A friend of ours who came over from Eastern Europe a few years ago was looking wistful the other day.
My One True Love asked what the trouble was and the friend – who I shall not identify – said she wished that her daughter had a more English name.
Her daughter has a gorgeous name – poetic, floral and distinctive.
In recent years English parents have invented names like this in an effort to sound exotic, but they end up with something more like a pop star welded to a UN Secretary General.
This little girl’s name comes with history, culture and a frisson of something different.
“She’s got a lovely name, why on earth would you want to change that?” asked My One True Love.
It was a parent thing. It wasn’t about what was right or what was wrong.
It was about simply wanting your child to go through life without having to confront some ugly situations.
It was the same reason she had been taught English as her first language and was only starting to learn the languages her parents were born with a few years later.
They didn’t want her to have an accent, or a name, or anything that singled her out as different and it was one of the nagging worries in their life, like a mortgage or the heating bills.
Integration is a pretty safe word in politics.
It’s now okay to set citizenship tests and expect immigrants to learn English or go home.
But the everyday reality of it for a hard-working, tax-paying family is a constant anxiety about being different.
They were in Abington Park the other day and asked a woman walking her dog for directions.
The woman pointed to the road and said: “You can get out of the park that way and as far as I am concerned you can keep ******* going back to Poland . . .”
The children, including the beautifully-named little girl, burst into tears.
They were bewildered by the sudden outpouring of abuse.
Their mother was more philosophical.
She says it will take 10 years, she says it will take a generation.
She probably could have reported the woman, but if you get that kind of treatment more than once a week how many times would you ring the police to make a complaint?
If you start, when do you stop?
She points out quite rightly that no-one would dare speak about black people the way Eastern Europeans get talked about.
It’s unjust but it’s also a glimmer of hope: once people get used to you they back off.
In the meantime she’s going to do all she can to help her children integrate smoothly.
I can’t help thinking she would be better off just trying to avoid the morons . . .
Bonnie had been sitting on my lap for about 10 minutes when she noticed it.
“You’re growing a moustache!”
For the past fortnight I thought she had been pretending not to notice it, but she is four. She doesn’t pretend.
When she is a fairy princess she is a REAL fairy princess. When she is ignoring moustaches she is ignoring moustaches.
Even though it was she and Billy who had wanted me to grow one, even though she had been sitting on my lap poking a paintbrush into my mouth, 18 days into Movember she exclaimed: “You’re growing a moustache.”
This taught me that people are not as horrified or as interested in moustaches as I am, but this is because I have one clinging to my face.
I can’t take my eyes off it. I can’t walk past shop windows or mirrors without scrutinising it like it’s a scandalous neighbour: what’s it doing now?
In the past few days it has managed to shock me again by starting to raise money.
My moustache thanks you if you have donated.
I am going to train it to do tricks in return for donations, requests will be considered, photographic evidence of tricks performed will be provided.
Follow the furry fun at http://mobro.co/stevescoles and twitter.com/stevescoles.
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