The Goldhawks
Names matter I think. We just take them for granted but they say something about our parents, their parents, or the family village or the traditional family job, like with all those Cooks and Smiths. I think that we’re choosing to be a family and that a name could say something about that and show the choice we have made… I’m thinking that we might call ourselves the Goldhawks…
They fell into calling themselves “the Goldhawks”. Friends share activities and provide mutual support - when do they become a “family of choice”? Does giving themselves a name mean that they have crossed the boundary?
Goldhawk Road is a major thoroughfare in West London. It is named after John Goldhawk, who in the late 14th century held extensive estates in the area. By the mid-1970s, Goldhawk Road was part lively shopping area and part unappealing, trash-strewn and traffic-heavy road, somewhat immune from the waves of gentrification then sweeping through west London.
Photo credit: daytrips.caramelsalty.com/about
“Bloody Thatcher, she’s screwed the progressive councils trying to protect what’s left of their housing stock,” LILY notes with quiet fury, delivering an opening that could pass muster at a Labour Party Conference – well, at least in one of the side meetings. (Some Family Matters, page 87)
NEIL is different here from his persona with his family. There, he is ambiguously aloof, some midpoint between apprehensive, condescending and icy. He is distant here too, but sweet and hesitant, self-effacing in a way that could just be attention-seeking. (Some Family Matters, page 19)
SALLY is pre-emptively apologetic and self-deprecating, sometimes to the point of absurdity, but caring to the nth degree. Her concern to be honest, to be what she is, is reflected in her gently unmanaged frizzy hair, her absolute refusal to even contemplate make-up and her occasional saying of awkward things that might not have needed saying. (Some Family Matters, page 26)
COLIN started at Neil’s school in his late teens. They both took the number 336 bus in the mornings… Colin’s heavy smoking (dope and Marlboro) and his swimming prowess sit oddly alongside Neil’s obsessions with fact-collecting and mending small machines. (Some Family Matters, page 28)
TARA has returned to live with her mother, another social work colleague of Neil’s who works two desks away from his in the office warren where they struggle to understand how the poor are meant to navigate life. Tara now lives in the vast Shepherds Bush house which her mother acquired in her divorce. (Some Family Matters, page 32)
KEITH is from a different world. Black American is about as different an identity as Neil can imagine. He doesn’t want to be Keith or to be American or to be Black – he wants to know that different is there… (Some Family Matters, page 117)
DENI seems nice enough – Black, handsome, Brazilian, fine featured, striking in fact, and culturally fascinating. But what is this all about? Is this something significant or is Neil merely showing off his latest conquest (Some Family Matters, page 130)
KATE is genuinely, not euphemistically, big-boned... She was brought to the UK from Monserrat in the late fifties... The young girl who was required to salute the Union Jack, the Girl Guide, the smart kid who had her hand up first, the big girl who could fight back – they were all still there in this large, funny, wise woman. (Some Family Matters, page 139)
HILARY’S conversational style is far from linear. She roams freely over a range of topics, often leaving Neil a little lost as to exactly what they are talking about. He thinks of her as a swimming pool vacuum cleaner or a goat browsing in a field – she seems to cover all the territory in the end but more by accident than intention. (Some Family Matters, page 145)