The Truth Will Out

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Trapeze Magazine has published my Haiku today at Trapeze
This is my first official publication :)
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Well, I promised to tell the truth today ... so here goes.

1) Katherine de Mattos was married to William Sydney de Mattos who is my first cousin three times removed (that means that there is three generations between us). I remember the stir when we had to study Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde at school and everyone found the dedication to Katherine de Mattos in the front of their text books. Alas, Robert Louis Stevenson is not a direct antecedent, so I can't claim his writerly blood flowing in my veins!

2) After a bit of additional research I have discovered that my great great great grandfather was born in Portugal and moved to Montevideo in Uruguay (not Brazil) on 27th November 1807 in the entourage of the Portuguese royal family. He returned to Europe where he met and married Gertze Elizabeth Brunze, a Dutch woman very recently widowed from a German known only to us as Herr Muller. My great great grandfather George William de Mattos was born in The Hague and served for a time in the Dutch army. By 1845 he was living in Wandsworth where he married Eliza Coomber.

3) My cousin really was editor of The Financial Times. I didn't give lots of information - after all he is still with us!

4) Edward Alexander Frderick Theodore de Mattos was in fact my great great great uncle who lived in Tunbridge Wells, just down the road from here. His son Joseph Hilbert de Mattos was indeed owner of the Eddison Steam Roller company. However at some stage he changed his name to Jack Hamilton and married Alice Blood. Possibly best to leave that there!

So the lie was my fictional great great uncle, and his imaginary role on the Clifton Suspension bridge. As a civil engineer, Brunel is something of an icon - so what better mentor for my supposed relative? I probably should have added an extra great but my real great great aunt was born in 1840 and my real great great great grandfather was born in 1815, so 1831 was somewhere imbetween!

Just as a little bit of fun Elena at You're Write. Except when you're Rong.
is hosting a mad-lib (actually it was yesterday, but I'm fashionably late!)
Here is my effort (with the blanks filed in bold):

Dear Anonymous Commenter,

I'm so happy that you've chosen to follow me, sort of, and while I appreciate your extreme dedication, please note that this is a writing blog, and I have to say your bleating is quite disturbing.

Not that I have anything against lambs per se or snowy whiteness in general.

I love all my followers.

I just don't think that your obsessive stalking is appropriate here. But I really do wish you the best with your gambolling and other things that normal lambs do. I know a lot of people who have had success with ovine groupies, but frankly I'm freaking out here.

Thanks again for your comment, and please come
by again. Just not with your insufferable cuteness.

Sincerely,

Mary