I was told that WOG stood for Westernised Oriental Gentleman and that the term was an endearment.

My own identity anomalies started to become apparent at an early age. For years I thought my grandparents were my parents and assumed my mother was the elder of two sisters. My mother called her mother Mummy and I called my grandmother Memmy and called my grandfather Dadum. I called my mother Mama but had no idea that any of these names had any relational significance until I was six when I said to my mother 'Mama, Memmy’s our mother isn’t she?' My mother, in astonishment and with some amusement, explained who was who and how the names had come about. I mentioned this, recently, to Jenny. She writes:

'I think I’ve always known who was whom!... … I invented the names ‘Memmy’ and ‘Dadum’.. …I couldn’t say Grandma and Granddad properly. We did spend a lot of time with our grandparents while Moth (a later endearing name for our mother) was at work (which I hadn’t realised until ages later), so it’s not surprising that you made the mistake that you did!' Jennie Suttie 2006

I also started asking questions about my father who had been, up to that point, not so much an irrelevance in my life, but a non-existent concept. I had thought that father and grandfather were interchangeable terms of endearment for the main male and that all other familial males were uncles. But, by the time I was eight, I thought I had a handle on who I was. Life seemed good. And, even though conversation about my father was usually quickly steered to another subject, I had gleaned that he was a good dancer, an excellent driver, had kept chickens and was from Thailand. All but my mother sometimes referred to him as a WOG. I was told that WOG stood for Westernised Oriental Gentleman and that the term was an endearment. I accepted the explanation as only a child would and did not remember feeling insulted when called all number of things by my classmates in primary school; I did not know then that wog, yellow, jap, foreigner, coon and spic (I have often been mistaken for an Italian) were terms of abuse, but I did sense that I was often singled out for harsher or unfair treatment by my teachers and my peers. I developed a sense of inferiority quite early in life even though I did not then understand the meaning and context of my unfair treatment.

In addition to the ways in which gender differences have affected my and Jenny’s experiences, about which I will say more, later, Jenny was also more integrated into village life:

' …As well as the Post Office and general stores there was also a butchers and a bakers shop, as well as a farm shop a little further away. It was sometimes, my job to phone them up with the weekly orders which would then be delivered when required. I used to go on the local bus to school in the next town under the protection of Janet ~ (a ‘big’ girl – aged 9) who was the baker’s daughter. I believe the population at the time was about 100. There was also a pub that Dadum and Uncle Geoff (Day) used to go to on Sunday mornings on the pretext of going into the village to buy ice-cream for the Sunday lunch pudding.' Jennie Suttie 2006

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