Thankful Thursday: Names

Yesterday I said in my post that I'd gone back to bed with Zoe.  I'd have said that was a Freudian slip except that I don't know any Zoe I'd be likely to go to bed with anyway.  It did make me think about my long-standing problem with names though.  I should, of course, have said Eve, my soon to be renamed Apple MacBook.

Many years ago when I was a very young man I used to do a lot of protocol work.  This involved knowing the names of the 120 councillors and 40 aldermen of Liverpool City Council and always being on hand at functions to introduce them to visiting dignitaries etc.  Alderman were appointed for 6 years so rarely changed but elections for 40 councillors were held every year.  One of the things I learned early on was that if you introduced a diplomat by the wrong name of country then on the whole they smiled and when you were out of earshot remedied the error.  Presumably that's what made them diplomats!

One day, however, I got the name of a newly elected councillor wrong.  To say that he made a fuss would be putting it mildly.  Since that incident in 1965 I have had a severe difficulty with names.  My mind goes blank and that incident flashes into my head.  The problem is so bad that I once was introducing my wife at a function and I just couldn't remember her name.  I forget names of people I know and have known for decades.  I forget names of people I've been in the same room with and used their names minutes previously.

I read Dale Carnegie's (why can I remember his name?) How to Win Friends and Influence People many years ago when I was a teenager.  He made the point that a person's name is one of his or her most treasured possessions. 

If I had realised what a burden this affliction was going to be during my life I'd have seen a psychiatrist but, of course, such things were not thought of in the '60s and I suppose for a long time I thought that my previous ability with names (which was one reason I used to do the protocol work of course) would return.  After all the irony is that the fear of forgetting a name is probably the cause of the act of forgetting.

I was wondering if I could turn this into my Thankful Thursday post and I couldn't see a way until I suddenly realised that if that was one of the worst things in my life then I had precious little about which to complain.  So I am playing the Glad Game and am thankful for the fact that I could have had much worse problems to contend with.

Who Am I?

Je m'appelle/mein Name ist/mijn naam is/my name is Graham Barry Edwards.  Apologies but I don't know the Swedish translation.

A few days ago Scriptor Senex/CJ/John/Clive/ blogged about Who Am I?  He pointed out that I had my name problems too.  Yet another thing in common between two brothers.  I thought about enlightening the world (or my tiny part of it) as to my names but decided not to.  Until this morning.  I was replying to an email when I noticed that the previous email I'd sent was signed off 'Graham'.  That's be OK for most of my emails 'cos that's my name.  But....

Like CJ I don't use the name that Mum and Dad called me which was Barry.  Some of my older friends  and people who know me through my wife or early days or The Pottery still call me that.   However I've been called Graham as well since I worked in a hospital at the age of 16 whilst waiting for surgery.  That is what most newcomers to my life know me as.

The odd thing is that, despite the huge mixing of those who know me through more than one source, I always know instinctively who calls me what.  I suppose it's like the French with their Le and La.  There are some  sort of rules but you have to know by instinct or rote to get them all correct.

Anyway nowadays I'm known by Barry, Graham, GB, Geeb, G and VPE or Vieux Pet Ennuyeux.  As I (and they) get older the number of people calling me Barry diminishes. CJ calls me GB as do quite a few other people.  I like that.  I've always like the use of initials as a name.  A handful of close friends call me Geeb (which I also like muchly) but I think I use that in written form to only three people.  Steve used to call me Barry, then Graham and now simply G.  David (ADM) alias Marcel Du Marche has always called me Graham however as he was the person who, all those years ago, said that I was a boring old fart, when he started up his blog dialogues avec mon jardinier écossais  I adpoted the pseudonym Vieux Pet Ennuyeux (French for Boring Old Fart) to comment.  Marcel and VPE communicate frequently by email and Skype.  David and Graham talk to each other!

I'm Changing My Name

I have a number of Blogs (through nowhere near as many as Scriptor Senex) and use a number of different names to identify myself. My favourite is L'homme Bizarre avec la Barbe Grise. But I also use Geeb and Graham. Leastways they are the one's to which I'm prepared to admit. Anyway I have decided to amalgamate them and just call myself what most people these days call me which is GB. It is either that or think up something short and clever and snappy. And thinking is not really my forté.