Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Am I allowed to speak now? (with Sheela Banerjee)

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Jane and Fi are reuniting decorative milk bottles with their international owners.They're also talking step-parents, sombreros and spellings.Sheela Banerjee joins to talk about her new book "What's in a Name?"Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I find that a really offensive microphone, actually. I prefer the big round one, the big round ball. Are we ready? Are we ready? We are, yes. I'm ready, yes. Welcome to Off Air. First of all, some of the greatest news we've ever delivered, the decorative milk bottle collection saga may have a resolution.

We got an email from Philippa who says, I've just been listening to your podcast and heard the message from Marina in Sydney who wants to return my sister Helen's milk bottle collection. It's incredible, isn't it? Isn't it? No, it really is. It really is. And slightly frightening. I am sister number four. As Marina mentioned, there are six of us.

My mother had six daughters in six years. What? Helen and I were born either end of 1964, which makes us Irish twins. Wow I mean wow Helen married her Australian husband Jonesy I was so tempted to do that in an Australian accent didn't you help that I just about kept it in and they lived in Sydney for a few years before settling back in England Helen now lives in Gloucestershire with Jonesy again I've stopped myself and her three children I'm sure Helen will be thrilled to be united with her milk bottles we've got to get a picture of these to add to the massive collection of bottles she

now hoards at home in Gloucestershire but not sure about Jonesy I'll let Helen know about Marina's kind offer uh wink emoji so I mean there's all kinds of things there what do you think the bottles what's special about the bottles i've no idea i don't actually remember there being a thing about decorating milk bottles no i don't i mean i have to be honest those glass big glass milk bottles they always still had that slightly pungent you could never get rid of the slightly rancid yep so i'm one of the people who was profoundly grateful to Margaret Thatcher for removing school milk from schools. I think not supposed to say that, but, you know, I was all right with it. Anyway, it's really interesting.

Thank you so much. Slightly weird that you were listening and that we've been able to join up the dots there. But we would like to see some photographic imagery of the reunion, please. Yes, yes, please. Definitely. And thank you to our Australian listeners for being really quite magnanimous after the events in the Women's World Cup semifinal. We appreciate it. Fiona is in Adelaide.

She says there'll be just over 11 million Australian viewers with hearts broken tonight. But hey-ho, England were definitely better. What an amazing World Cup, though. It's brought a nation together and no doubt converted quite a few sceptics who've now realised it ain't that bad watching women's sport come to adelaide during our fringe and we'll show you the best time ever complete with winery tours in the hills and ocean views from clifftop restaurants that will make the flight well worth it that's a very nice offer isn't it thank you fiona it's a really lovely offer and if australia could just be moved a bit closer i think we'd both be there that's what we're asking essentially um and this is an interesting one from Sharon who says, ladies, I'm travelling to Spain on Friday for a holiday.

I love football. I hope to see the game. How would you play it? Right, Sharon, there must be, I mean, do you disguise yourself as a Spaniard? Would that be be possible get a sombrero and just blend in okay that'll be my tip uh put on some big big sunglasses and no one will have a clue that you're from north yorkshire no one is it and i forgive my ignorance but is this is a sombrero really very spanish isn't that more mexican no i think no well both okay. So I don't mean to, because actually, of all of the things to be slightly dubious about in that suggestion, it's not really worth it. I don't know why you picked up on that. No, I think what you need, Sharon, is the big hat, the castanets, and everyone will just assume that, you know, you're one of the locals.

It's going to be difficult because Spain are going to lose and it's not going to be very good, very good fun but actually I shouldn't say that because I've been reading about the Spanish team and already they're quite good and apparently they've got the best player in the world but the Times today had a very soothing article saying

there was all sorts of trouble in the ranks the manager's a very divisive figure some of the players weren't talking to each other before the tournament, they've had a thawing of relations just for the tournament uh but it doesn't look as they don't look as bonded as our as our english women but also they haven't got serena no and she it's quite interesting she i didn't realize this she was the last woman manager standing by the time they got to the quarterfinals so it just shows you that, although it's the women's game, it's still men on the whole who manage the teams.

So it's yet another reason to want England to win, I guess. So I really, really want Serena Wiegmann afterwards to do more and tell us more about her stuff, her magic. Because whatever it is is we could all do with some of it uh lucy's got back in touch to say hi jane and fee just confirming that yes i did indeed do three nights in the creek jail and only my bikini see earlier episode the club was raided because apparently it had a coffee shop license not a strip club license that explains it the police came chucked us girls in the back of a van and

took us off to the cells not once did they speak a word of english to us monday morning we were released with no explanation but i gather a fine was paid by the club in hindsight it was obviously corruption at its finest it had been a pretty dodgy experience all round in order to work there we needed a visa of sorts but that takes time so it was all done under the table i remember seeing a dodgy doctor in a small stone hut with glassless windows who smoked all the way through our consultation and tried to get me to meet him for drinks later i was then driven to a psychiatric hospital where i was given a chest x-ray and from this was then granted some kind of paperwork right i don't mean to laugh but

you do say it's all a funny story now but a bit scary at the time and i bet it was especially for one of my fellow strippers who was halfway through her law degree and thought her career was over before it begun when we landed in jail gosh there's a mini series there lucy oh yes uh i was more fully dressed for the flight to texas warm wishes well we send you our warm wishes too and again i'd just like to know a little bit more i'd like actually lucy in all seriousness i'd like to know about all of the choices in that and whether there's ever been a time when you know you look back and think or maybe you know maybe i don't want that in my memory maybe is everyone okay are we sure about that i don't know i'm not making a judgment no

no it sounds as though she's come to terms with it as a relative it is from from the distance of time a funny story but there seems so much danger in a lot of those experiences. And some pretty awful treatment by the authorities on Crete. I think we can all agree that isn't the way to behave and you'd have to hope it wouldn't happen now. Yeah. This is lovely from Jess in Bath who says, I'm a step-mom of three and I'm a psychotherapist and I was really touched by the listener who emailed in

to say his step-mom had cancer. I am always grateful if my step-children show care and I would suggest just owning that he doesn't really know how to talk to her about it but wants her to know that he's very happy to talk if she wants to and that he values her and cares about her would be the way forward. If saying it feels awkward, if saying that feels awkward then a card would work being a step parent is a real privilege but i do think we can sometimes get a little overlooked i'm sure that an honest expression of his feeling would be valued by her and might then open up a conversation that she

might not feel she can instigate with him but equally might really value just my thoughts says jess actually that seems very sensible to me and as you are a psychotherapist I think you're quite a good person to chip in and it sounds as though Jess is I guess she is a stepmom of three so she's been there and I think you're absolutely right to say that the stepparent is quite often overlooked because I think just from the children's point of view it's quite hard to know how much love you can openly show to somebody who is only in your life

because they're being loved by one of your parents. It's quite a complicated kind of journey, I think. It's not, as our original emailer, Jordan, said, you know, the blood tie allows you all kinds of leeway in terms of affection. But the step-parent often, I think, would like a bit more affection and care and love from the kids than they're getting. And also, do you know what, Jane?

Just the trope of the evil stepmother is such an enormously influential one. And I think it's kind of how you go into a relationship with a step parent and that's just so unfair and you kind of have to work your way back from that I think there aren't very many examples of yay all great with the step parent although modern Hollywood is trying to do that with a lot of Adam Sandler movies but you know what I mean? Is he noted as being what's he a kind of? Well no do you know what there just have been quite a few movies of the Adam Sandler kind of humour which have dealt with those blended family setups where it's all chaos and it goes wrong but actually there's

a well-meaning step-parent in there somewhere. See ironically if you're from a secure home and you've never known anything other than your birth parents you're actually armed with incredible permission to be as contemptuous and as indifferent as you like to your parents aren't you? Yes no that's what I mean. You completely take it for granted and some of our behavior over the years has probably been quite outrageous I'm talking about myself here and it's very different with step parents and um you you do owe them because they aren't your parents you owe them a better better version of yourself if they're nice to you um then you know you you are is it a responsibility to be good to them i don't know that's what's complicated yeah i guess because when you're a child it's

asking a lot of a child yeah but this is this is about a grown man, isn't it? And just again, you know, going back to Jordan's original email, how thoughtful in the first place to wonder whether you're getting it right with your stepmother. So, you know, you're just on to an absolute winner there. Yeah, I mean, I think our correspondent, Susie, sorry, Jess rather, has got it absolutely right when she says that saying anything, however clumsy, is almost certainly going to be welcome. And it's almost certain as well, but it would be better than saying nothing at all if you're really keen to let your stepmother know that you really do care about how she's feeling. I think that's right, isn't it? I mean, it's like when you're a kid and somebody's suffered a bereavement

and you think to yourself, it'd be better if I didn't say anything, when in fact the person really would appreciate you saying anything at all because they are very much thinking about it and you won't upset them anymore by referencing it. Yes. So I think that's the way we're rolling. Can we just mention, this could be a new avenue, we could duck down as we head towards

2024 um this is from Susanna she is delighted to hear that I'm going to Portugal on holiday I mean I would imagine the whole of Portugal is en fait in anticipation of my arrival um she says I'm sorry that I'm no longer there uh on the Algarve with my English bookshop which would save you from having to decide what paperbacks to take actually I'm not that sorry I'm no longer there but I am sorry about the bookshop okay there's probably a story here I had a small English bookshop called Magna Carta in a place called Alvor have you heard of that no it was fun well you said that very dismissively Al Arvore might be a fascinating place. No, you literally just asked me a question.

No. And I said no. Well, it was fun while it lasted, reports Susanna. I loved my customers, local expats and tourists. I met some great characters and heard some great stories. My most famous regular-ish customer was Noddy Holder. I didn't know who he was. My husband would become very fidgety. And the time he came in he went quite bonkers. I thought he was stealing a book or

something. Then my husband mentioned the Christmas song and I went, oh, I am Portuguese, says Susanna, but I haven't read a book in my own language since I don't know when. My Portuguese is now probably as bad as my English. I use a Kindle since I closed the bookshop in 2010. Yes, it's been a while. That Kindle has never failed me in Portugal or anywhere else. I've always been an Anglophile. I remember going to a newsagent in Faro when I was at uni just to buy The Times. Susanna is so on message.

They will love that in this building. Thank you very much, Susanna. I'm happy being back in the UK she says in fact I love it so much that if anyone said I had to spend all my holidays in the UK I wouldn't mind right yeah but that's because you've had the benefit of living in a beautiful sunny place am I allowed to speak now using all of my tones go Go on, get on with it. Oh, no, don't be nasty. This is just one from Dale, which just made me smile. Dale says,

as a fan of ladies football, women's football, Dale, over the past four years, why do we need to make that distinction, actually? Do you find ladies patronising? I don't really mind. Actually, I don't care about that. No, so we don't care.

As a fan of ladies football over the past four years, a huge congratulations to the Lionesses, 3-1 against not just Australia, but a huge biased home crowd to which the ref bowed on so many occasions. Such an incredible spirit in this team. England men's watch and learn, which I can say as a chap myself. Good use of chap. They even make me proud to be English which is saying something and Dale thank you because Dale has recommended our program Jane to a number of ladies all of whom are enjoying

the service so we're grateful to you for that and Dale I just love the name of your company so Dale runs something called the World Trade Agency oh that's and that's just going in big day going in very very very big that's global isn't it it is yeah we had a lovely guest on the program today sheila banerjee who is a former television program maker uh documentary maker she's also been a radio presenter herself and she's also recently been doing a phd in in modernist literature, which we didn't have time to talk about. And I'm really sorry, because at the beginning, I promised that we would. But she wasn't in to talk about that. She was in to talk about a really fantastic book she's written, which talks about what is in a name.

And that's the title of it, What's in a Name? And the reason that she wanted to write it is she's had a very interesting relationship with her own name. She'll tell her family's story of going back to Calcutta, of what it means in Calcutta to be a Banerjee, what it means in this country to be a Sheela, but spelt S-H-E-E-L-A. Yes, not how you might expect it to be spelt. And also the whole premise of the book is to look at the assumptions that we make about people's names, but the stories behind it. So she's used some of her friends who she's known over the years to tell exactly that story. Marcella Gatsky, Hugh St. Paul White, it's not what you're going to think, and Liz Hussain, just some of the people in the book. So she came in today to talk to us and we started by asking

her what her full name is and why her parents had chosen it. Well, my full name is Sheila Banerjee. Most Bengalis in West Bengal have what's known as a duck nom, like a sort of nickname, but it's much more formalised than that. Everybody has one. But over here in Britain, me and my cousins didn't get a duck nom. So I'm just plain old Sheila Banerjee. That's it. No middle name. That's how I go. But Banerjee isn't actually just Banerjee, is it?

It should be something else. Yeah. I mean, Banerjee basically isn't my real name. So when the British went over to India, took control, took all our stuff, brought it over here, they also changed our names because they could. So they couldn't, my original name was Bondobadthaya and that was, they couldn't't pronounce it so they changed it to Banerjee and they did that with a slew of other Bengali names so Chottobadthaya became Chatterjee

Mukobadthaya became Mukerjee, Gongobadthaya which was my grandmother's maiden name that got changed to Ganguli and so we're carrying, carrying around these names that are basically not our original name. And also kind of every time I use it, I slightly dislike it. It's like a name of subjugation. Yeah, so your name has been truncated by colonialism, hasn't it? Do you ever just think, well, I'm just going to change it back? You know what, I've been thinking about it ever since writing this book, I think, should I change it back? Because this isn't my original name. You know, it's like, you know, Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, because he didn't like that original slave name. No, it's not a slave name, but it's a colonial name. And I think about it.

But then if I think about Bandhubadhyaya, that's really complicated as well because in india your names define who you are in the caste system which for me uh personally is quite a sort of awful system of social segregation where the name determines where you are in the social hierarchy and you know in many places it doesn't exist so much anymore but when when I was growing up in the bit of India that we came from, it certainly existed. And your name gave you kind of centuries of sort of unearned privilege. And I don't really like that either, but I really like it's the way that that would tie me to my heritage

if I changed it back. But who knows? We'll talk more about that part of your family's life in a moment if we may you also say in the book that names carry ghosts of meaning that have traveled across centuries and continents and i thought that was just such a beautiful beautiful phrase can you tell us a little bit about your parents and how you were born in london but then why you moved back to India? So in in a sense my my name carries the ghost of meaning from 60s Britain but also from colonialism and from for the reason the reasons they came over here but also of Hindu culture and religion which dates back thousands of years so if

you just I mean just take my first name which is a really ordinary name really sheila it's nothing that exciting but how's it spelled we need to make that clear yes that's the thing it's s-h-e-e-l-a not e-i-l-a so it's that all important e that changes it yeah and it does change it yeah it does change it on the page but when i say it it just sounds like, you know, the ordinary Sheila. And people don't quite know. And then I get jokes about Sheila's wheels and good day, Sheila, and all of that business. And some people simply don't believe that it is your name, do they? Yes.

Well, there was a time when me and my friend Denise, who is half Sri Lankan, very dark skinned, I am brown skinned. Me and my friend Denise were coming back in a cab, and I remember we were in East Ham interviewing, like, I think the leader of the Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan terrorist group, revolutionary group. And the cab driver just refused, he asked us what our names were, and refused to believe that two women looking like we did uh were called denise and sheila these very typically english names and she too has got

immigrant parents she's got a whole other set of stories behind her name but you know my one sheila it goes with those names that you often hear like anita uh you know like Anita Anand or Anita Rani or Rita you know Rita Chakraborty these are names I I think I feel were given by immigrant parents who were trying to settle down in this country they'd faced a lot of racism but also faced a lot of racism towards their Indian names and so to make their their kids easier, they gave us these sort of hybrid names, you know, so that we would assimilate, basically. And did you ever have that conversation with your parents about another name that they might have chosen for you if they hadn't felt those kind of forces against them? You know what, I don't think I have. I know, what I do know is that they quite

liked Sheila. They were very happy with do know is that they quite liked Sheila. They were very happy with Sheila. There's nothing wrong with Sheila. It's a lovely name. Certainly not. They were quite happy with Sheila. But my grandmother over in India, who was a very traditional lady, very orthodox Brahmin, and she was very devout,

she wanted me to be called Shati. Now, this was when I was around seven years old. I'm a little brown girl trying to settle into an all-white primary school in Hays on the edges of outer West London. And if I'd have been called Shati, which is spelled S-W-A-T-I. That is swati. Now, for a nerdy Indian child, and I was already quite nerdy. That would have gone so badly. It would have been bad. So, thank God, they stuck to the Sheila.

Yeah. So, you had your early years in London, and then you did go back to what was called Calcutta. Calcutta. Yeah. Why did your parents make that decision? Kolkata. Why did your parents make that decision? My dad is the only son of a very orthodox Hindu Bengali family. As the son, it was absolutely his duty to look after his parents. He very rebelliously came over here because he didn't like the religiosity and the orthodoxy in his family. This was a Banerjee family. Banerjees traditionally are the priestly class.

And, you know, as I said, I really don't like the system, but that's what it was. And my grandfather was a priest originally in a big temple in South India. And within the house that my dad grew up in, it was incredibly strict. So it was, you know, no meat, fish, eggs, garlic, onions, washing if you've been to the toilet, full, full bathing, you know, you can't, you can't touch this, you can't touch that. He got beaten if he ate rice at a non-Brahmin's house so it was all it was too much for him so he kind of ran off to Britain but he always knew he'd have to go back because he was the only son and so we kept trying to go back we went back when I was four years old and we lived with my grandparents

for a while they couldn't really cope over there it's it was quite difficult in the 70s even if you're from a relatively privileged family which we we were. You know, there's loads of power carts, there was no running water in my grandparents' house. You know, there's all the restrictions, the transport was terrible. It was, you know, you could also die. You know, there was typhoid was rife. I got typhoid, you know, there's malaria, the water wasn't clean. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we came back, came to Hayes but then went off again and that's when I thought I was going forever and so that Banerjee name which was so kind of inferior over here it's the name of an Asian person amongst all the Smiths and

Allens and Davises over there you've suddenly you even as an 11 year old I could notice the difference when I was there. So you say that you felt very conflicted about what that surname kind of brought you when you went back to India but can you just explain a bit more to us what that means what that conflict is about and what the caste system meant back then and and what it means now? I think when I went back, what it practically meant was when we were living with my grandparents was that I always saw my grandmother praying. She spent virtually all her time in what was her bedroom and her living room and her praying room. And the bathroom was next door and the kitchen was in the equivalent of the threshold it was

like in the hallway really so she she never left her room hardly and so she prayed for several hours a day she put out all her sort of shrines of and statues of gods and goddesses pick flat get flowers picked from the garden actually she often wouldn't leave leave the room and she would pray sit on the floor on the green marble floor and just pray for hours and then she'd kind of call me in and I'd smell all the incense and there would be the sweets and she'd give me bits of sweets and then my grandfather I think possibly because of this austere priestly presence and he'd been sent off at like 13 or something like that something as young as that to go off and train to be a priest from West Bengal to southern India which is I think hundreds

if not thousands of miles away and so he'd grown up in this temple and then when he came back he carried that sort of austere lifestyle with him and he would be in a separate wing of the house and I'd occasionally be taken to the other wing um and that's what I remember about being there in their house but also what I remember is that we led really what was quite a privileged life and compared to here especially you know I was sent to a a sort of elite private school I'd gone from a really quite sort of bog standard primary school in Hayes to this fee-paying public school because those were the only schools that taught in English.

And so I couldn't read and write Bengali, so they had to get me into one of those schools. And there you're in this fee-paying school. My parents are suddenly, you know, they're high-caste Brahmins. And then I'm going around 70s Kolkata. And it was literally, it was so poor. It was so, there were beggars on the streets. There were hundreds of people in makeshift kind of camps on the station floor, who may have been refugees, I think, because the Indo-Pakistan war had been

going on. And there was rubbish on the streets. It was difficult. It was really hard. It was, I think, for many people, millions of people over there. And because I was an outsider, I could see it. It kind of was very present to my eyes, the difference in status between, say, my family and loads of the people that I saw. I could see that. And when you were in those communities,

what did they make of your name, Sheila? Well, Sheila is a perfectly ordinary, acceptable name over there. It's pronounced Sheila, so it's not Sheila. And it means it's quite a common Bengali name. So it's not as if you had taken something, you know, a badge back with you from this country that then made you feel more of an outsider there? No, not at all. Suddenly, that name, my name, which in England was, you know, it did single me out, was completely ordinary. It was Sheila Banerjee, nobody batted an eyelid.

And, you know, you could write it in Bengali, it's a very common name. And also it's a name derived from Hinduism. It comes from the black stone, the Sheel, which is used to worship Shiva or to worship Narayan, which I think is another name for the god Vishnu. So it was a very understandable name. It wasn't like over here, it felt a bit odd because it was the name of an older generation of women. But over there, no, it's fine.

And I saw Banerjee and Co and Banerjee and Sons, you know, the shop titles. Banerjee is as common as Smith or Jones over here. So yeah, no, it's totally normal. Dr. Sheila Banerjee is our guest this afternoon. Please don't use that. And her book is called What's in a Name? So it's not just your story and your family's story, is it?

I think you very cleverly have gone back to examine the names of some of your friends from early years in London and look at what it means to them. So we were talking about one of them, Hugh St. Paul White. Now, when I said the name Hugh St Paul White to Jane I think she nailed it in saying that you were kind of then expecting to meet the second son of the landowning gentry of Norfolk wearing a tweed cap maybe some plus fours closely related to the Bufton Tufton yeah so tell us Hugh St Paul White's story because that's not him, is it? No, it's not. He had to change, he changed,

or his name was changed quite a few times. Hugh St. Paul White is now Hugo and he's Jamaican and he came over from Jamaica, I think when he was 12 or 13. And when he came over, really he knew himself, was called by everybody around him by his nickname.

And I think in Jamaica, that's a really common thing that all your friends and family call you by what's known as a yard name or a duppy name. And so his name was Junior. And that's how he, you know, went through the world and experienced it. But his formal name was Hugh St Paul White and everybody in Jamaica loved it and his relatives and aunts always said oh that's a lovely name and I think it was a tradition of um calling boys often after sort of colonial governors or like

lots of people were called Winston after the wartime prime minister. And I think Hugh, Hugo was called Hugh after the last colonial governor of Jamaica. But when he got over here, he arrived in Walsall, actually. And this was really quite a difficult time in the Midlands in terms of being black or Asian. You know, Enoch Powell had been doing the rounds with all his sort of rivers of blood nonsense. You know, there'd been a series of immigration laws designed to restrict black people and Asian people from coming in. And racism was just a everyday fact of life, as it was for all of us really growing up. And when he went to school, they used his formal name, not Junior, it was Hugh, Hugh White. And when people asked him his name, he said Hugh White, as you would. But of course, if you say it quickly, it kind of turns into Hugh White, you know.

And he was Jamaican. He didn't put a big stress on that H at the beginning of Hugh. You know, in British upper class terms, it might be Hugh, you know, that breathy H. But, you know, and kids they did what they that what they did to lots of names which has made fun of it and turned it into you white and you white are you white became the running joke and it was really horrible uh you know he was a newly arrived african caribbean child in walsall in the 70, constantly being made fun of because of his name. You know, are you white? Are you white? The whole time at school. And he went to really quite a pretty rough

school. There was a documentary even made about it because it was so rough. And that mixture of class and racism and deprivation kind of fed into that racism of the time. And in the end, the teachers even noticed and one of his sports coaches noticed that this was going on the whole time and one of his coaches said to him one day how about Hugh if we change your name to Hugo and he kind of jumped at the chance he became Hugo he started doing really well at school at the same time he was also a gifted athlete and so I think not just because of his name but it was a symbol of how things changed for him with that getting rid of Hugh to Hugo so yes but it was really hard and I think it says a lot about

language and accent at the time the way the Jamaican accents Indian accents were really kind of mocked the whole time in that era yeah and some of the other stories are lovely too and the one about your friend Marcella who's got an extraordinary history you you were friends with her in London and actually we should explain the kind of community that her family were from in London it's a strong Jewish community yeah yeah so I got to know Marcella when I I was trying to make a bid for freedom from Hayes and I only got as far as Harrow it's about one stop to start well it's quite a long way on the 140 bus so I thought I was getting quite far um and so I went to sixth form college in Harrow. And I didn't know that community then.

I'd never met any Jewish people because I lived amongst English people, mainly in my Asian family. And where I went to sixth form college, there was a big North London Jewish community. And Marcella Gatzky was a big part, her family were a big part of that. And so there were lots of Jewish kids at my sixth form college. They all kind of knew one another. Our other really good friend was Sarah Lee, whose father was a rabbi. And there were lots of girls that hung around together looking really glamorous. And they also went to that sixth form college. And that's how I got to know Marcella. And she was a Gatsky. And yeah, there's a whole history behind that name.

And also, I think, you know, many people know this already, that so many Jewish families, when they have had to move from country to country, they have felt that they've had to change their names to lose the Jewish element in order to not be persecuted, in order to try and fit in. And actually just reading it on the page, the change in the Gatsky surname so many times,

really brings it home just how disturbing that displacement must be. I think that change in name is such a dramatic symbol of the change in circumstances and of the powerlessness that the Jewish immigrants, that condition that they existed in. Marcella's family are now Gatskys, which is Gatsky with a Y at the end. They don't know what their original surname was. They were Russian Jews who were fleeing the pogroms at the turn of the century in Tsarist Russia, they were kind of all corralled almost in one area of Russia, the Russian Empire, in the pale of settlement. And they were forced to live in small communities,

small village-like communities known as shettles. At that time, if you went outside the borders of your shuttle, if you're a Jew, you could be beheaded. You could be killed. It was illegal for you to leave the shuttle. You couldn't work outside there. That was the case for most Jews. And as things became more tumultuous at that time with the Russian Revolution, there were massive pogroms against the Jews in the shuttle.

So, you know, they came in, torched the buildings. against the Jews in the shuttle. So, you know, they came in, torched the buildings, you know, there was massive, hideous violence in Odessa, which was in modern day Ukraine. And so Marcella's family just put all their stuff on a horse and cart. It was her family, her great grandmother was called Chaya and her grandfather was called Maya and they made their way over here. Sheila Banerjee there and her book is called What's in a Name? And actually it led to us having loads of fun with our lovely listeners this afternoon, Jane, didn't it? About what you would rather have been called,

whether or not you hate or love your name and just some really fun, and I'm sorry we couldn't read them out, but some very, very, very misplaced names. Well, I'll just read this one this is from mark i used to work in an insurance company processing claims from the united states an older lady customer had the first name fanny it's not that unusual in the usa but her surname was sweats but also fanny doesn't mean the same in the usa no it um it doesn't it means does it mean a handbag or something well a fanny pack

is the one that always gets us. It certainly gets my kids. It gets me too. But that's just like what we would call a bum belt. I suppose it isn't. But there's all sorts of complications here. I'm a long time

listener, but a first time caller says somebody who gives us three versions of their name. I spend a lot of time thinking about what my name says about me. I regularly go by at least three different names. I wouldn't recommend this. It gets confusing. And I struggle with figuring out which one I really identify with. So my first two names are Johanna Georgitina, after my great-great-grandmother.

And my parents have always referred to me by a version of my middle name, Georgetown. I moved to England at the age of two, and they decided that an anglicised version of this would make life simpler, so my school and university friends, including my boyfriend, all call me Georgia. But over the years, I've fallen out of love with Georgia, mostly because it didn't reflect any of my Dutch or Surinamese nationality or heritage. When I entered the workforce at 21, I decided to start going by my first name, Johanna. Unfortunately, this wasn't as simple a name as I expected, and I am regularly called some version of Jo, Joanne, Johan, Johanna. Johan Joanna. I struggle with knowing how to refer to myself when I meet new people,

and I'm not sure which of these names strike the balance between not erasing my non-English identity without making life ridiculously complicated by picking a name that no one can write or pronounce. Best wishes, Johanna Georgian Georgia. God, some people have very complicated names to deal with, don't they, Jane, Susan, Garvey? Well, yeah, but I'm not one of them, let's face it. In fact, the name Garvey, it is actually, it means rough. It isn't very good, is it? I don't really know what to say. What would it be if it meant smooth? Well, I don't know, but this is, it's an old, it's an Irish name, it's been knocking around for years. I mean,

you know when people say it's a very old family, you just think, bugger off, we're all old families. We wouldn't be here otherwise, would we? Yes, nobody just starts out of nowhere, do they? No, they don't. So we're all ancient. Not even the Fitzbigs, Fitzwilliams, Fitzsmithes. Nope.

They're all just here like we are. Well, you can tell what my family did, can't you? They made mittens. And that's it from us. We're both away on our holidays, so it's goodbye from me, Fiona Susanna, with an H, Grace Clover. Yes.

You see, that's sophisticated, whereas I'm slightly resentful about the lack of sophistication in no i don't i like it really well i mean what can you do that was what sheila's book was actually so interesting on i mean your name is your name for good or ill but it's more complicated we're both gonna miss the plane just say good night no honestly we're back in two weeks time yeah sheila's book is great it's called What's in a Name read it if you can

enjoy your holidays make sure that you reapply your sun notion send us postcards don't eat all of the breakfast buffet God I'm already thinking about it I wonder if they'll have those cakes with the confectioners custard in them that you do sometimes get

are you going to have a carver at breakfast I won't have a carver, but I will have a ham slice with a bit of cheese, and then you can call it a salad. No, seriously, we will also... I'm not even going to do a prediction for the score on Sunday because it's just literally too important for me. Bye! Goodbye. the nationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler

and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3pm and you can listen for free on your smart speaker. Just shout Play Times Radio at it. You can also get us on DAB Radio in the car or on the Times Radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy.

And you can follow all our tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our Instagram account. Just go onto Insta and search for Jane and Fee and give us a follow. So in other words, we're everywhere, aren't we, Jane? Pretty much everywhere. Thank you for joining us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.