Due to all our communications being via email, it’s easy to see how you made the assumption that I was female. Unfortunately the name ‘Bev’ has plagued me – but also helped me – through life, perhaps partly because of Johnny Cash and his song A Boy Named Sue.
As you have no doubt gathered by now, I am a nephew of George William Short, whose letter from the front you published in the last edition of C4S, not a niece.
But no problem – I very quickly in life found that taking offence added to the problem, particularly in the playgrounds of my schooling days.
When asked for my name I answer by saying, “It’s Bev, I was too young to argue at the time.”
You see I was to be a Terry, but I was born in a maternity ward at Southlands Hospital and unfortunately I was a day too late because the lady in the next bed to my mum had a baby boy and called him Terry. Although my mum did not know the lady nor ever meet her again, it put her into a panic and she decided to choose something that no one else would use.
At that time the Daily Telegraph had a journalist whose name was Beverley Nichols, so I became Beverley John Pook, the John being my dad’s preference – an argument he lost.
Actually at least a few famous men have had the name Beverley:
Bev Bevan: Of the Electric Light Orchestra.
Beverley Shenstone: Involved in the development of the Supermarine Spitfire.
Beverley Nichols: A journalist for the Daily Telegraph.
Through my life I have met four guys with the name and this has a peculiar coincidence in itself, as below.
In order of introduction.
- Beverley Croot: A fellow employee when I worked for Thorn Lighting.
- Beverley Took: A friend of my cousin Roger.
- Beverley John Snook: Chairman of the Royal Aero Club.
So Snook, Took, Croot and Pook.
Oh and the fourth was Beverley Williams. He broke the mould.
Bev Pook, Worthing
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