Stepping Out of the Shadows

It took me quite a few decades to emerge from the deepest of shadows but I may be finally coming out. You see someone stole my identity quite a few year ago leaving me anonymous to the outside world. Technically he didn't steal it because he had it first, but you know what I mean.







In the years since I became aware I was but a pale clone of this other being it became increasingly hard to maintain equilibrium. If people addressed me at the bus stop I would jump; trips to the library became fraught. I withered in the shadows and I hid from the sun, headpieces full of straw - alas.

In the early days people remarked on the coincidence and I even took his books from the library. Sometimes I even returned them. it seems like a happy sort of serendipity at first. Little did I know those innocuous books containing drawings of castles, Roman forums and pyramids would soon become thousands of tons of rock piled above my head.

My mother forced me to write to him, although I still recoil at the grim recollection. In hindsight my multiple personality syndrome by hyperproxy began at this very point.

"Dear David Macaulay. I have the same name as you and I also like drawing castles," the letter may have said. "I am also from England."

The letter omitted to say "I'm not freaking famous and I'm eight-years-old."

He duly wrote back saying the sort of things minor celebs say to such letters. "Thanks for writing - consider putting in for a new mother etc."

I still remember the letterhead with its rather pleasantly illustrated bricks.

In later life he dogged me. The Internet only made matters worse. Whenever I tried to Google my stories he would pop up. My first appearance was on page 18. I added the 'l' in a vain attempt to gain individuality. One person who commented on my blog came across his picture and had me down for being even older than I am.

But I dwelled in the shadows still. Mostly. Except when I was in bright sunlight by the swimming pool.

But the other day a very odd thing happened. I Googled myself (we all do it right? We just don't admit it) and up popped Brits in second place.I didn't even have to use the 'l" It wasn't a one off. It still does.

The moral of the story, if there is one is this - keep plugging away and you may eventually be your own person. You won't always be eclipsed by some mustacioed bloke from Lancashire.