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Terry Casey

In article ,
says...

You should see the surprise on some [1] [2] of my customers when they
discover that my apprentice that has a good old English sounding name is
actually black.

[1] Not very many thankfully but I am in South Yorkshire which has very
few black people and on a couple of occasions I have had to warn the
customers about their language.

[2] He has had more people say what a polite young man he is than have
commented on his colour.

Does he have a West Indian background, by any chance?

I think it was common in the days of slavery for owners to
give their slaves names. Whether these were individual names
or implying 'slave of x' I don't know but suspect it was the
latter.

We had a 'temporary' ticket inspector at our local station a
few yeaes ago - he was actually there for quite a while -
named Charles - usually referred to as Charlie. He waas a very
pleasant West Indian man about 6' tall and very good at his
job.[1]

Because of our child minding arrangements, my wife often used
the next station down the line and was talking to a railman
who'd previously worked at our local station while waiting for
a train one morning and referred to Charlie. No, she was told,
Charles was his surname and she should refer to him as Mister
Charles.

So she did, the next time she saw him and nearly got her head
bitten off! Obviously the other railman was having a laugh at
her expense! Apparently, in West Indian culture, friends and
acquaintances alway referred to each other by their last names
but adding the 'Mister' was insulting!

[1] I was amazed at the number of times, if I was waiting for
my wife, to watch him checking tickets in the rush hour. A
crowd of people passing in front of him waving season tickets
or handing over single or return tickets in the days of the
small card ticket. These tickets had the date printed on the
back.

Occasiomally his arm would shot out in front of someone and
he'd say "Excuse me - this ticket is out of date!"

He was always right but, watching him, I never saw him turn a
ticket over to read the date yet he had an unerring instinct
to spot when one was wrong!

--

Terry

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