Who Are We?

Week Sixteen: Sunday 14 – Saturday 20 January

I opened up my college email the other day and the first email I saw had a subject line that read, ‘Lecture by David Bate.’ My first reaction was, ‘F*ck, who’s set me up, and what the f*ck am I supposed to be giving a lecture on.

When I opened up the email it turns out the lecture was being given by a guy called David Bate from Winchester University in London; head of the MA Photography course, he was coming to University College Falmouth to give a lecture on the work of a famous photographer called Jeff Wall.

After the initial relief at knowing I hadn’t been set up and wouldn’t have to give a lecture after all, I couldn’t stop thinking about his name: my name! It didn’t help that I was inundated with various witty emails and text messages from people on my course regarding the email that I, and they, had received.

Bate is not the most common name in the world: it’s not the most common name in the British Isles for that matter; it is actually a Cornish name, located in the area around Padstow. So throughout my life I have never come across many other people with the surname Bate that weren’t my relations; growing up in Edinburgh all the Bate entries in the telephone directory were my family. And I have NEVER come across anyone with the same first and second name as me.

Now, there could be dozens of people called David Bate in the British Isles, and further a field for that matter, but I’ve never come across them, hard of them or, indeed, been told about them by anyone else. So it came as a real surprise to find that there is at least one other David Bate alive, well and functioning on planet earth; and he was coming to the college I attend to give a lecture!

Call it curiosity, call it vanity, call it what you want – I had to go and check the guy out and see what he looked liked, how he sounded, and how he moved, dressed and functioned. Yeah, call it vanity; because when I got to the lecture theatre where the presentation was held I got there early so I could check the guy out and, against my better judgement, I decided that he wasn’t as good looking as me, didn’t have as good a physique, voice or dress sense and couldn’t deliver a presentation with the same panache as me either.

Hey, I wasn’t putting the guy down: he was fine, good and well; just not, in my opinion, as fine, good or well as me! But what if he had been? What if he had turned out to be a Brad Pitt look-a-like, with the voice of Richard Burton, body of Thierry Henry, moves of Robbie Williams and dress sense of Bogart? Just how well would I have coped with that?

Well, I like to think well, because I’m mature, secure and balanced; but I’d be kidding myself on. So, what is it about someone with the same name as us? What’s in a name? Who are we?