Patrick Comerford
Many years ago, while I was staying on the Greek island of Kos, I wanted to visit the neighbouring Aegean island of Patmos and the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, with the cave where Saint John wrote the Book of Revelation.
I was travelling alone, and the arrangements were slightly complex, making sure I could the right ferries, with an early morning start but still getting back in time for dinner with the family in the evening. There could hardly have been much of a commission or profit for the travel agent, but in the best Greek tradition of philoxenia, she was attentive to all the details and worked hard for a very small task.
The tickets arrived under my hotel room door early in the morning. But when I looked at them my name was spelled Σόμερφορντ – Somerford. There is no ‘C’ in the Greek alphabet, and so had used the Σ, sigma, although I normally use Γκ in transliterations to get the hard C initial for my surname.
As I headed off for Patmos, I wondered whether Patrick Somerford would ever get on board the ferry. Even more worryingly, I wondered whether I would ever get back to Kos. The trip was 2-4 hours each way; could this turn into a 24-hour marathon?
I should never gave worried, and nothing ever came of it … I seem to fret too much about details like this when travelling, yet few people have ever checked my travel papers in Greece, probably because my looks and body language appear Greek.
But I have always let my imagination run away with itself when it comes to any misspelling of my surname – from Comfort to Somerford – to the real and acceptable variants, from Comberford and Commerford to Cumberford or even (in parts of Wexford) Comerton.
But, 25 years after that one-day pilgrimage to Patmos as Patrick Somerford, the name Somerford came to my attention again, with the death of Jilly Cooper two months ago [2 October] and Queen Camilla’s visit this week to the Bristol set of the television series Rivals.
It is going to be no surprise when I say that I have never read any one of Jilly Cooper’s romantic, horsey novels in the Rivals and Riders series. But one of the minor characters in these Rutshire Chronicles is known as Somerford Keynes.
I wondered whether he could be a cross between Patrick Somerford and Milton Keynes, but there is, in fact, a village called Somerford Keynes of the Upper Thames Valley, close to the boundary of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, midway between Cirencester, Swindon and Malmesbury, but still 35 km (22 miles) from Quemerford.
Somerford Keynes is a village that stretches for about 1 km north to south along its main street. The north part of the village, taking in a length of the main street, includes a distinct cluster of buildings to the west, with All Saints’ Church, the Manor House and Somerford Keynes House, formerly the vicarage. Somerford Keynes and the neighbouring village of Shorncote have a combined population of about 550-600 people.
Somerford means a ford that can only be used in summer, while Keynes from the name of the Keynes family, originally from Cahaignes in Normandy.
Somerford Keynes is first named in any document is in a charter in the year 685 when King Ethelred’s nephew Bertwald granted land to Saint Aldhelm, first abbot of Malmesbury. All Saints’ Church is a Grade II* listed building built on Saxon foundations from ca 685, and largely rebuilt in the early 13th century. The tower was added in 1710-1713 and the church was restored in 1875 by the architect Frederick Waller.
In the Domesday Book, the village was part of the lands of the Bishop of Lisieux. William de Cahaignes, who held the manor in 1211, was a member of the Keynes family, who were lords of the manor from ca 1100 to 1300 and who give their name to Somerford Keynes. The Manor House is a Grade II listed building and probably dates from the late 15th century or the early 16th century.
Until 1897, Somerford Keynes was in Wiltshire, but it was then transferred to Gloucestershire – by 3 votes to 2.
I have no idea what sort of character Jilly Copper’s Somerford Keynes is supposed to be like. I imagine he’s nothing like me, and I know he has links either with the Comerford family, no matter how whimsically you spell or misspell my family name, or, for that matter, with Milton Keynes.
