The story behind your Forum user name!

[DorrieH.]

Well I'm so simple that I just used my nickname "Dorrie" with my last name initial.

[sueboop]

Mine is my middle name, part of my maiden name and part of my last name now.

[Barb]

Mine is booorrring! Barb . . . however, at some sites I'm babs55 which I think is a bit funky - babs is a nickname for Barb and I (was) 55

[connieg]

Mine is simple too...first name and first letter of my last name.

Mine too Rose

[Grand Scrapper]

I don't use my name as a user name, so grand scrapper. At the time I began here, I was scrapbooking for my grandsons. I now scrapbook for my sons as well.

[MidnightChardonnay]

Want to read a long thread? Well, get a coffee and make yourself comfortable.

I was born on 23 November 1943, I think. Well, that’s what my birth certificate says. My birth parents – I’ll call them Ma and Pa – were not married to each other but Ma was married to another man who was away fighting in North Africa. I was eventually adopted. So that sets the scene.

Unlike now, where UK adoption records must be kept for 75 years and you have a legal right to access them once you are 18 years of age, way back in 1943 this was not the case and adoptions were kept very secret indeed.

However, Ma wanted me to know something about where I came from so she asked that some information be passed onto my adopted family. I therefore know that Ma was an Irish girl with red hair and she came from “Dublin’s fair city where the girls are so pretty.” Pa was a Canadian soldier who was killed at Arnhem in September 1944. Somewhere, I have a sister who is 7 years older than I am.

Because I was not expected to live – I’m 68 now! – it was arranged for me to be hastily baptised when I was just 5 days old.

About 10 years ago I started thinking of my Pa and wondered what part of Canada he came from and what he did when he was a civilian. I managed to trace my baptismal records but they didn’t reveal the names of my birth parents, probably so that I could never trace them. Now at that time I hadn’t discovered Photoshop and my hobby was shortwave radio. So I decided to tell my story to Radio Canada International in the hope that they might be able to help me. To my complete surprise they devoted a 1 hour international program to people who were trying to trace their war-time deceased Canadian fathers. I quickly found out that without a name or military number I didn’t stand a chance of tracing Pa. I did, however, learn that the Canadian authorities brought very few of their dead back to Canada and that almost all of their soldiers were buried where they fell. Remembering that Google is your best friend it didn’t take long for me to find out that there is a Canadian War Cemetery in Arnhem.

Way back then many Irish girls came to England to look for work as nurses or else to train as one. Not far from where I was born there was a big estate called Cliveden on which there was a large hospital – the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital – now a housing estate. I had also been told that many Canadians at Arnhem were medics so I think that there is a very real chance that Ma and Pa met each other there.

There is much more to this story that I could tell you but looking back over everything I have come to know I believe that Ma and Pa were very much in love with each other and they must have made arrangements for her to be told if anything ever happened to him. Why else, nearly a year after I was born, would she have been told about his death at Arnhem?

When I was baptized she asked if I could be named David. Was this Pa’s name, I wonder? Recently, I came across my original baptismal certificate which shows my date of birth as 22 November 1943. And I once had a passport which said my date of birth was 24 November 1943. So when was I born – 22, 24 or 24?!

I like to believe that I was conceived one night around about midnight over a glass or two of very fine wine which is why I decided to become Midnight Chardonnay. One day I will, with God’s blessing, meet Ma and Pa and then I’ll be able to thank them and God for the life they gave me.

[MidnightChardonnay]

Guess there's no mystery to mine...

Weren't you Cats4Jan once or am I confusing this with someone else? If so, then you also have a story to tell

[Jen White]

I like to believe that I was conceived one night around about midnight over a glass or two of very fine wine which is why I decided to become Midnight Chardonnay. One day I will, with God’s blessing, meet Ma and Pa and then I’ll be able to thank them and God for the life they gave me.

That is a wonderful story, David! Thank you for taking the time to share it! You are surely blessed.

[dmrdm]

Great story David! Could be made into a movie!

[Shirl]

This was the first site that I signed up for and just shortened my first name. All of the later sites know me as Grambie.

My eldest granddaughter when she was trying to talk called me Grambie for the first time. I realized that would be the perfect username.