Friday, May 2, 2025

 I took Marilyn on to the Eye Hospital this morning to have yesterday's procedure looked at. All is fine and she can continue on as if nothing had happened.  She was surprised to discover that they had inserted a lens into her eye to improve her vision.  Isn't moder medicine marvellous?  

We were just home again when the 'phone rang. Jamie was having a busy day and would we like to have Archie for a visit?  So, back in the car and off to Hadspen to pick him up.

I've downloaded several versions of the Leonard Cohen song, Hallelujah and play it in the car.  It's a brilliant song and every version is different.  I particularly like one which features bagpipes.  That's probably tells you something about me, but I'm not sure what

Today's story, Genevieve, is based on a real person I knew at Gib Gate school. I've strongly enhanced it, of course.

GENEVIEVE                                                                                         JUNE, 2021

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare asked but I often wonder what’s in the mind of some parents when they come up with a name which will be an affliction on that child until he or she is old enough to change it.  I think of myself as a traditionalist and find myself warming immediately to people called James or Andrew, Anne or Elizabeth.  I’m wary of anyone with one of the more bizarre trendy names or those whose name seems to be made up.

I’ve watched the changing fashions of children’s names and I’ve read that they can often be tracked and linked to popular TV shows.  I happened to be looking at a cartoon strip in The Guardian recently and stumbled across a Pavlova and a Kiasportage: joke names obviously but could they catch on? I’ve laughed with others at the so-called celebrity names, such as Moon Unit, Sunday Rose or Heavenly Hiirani Tiger Lily.   If I had to summarise my preferences I would say that I like names as ordinary as Jack and as plain as Jane.  I’m undecided how I feel about Lilibet.

In a past life, I was Headmaster of a fairly posh primary school in the Southern Highlands of NSW.  There I was mostly faced with solid, middle-class names, the sort you would expect from solid, middle-class parents.  There was one boy named Robert whose family insisted he be called Robbie, but I was confident he would grow out of that before he started High School.

One day, my secretary popped her head around the door to tell me I had an appointment with some prospective parents who wanted to enrol their daughter. “It’s a funny name,” my secretary said. “I asked them to spell it.” 

She handed me a slip of paper on which was printed G.E.N.E.V.I.E.V.E.

“That’s Genevieve,” I said.

“Well, that’s not what they said,” was the terse reply.

Mr and Mrs O’Reilly duly arrived and introduced their daughter.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Our daughter has a French name, and it is pronounced in the French way - Jhon-vee-ev,” said Mrs O’Reilly firmly.  Well, that was fine but I wondered what the other girls in the class would make of it.

“Well, I’m sure that Jhon-vee-ev will enjoy her time with us,” I said and, after the usual preliminaries, I took them down to the classroom to meet Genevieve’s new teacher.  The teacher’s name was Jacqueline, called Jacki, but I suspected she secretly yearned for a French emphasis: Zhackwilin - said breathily in the back of the throat. I knew that Genevieve would be safe here.

Everything worked out well.  Genevieve settled into our routine and made friends quickly.  Mother came in a couple of times to complain. Once that a boy in the class had asked Genevieve if she was named after a car; his parents were obviously fans of old Kenneth More comedies.  Another time she was upset that some of the girls had taken to calling her daughter Zhonny which I thought was a reasonably sympathetic abbreviation of a rather clumsy name, but I wasn’t game to say it.

I often wondered why, with a surname such as O’Reilly, the parents looked to the French for a forename.  It’s like matching Irish Stew with foie gras.  Surely, there are plenty of pretty Irish names which would be more suitable.  I can think of several just off the top of my head: Roisin, Siobhan, Aisling, for example.

As well, I wonder if the parents thought through the implications of saddling their child with the burden of such a name.  I say ‘parents’ though I suspect the mother had a controlling hand in this decision.  In my experience, children only want to fit in, to be accepted as part of the group and not be seen as somehow different.

When Mrs O’Reilly said, “My daughter’s name is Genevieve,” my first instinct was to ask her why, but I smothered that question quickly.

There’s a postscript to this anecdote.   Just the other day I was reading an article about a new Australian movie called The Dry.  I was interested because I had read the book on which it is based.  Glancing over the article, I spotted a familiar name among the list of actors: Genevieve O’Reilly.  It said she was also in Star Wars.  Could it be?  Surely not, but what are the odds of two people having that name?