An XUNICEF Escapee in print ? : Ken Gibbs

WEDDING BELLS

Long, long ago when we were young – before we became migrants – we decided that living together had a number of advantages.  For Mary, one of those advantages was that she could determine what we should eat, and when.  For me, it was that I was generally discouraged from being in the kitchen except when washing up was required. 

I had been spoiled as a child as it was never envisaged that I would ever have to cook for myself.  Probably just as well because I seemed to be able to burn boiled eggs.

Because both of us came from quite conservative families, it was made clear to us that marriage was the only option because try-before-you-buy was not condoned by either of our families; so, marriage it was to be.

My mother-in-law-to-be was delighted and set about the preparations for the wedding by invading a whole lot of shops to ensure that we would be equipped as befitted families of consequence.  My father-in-law-to-be was dismayed at the financial implications of his wife’s spending and quietly took me on one side to see if I would be willing to elope with Mary, putting such a sum on it, that I was tempted.  That was, until my mother-in-law-to-be got wind of what he was plotting and absolutely forbade it.  That tells you who wore the trousers in my-in-laws-to-be family, leaving me with a concern that Mary’s DNA would make her behave in the same way.

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 Those readers sufficiently interested in how we met originally should click here.

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Actually, this article is not about us, per se, but about one of the ramifications of having joined UNICEF around 15 years later when I had to undergo a very steep learning curve in how to write for UNICEF and its donors.  At my primary and secondary schools, I had been taught the rudiments of writing in my home language – English - but I found that UNICEF required many, many variations.  What follows joins the dots between our marriage with lofty ideals of writing Shakespearean English and the corruption of the language by UNICEF – theoretically in the interests of children.

In common with many people throughout the world, friends and family of the marrying couple are expected to give gifts to the couple to mark the occasion.  So, too, with us, we were spoiled with the number and value of the gifts.

One of the gifts from a maverick cousin of mine was a £25 voucher/investment in a Fund which, given the date of purchase, was a very handsome gift.  So handsome was it that we decided not to cash it in unless it was essential to our survival.  Happily, that time didn’t come though there were some periods where we were perilously close to survival mode.

Move on through the decades after our wedding and the original Fund was taken over by another larger Fund that saw it as a good investment for themselves; and this happened not just once but twice, so I was compelled to keep an account not only of the value of the gift, but the name of the latest administration.  All the while, the £25 kept on growing – with occasional dips due to general financial malaise of the country.

Each time a new administration bought up the Fund, we would be showered with correspondence telling us all sorts of things in a language which was so arcane that I had to consult my son who is a Financial Officer of an investment firm, so he could translate for me.

This brings me to the correspondence from the latest administration which reminded me of my halcyon days in UNICEF, writing donor reports.  It follows with – in deference to the company that now owns the Fund – most things that identify the company being blackened out.  I found the handling of the acronyms and language in general, so like that used in many donor reports that I have read, that I can only assume the writer must have had a training in writing UNICEF donor reports.

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Incidentally, the current value of this wedding gift is now £3,960 which is close on 8.5% per annum, compounded monthly over 60 years if my calculator’s battery was effective. That is a tidy sum for my cousin who was a financial advisor, and who went bankrupt not once, but twice during his lifetime !

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