Life Whilst we've been packing I found my christening certificate. And there at the top is my name Ian Stuart Burns.
"Oh," says my Mother, "They got your name wrong - that's what you were baptised under ?"
"WHAT!?!" So my name is Ian.
"No. You're what it says on your birth certificate. Stuart."
Oh, that's comforting. But then I start to wonder what it would have been like if I had spent the past twenty-seven years as an "Ian" Well, it's my father's name, so I'd no doubt have ended up being called Ian Burns Jr (which sounds like a Baseball player). At some point I would have had to insert an 'i' so he spelling became Iain just to be different. But then this would have become the most interesting thing about me as I join a rugby team at university and decide that 'lass' or 'bird' is acceptable description for a female. After a while I would have become a manager of a bank branch who took time off for golf games with my other friends who have pretentious made up spellings for their names and ended life retired swimming around in Bath somewhere. I think I'll stick with Stuart.

No comments: