19 May 2012
One night I was talking to the girl who served behind the bar in my local snooker hall. Everyone knew her as Dee so I asked if this was short for Denise - she confirmed that it was and I told her that an old Irishman who had lived in the flat above me told me a lovely story concerning that name.
He used to live in a very secluded village in Ireland where they kept themselves to themselves and had many strange customs. One of which was that when a child was born it was the fathers' eldest brothers' responsibility to name the child. This was a task not to be taken lightly and the history of both parents had to be looked into to ensure that a suitable name was chosen - choose the wrong name and you could start a family feud ! Anyway, one night the old mans' brother visited him and told him that his wife was expecting and that he had better start thinking of suitable names - I say names because this was in the days before scans of course and no-one knew what the sex of the child would be. For the next 8 months he worried himself sick selecting boys' and girls' names and discarding them until he had one of each which he considered suitable. When the big day arrived his brothers' wife surprised everyone by giving birth to twins, a girl and a boy. When the old man nervously announced the names he had chosen everyone cheered and he was mightily relieved. I told Dee that he had named the girl Denise.
"Oh, that's sweet" she said,"What did he name the boy?"
I smiled as I answered,
" De-nephew ! "
Denise • Opuss № I