Nicknames

"What? Wasn't 'Gizmo' the name of the school rabbit??" the more observant of you will be asking. The answer is "yes". I wanted a new nickname, something slightly more inventive than "Burkey" (and clearly something better than "Tuburkeylosis"), so we had a think and a few suggestions, and then Matt Bailey came up with "Gizmo" - as in a cool type of gadget, not the Gremlin. And then a couple of days later, Mr Kirby came around the classes taking suggestions and votes of what the new school rabbit should be called. Matt said "Gizmo!", and everyone agreed, and then Mr Kirby took the suggestion around all the other classes, and it was the most popular one. And that is the story of how I got the school rabbit named after me.

"'losis" was actually a shortening of the nickname - a nickname of a nickname! You saw it here first. Apart from "Chocs", natch.

I heard the story at the Reunion of how this name started - I think it was just a random name someone said one day, but feel free to correct me. Comically, it is the name my mum always refers to Louise with - "I saw Eadie-Beadie's mum today", or similar. Marvellous!

I think the last one is just my pet name for Mel. Aw.

Because, presumabley, "Gambley" would just have been a crazy nickname.

Apparently Martin got a chin-on one day in the Third year, and became the "class chinny". On the very first day of the Fourth year, Martin went up to Matt Bailey and said, as his first words to him of the year, "Matt, am I still the class Chinny?" and Matt replied with the almost immortal response, "Martin, for that, you are." Comedy genius at it's best.

It took me 9 years to find out where this ubiquitous nickname came from - the most successful nickname I ever heard as, since its inception, I never actually heard anyone refer to him as "Richard" apart from the teachers. Apparently only about 3 people know its true meaning, even though everyone in the entire year used it as his name. Even people from other schools used it.

There was a marvellous moment in the Fourth year. Those of us in Mr Fuller's class were sat there one day after Mr Fuller had sent Chocs around to Mrs Budden's to ask for something. Suddenly, Mrs Budden's class uproared in laughter, and we all stopped work and thought "?". We found out later that Mrs Budden had asked a question, somebody had answered "Chocolate", and Chocs had just walked straight in unintentionally on-cue.

Not used often, but a successful name, and an inventive one at that.