Deed Poll

Today

Very pleased that the Bed Workshop has agreed to pay for the cost of the repair to our French bed. "I'd like the cheque payable to Alice Barrett, please," I said.

As a result of the somewhat absurd money-laundering precautions, all my bank accounts have to be in my legal, rather than used name. Even though my account does indicate my "known as" name, I often encounter jobsworth cashiers in my bank who refuse to accept cheques made out in my used name, even when they know me by sight.

When I protest, their helpful advice is to go and change my name by deed poll. This I refuse to do merely for the convenience of the bank's regulations.

In My Day

It came as a sort of unshocking surprise to Paul when his mother informed him that the surname he'd been called by all his life wasn't actually legally his; Dad being his stepfather, not his natural father.

She gave him his birth certificate and left him to his own thoughts on the subject.

For a while, it didn't really matter. He continued to be known by the same name, officialdom being rather more relaxed in those days, and he didn't own a passport.

When he wanted to get married, however, it was altogether different. He had no desire to marry using the legal name to which he felt no connection. We discussed perhaps adopting mine but that didn't seem quite right. So Paul went to a local solicitor and changed his name to the one he'd always used anyway. Simple!

We still have that scrap of paper, proving not only that he did the deed, but also where he felt his filial loyalties lay. And that's as important as the name itself.