Monday, July 24, 2006

Someone should write a book about it.

In fact, now I think about it, they may have...

This isn't my story to tell, so I'll mention no names... and some details may be changed, but as William Golding said at the beginning of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, much of what follows is true.

Many, many, years ago, the son of an English baronet (who was a long serving British MP) came to New Zealand to run the family business. On the voyage here, his mother, who allegedly had "the sight", pointed to a young woman on board & claimed "That's your future wife."

And it came to be. They settled in New Zealand, had 3 lovely children, two sons & a daughter, and sent them all to boarding schools.

The daughter moved to Europe & was well known in horsey circles. I don't know the details, and for the purpose of this story, they're none of our business, but she became pregnant to someone her parents thought was inappropriate, or maybe he was just unwilling to marry her. Like I said, it doesn't matter.

The child, a son, was adopted out. Life went on.

Some 30-40 years later, the daughter was home in New Zealand, and she was tracked down by her son.

And here is the amazing thing - her son was raised by a quite famous English person & his wife, and when grown up, entered British politics, becoming an MP. When he found his birth mother, not only was he astonished that he was the great grandson of an English baronet who was a long standing MP, but he discovered that he was occupying his great grandfather's chambers...

Spooky huh?

So anyway, the son of the baronet that this story started with, turned 100 last week. Happy birthday Sir X. May you have many more.