as difficult to do that sixth form college thing of calling your teacher by their first name.
I’ve had a multitude of names over the years, in fact. When we were eleven in 2 Alpha, Gary Bottrill managed to extract my middle name out of me: Deeker. My father was Geoffrey Deeker, my grandfather Henry Deeker and my eldest son is Jamie Deeker. Seven generations ago an Ann Deeker entered the family line and left her mark ever since, like the Scandinavians with ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’. After that I became variously Deek, Deeker, Deeks and, to my sister-in-law, Dinky Deekums, regrettably. When I went up to university, I thought I might make a fresh start and become an Ian, but old schoolfriends put paid to that.
Within about two weeks of arriving in Australia I became Forthy and have stayed that way for the last twenty years. I’m fine with it: if it’s good enough for Warney, it’s good enough for me.
As I mentioned in the episode, it’s not too hard to construct an episode around people’s names. It’s quite a bit harder to do it around both names. But it can be done!
By accident I’ve put in not one, not two, but three, songs I’ve played before. This wasn’t intentional, but an oversight. However I sense I worry about this sort of thing more than the casual listener. If I can’t remember whether I’ve played these songs before – sometimes several years ago – the chances are you can’t either. Although when I denied I’d played ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?‘ by Spizz Energi recently, I was rapidly put right by a veteran listener. Mary Jones, I think. Thanks, Mary.
By the way, there’s a very good song about names called ‘Names‘ by Cat Power I can recommend.
