Yan

Yan

From before I can remember my family; mom (dee), dad (john), brothers – andi (4 years older – nice) & david (5 years older – nasty one [until lawyers edit this out]) – used to drive; in annual raggle-taggle variations of vehicles we’d amassed seemingly just for this experience, from Leeds, west Yorkshire….down thru Calais or to Portsmouth…then we’d catch a ferry (or v occasional hovercraft!)…either thru Calais or le havre, and then we’d gravitate towards Crozon in Brittany (or Bretagne). It was a cove in a peninsula – opposite the city of Brest (which I visited briefly in an ill-fated ‘exchange’ during my last year of middle school). North West tip of France; Crozon was a smallish town, almost seemingly twinned with Morgat….as I haven’t visited for probs 2 decades those places are a bit of a blur nowadays – but many many fond memories resound from times spent there.

My mom was a school teacher – so she shared our school holidays – 6 weeks! And my dad was a fire-fighter….so I guess his employer was cool with him taking 6 weeks off! These days – I’m a nurse, getting 3 weeks off together is a real pain, you have to go thru line manager, or modern matron to ‘allow’ you to take this time off….almost prompting you to feel a bit too much ‘stress’ and have 6 months off eh? Never done it myself but heard many many people talk affectionately about the possibility! Never say never eh?

Oh yeah, btw if you aint gathered yet – I have a tendency to ramble on a bit, lol. I have chaotic tendencies, butterfly mind, ethereal qualities – friends and acquaintances (geoff larwood at park lane – Sharon at dewsburry: are they still alive? On facebook???) have commented upon about me.

If I dwell upon the camping trips later on will reference this later, probs will tbf, but for now suffice to say when I was born I was ‘ian’ yet due to camping in france we were immersed in another culture, different language, different people! One day, possibly when I was about 11 years old we were looking around a seaside town. On display were named mugs – one had the name ‘yann’ written on it. We all seemed to notice it & remark upon it – how similar to ‘ian’ it was and from then on – to my immediate family, my nickname was ‘yan’. Still, id often be called ian at home by parents or siblings, yet equally itd often be ‘yan, can you do this’ or ‘yan, will you do that?’….

At home it never seemed to matter – yet one day at school, during a new French lesson, with a new French teacher, a new form teacher – it was a whole new year! Ummmmm, must’ve been about 10 or 11 years old – in the middle of my time at Holt Park Middle School. 1^st actual lesson, with the form teacher who was doing our French lesson. She was giving everyone names;…Elizabeth (who I had a crush on) was called elizabet! Such a lovely name. David, who was a smallish yet cute loveable kid, was named Didier! Nice!, etc etc round the class, in the middle she came to me. You’re name is ian, you’re French name will be ‘yyves’….

’ummm excuse me mrs intolerant, my French name is ‘yan”

‘what? Ive named you ‘yves’ – so yves is what u will be!’

‘I’m sorry miss but ive been to france and im called yan in france’ – big smile to show I was being helpful.

She swooped! She seemed to scream “YYYYYVVVEEEESSSSS!!!!! You are YYYYYVVVEEEESSSSS!!!!!”

And then she slapped me round the face! The mad fucking teacher bitch slapped me round the face coz I had my own name rather than the one she chose for me! From then on I guess the French resistance resurged underneath the vichy government – only on a subconscious level though I hasten to add. I was yves on the surface yet yan on the underground – lolz. Around this time was when I was found to need glasses to read the black/whiteboard – but that’s another story. The seeds of rebellion were well & truly sowed. Thanks Mrs M????? whoever you were – you seemed nice but you had a nasty vicious side that I realised on my first day! – so that was the English birth of yan – during a French lesson.

So unofficially my name – at home was yan, which was and still is cool. When I was about 14 a mate from my high school called at my house, his name was Phil (I may ask my brother andi for more info on this guy, he was lovely but such a liar!) and he just spent an evening or weekend hanging around listening to records, at my house, or making up tall stories [such as the time he was sitting in the front of his brothers car – when they were in a car smash…both his eyes popped out of their sockets, so he scrabbled around on the floor, found his eyeballs & then popped them back into their sockets – his words!] – cant remember actually tbh. Anyway what I do recall is him hearing me being called ‘yan’ all the time and the next time at school – Lawnswood High School, he started calling me yan there – and suffice to say it caught on like wildfire…i was yan from then on!

Phil & me went to see, at Leeds University, the band magazine (howard devoto’s new band after the buzzcocks) and their support was Bauhaus. We were totally blown away by Bauhaus who were awesome! All thru magazine I was sat just outside of the doors on the steps talking to tom kincaids brother? Who was an nme reporter – or so he said, talking how cool London was, etc (me & phil just wanted to go live in the big city – who doesn’t at 14!) anyroad missed magazine and by this time Bauhaus were taking their stuff into their van…me & phil went up to pete Murphy & said

‘wow, you were so cool, what a fucking awesome band, etc’

PM said hey d’ya wanna buy our new 12” single ‘bela lugosi’s dead’….ummmm it meant me & phil putting together 2£ each so we could buy it, pete Murphy signed it for us too!

On the 7 mile walk back home (it was our taxi money home ho hum) we decided that we’d share the 12”, phil would have it for the 1^st few weeks/months & id have it for a few after…….needless to say never saw the fucker ever again! Anyone seen it on ebay? – should I mention phil’s & my ideas on the impending nuclear holocaust and how we would protect our record collections, in subterranean shelters, yet still managing to reach the Mecca of London & finding girlfriends & life would be re-born? maybe later….

The evolution of yan to jan (the more eurpoean equivalent) can be charted to one specific incident. Not very exciting, or as volatile as previous school lesson - still the educational theme runs strong.

During 2^nd year of my fine/interactive art degree at Newport, south wales. I was called in to see Martin, for a critical appraisal of my current ‘cultural studies’ essay – I seem to remember it was at the old campus site (Clarence place?) – name escapes me now – some office somewhere, or maybe at the Caerleon campus? Some office basically, think my tutors had by now realized the chaotic nature of my brain patterns & were trying to hone me into an almost ‘beginning-middle-end’ essay writer, so I got quite a bit of support. 

(here's a sample of the stuff Martin did with me: 

hope it helps)

Had an interesting discussion about my ideas & areas of future research, and some comments on embellishing current scribblings….blah blah blah. Then I noticed Martin had written his comments to ‘jan’. I did mention it to him & he said….thats you’re name isn’t it? I said ‘yeah’ and that was when the spelling became jan J! Auspicious or what!