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From time to time people ask me
how I got the name Dodgy Dave
and why I take no offence at it.
The story starts about six or seven years ago
when I joined a Western Re-Enactment Society.
I went to help build a western town
that eventually became know as Deadwood.
As the date for near completion came
the only building left to be finished was the Church.
The original builders had left it only half built.
The owner of the farm
on which the town is built
wanted it finished for our grand opening day.
Someone suggested that because of all the help,
I had given, why I don’t take it on
and they would help me finish it,
but I needed a town name
that would go along with the building,
I thought for a moment and then said
what about Reverend Mr Black
after the old Kingston Trio song.
So for a couple of years
I became known as Rev. Mr Black.
Two of my friends Buck and Caroline
(better know to one and all as Caz)
were planning their wedding.
They were going to have an official ceremony
on the Friday and on the Saturday;
they were to have another wedding in the town.
They asked if I would marry them in the town ceremony.
I told them I would be honoured.
Caz then went around telling everyone,
family and friends
that Dodgy Dave the vicar was going to marry them,
but he isn’t dodgy,
it’s just my pet name for him.
Soon everybody started calling me Dodgy Dave.
However, with every nice story
somehow sadness always intervenes.
Six weeks before their wedding,
this pretty woman who had renamed me Dodgy Dave
died at the tender age of thirty.
We held a wake for her in the town
on the day she and Buck were to marry.
It was a sad affair,
but her memory remains with me
every time someone calls me Dodgy Dave.
There are so many memories attached to that name.
It was never given out of malice,
but out of friendship sincere.
Now the name Dodgy Dave
has become very dear to me.
I use it all the time,
because when I do it reminds me
of the young woman with fair hair
whose friendship I treasured so
and I never want to let the memory of her go.
So there you have it
the story behind the christening
of me to Dodgy Dave
11 March 2008
David Harris
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David Harris
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