Nothing wrong with Jud, Tez . . . or Oxo

DO you have a nickname? Perhaps it’s my non-league football background, but I like them. On the other hand, my late mother-in-law didn’t. There was a legendary tale of how she chased away a lad who came to the front door once and asked for their George, except he called him Jud.

A similar if somewhat more graphic story is attached to a friend of mine who is known to everyone as Taff. Taff’s dad really was Welsh and when he answered the door to a boy who asked in all innocence: “Is your Taff in please?”, he turned into the front room and said: “David, there’s some blinking ignorant buffoon at the door.” Or words to that effect.

That story always reminds me of those occasions where you ring someone up and their mother answers the phone. You ask for Tez and you hear her shout across the room: “Terence, it’s for you.” A friend of mine has a son named Thomas and goes mad if you dare to ask about Tom or Tommy.

Personally, I’m quite happy for my son to be called Jim or Jimmy. My mother-in-law wasn’t, of course, and never tired of telling me so.

As you might guess, my nickname has always been Pav, Pavvy or Pav-o, although there was a time in the late 1960s when I tried to get the name Jack. That was because I was tall and thin, and whenever we had a corner at football on the school field I would head up to the goalline like a junior Jack Charlton, mimicking commentators by saying: “And big Jack Pav goes up to the line.”

Anyway, the name didn’t stick. Possibly because Jack Charlton was slightly better than me.

But schoolboys can be very inventive in the nickname stakes. A mate called Stephen Lee was called tea leaf because his name shortened to Ste Lee.

Another friend was called Bill Batey and his nickname was Oxo.

Now this is dead clever and could only be worked out by a 13-year-old lad. Bill’s full name was William Robert Batey, which shortens to Bill Bob Batey. That’s three Bs, which is B cubed, which is beef cubed, which is Oxo. Brilliant!

Another lad at school was called Dob because part of him was reputed to be of mammoth proportions. Continual use of that name eventually made him ill, which is strange because I’m sure he would love the tag nowadays.

For some reason, they occasionally referred to me as Tiny. Perhaps because I was the tallest in the class.