Today marks the 8th month since my dearest Caroline passed into glory and this week I received a wonderful tribute from her pupils at Park Street Church of England Primary School in her memory - thank you!. It has prompted me to highlight just one of her many endearing traits that she used to great aplomb with her love for the children that undoubtedly will remain their charm forever.


One of her responsibilities in school was to take the daily attendance register and she introduced her concept of calling out their first names backwards. So Caroline became Enilorac (I had already become Egroeg with family Haras, Werdna) - all the children enjoyed the initial novelty and then responded likewise much to the surprise of the head teacher and staff. This eloquently summed up the warmth, breadth and depth of love that she shared with the children throughout school life on all occasions. She also used many different terms of endearment whenever anyone did something “silly” that were unique and memorable such as “doolally plonk”. It is no surprise to me that this has been mentioned amongst the personal tributes alongside her many antics and pranks within the classroom that made school life so light-hearted and pleasurable.


Caroline also pointed out that my name was “wrong” when we moved from Scotland to buy our house in St Albans as my first and middle names were different on my birth certificate. The local solicitor insisted that documents were signed “otherwise known as” to reflect this fact that my parents had never highlighted to me. Caroline’s dad ironically had the same issue as he was always referred to by his middle name. Middle names are also memorable for our children as we deliberated on boys names that are often shortened and initials that may became memorable for wrong reasons. We had considered Olivia for our daughter that could have changed from SLOW to SLOT upon her marriage! When our son was born, we had not finally decided between his first and middle names but she had already announced his name at school that eventually became his middle name - both of which that could be shortened but not by us as that’s his choice!


For Caroline and I, the arrival of our granddaughter Emily-Jane almost 2 years ago was another personal joy and delight as her Christian first name is a hyphenated form of both of our mothers. Caroline never knew my mother as she passed in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year 1977 so this was a loving touch that will be something for Emily-Jane to remember and treasure.