A boy named Beverley

Originally I was to be given the name of Terry then my mother was admitted to the maternity ward at Southlands Hospital, Shoreham. That would have been in early June of 1949. Whilst she was waiting for me to pop out, the lady in the bed next to her went into labour and produced a baby boy, which she immediately named Terry.

Although my mum did not know the lady, nor did she ever meet the lady again, it put her into a panic and she decided then and there that I was not going to be a Terry. She therefore decided to choose a name that was unlikely to be used again before I came along. By the way I was late as usual.

She had been reading a copy of the Daily Telegraph and at that time the Telegraph had a freelance journalist who went by the name of ‘Beverley Nichols’…. Mum liked the name and yes it was indeed different.

So I became ‘Beverley John Pook’ and as I was too young to argue it stuck. The name John was my dad’s preference, but even though he was old enough to argue he did not win the argument.

I call it the ‘Tom Jones’ syndrome because as strange as the name may seem…It’s not unusual.

During my life so far, I have met four guys that have been given the name ‘Beverley’ and this has a rather peculiar coincidence in itself.

In order of introduction:

Beverley John Snook: ………..…Chairman of the Royal Aero Club.

Beverley Took: ………………… A friend of my cousin, Roger.

Beverley Crute: ………………… A fellow employee when I worked for Thorn Lighting.

So there we have Snook, Took, Crute and Pook.

Oh! The other one, he was ‘Beverley Williams’ but as you can see he didn’t go with the flow.

At the tender and impressionable age of fifteen I tried to change my name and go under the name of John when I acquired my first job to work on a building site…. It caused a problem because they thought I was deaf, as I was obviously slow to respond to the change of being called John… It didn’t last long however because a lad I was at school with came on site and I was introduced as John by a fellow worker and he said “no that’s not his name, his name is Beverley”… Damn, I thought…. that is the last time I try that one.

At this point I would like to point out that I am already the unfortunate owner of at least ten copies of Johnny Cash’s song called “A boy named Sue” and I would appreciate it if I did not receive any more.

If only I had the foresight at an early age, instead of being called Bev it could have been shortened to Lee. Being called Bev has always offered people the chance to ask what is that short for… Lee would have been accepted and only when I had to fill out official forms would Beverley be used.

I remember my first day at Gatwick with the BAA, obviously the supervisor I had to report to had been primed with my name. I had to knock on the entry door to the crew room as it was always locked for security reasons. The Supervisor opened the door and said, “Hello and who are you” To which I responded, “My name is Bev Pook I’m starting here today” He looked me up and down and put on an effeminate voice saying…. “Oh so you are Beverley are you” I leaned forward, looking to the left and to the right and having gained his attention I spoke very softly saying “You don’t want my sister Eric to hear you talking like that”

Before the days of computers my Doctors always gave me a second look when I entered the surgery room, I could see that my medical card was still pink, not blue. They never did sort that out.

As a youngster in my early teens, a few mates and I were up to a bit of innocent mischief when a police officer caught us and wanted our names, my friend gave him the name of Timothy White, that wasn’t his name, it was actually the name of the shop behind the policeman who duly wrote it down without question… He then enquired my name. Not having the audacity of my friend I told him it was Beverley Pook. He looked at me and said, “I am going to ask you again son, what is your name” I told him a second time……….. ”It is Beverley Pook” and I spelt it out for him “B-E-V-E-R-L-E-Y P-O-O-K”…. He said, “Ok” and I said, “That’s right, Ok” he got quite annoyed but decided it would be easier to dismiss us saying to me, “Next time son give your correct name and don’t give any lip”

My all time favourite is the night the whole of Heathrow’s flight operations at American Airlines, including all the overnight crews attended a Captains retirement evening at The Forum Hotel in London. ‘Captain Ron Bernasconi’ wanted his evening to be in the guise of King Arthur and his round table. Every one was told to come dressed accordingly. My wife went dressed in period fashion as a lady of the court and I went dressed as a monk, wearing a sack cloth with hood and complete with a monk like wig that had a bald patch on top.

We had booked a room at the Hotel where we prepared our fancy dress, then went down stairs to the entrance of the grand banquet hall in our gear. At the door we realised that ‘Captain Ron’ had organised a concierge with a mike and he was introducing everyone as they entered… I decided that I was not going to be introduced as ‘Beverley Pook’ so when he came to us and asked our names I told him our names were ‘Maid Marion’ and ‘Dick Scratcher’… He duly announced it and the buzz in the room fell quiet, the scraping of chairs could be heard as a large majority turned around in their chairs to see who was entering. We just continued on to our allotted seats with the rest of the operations team as if nothing had happened and sat down to eat…. I have to tell you, that sack cloth got very itchy very quickly and I soon had had enough, going back to my room I changed to more suitable attire.

The operations team had clubbed together and bought ‘Captain Ron’ a retirement gift. It was a letter opener in the shape of the sword Excalibur and it fell to me to go up to the round table and present ‘Captain Ron’ with the gift. Ron’s son approached me with another bloody mike and asked me my name so he could announce me handing over the gift…. This time I felt that, perhaps, I should do the correct thing, especially now that I was no longer disguised and dressed as a monk.

So I owned up saying, “My name is Bev Pook…. It’s short for Beverley, I was too young to argue at the time”.

“Oh, ok” he said. “Not to worry about that, that’s nothing, we have someone here tonight who says his name is Dick Scratcher”