Friday, July 14, 2006



When my uncle Harry (my father's oldest brother was born) his father Harry Waterhouse Hayward had not yet married my grandmother Ellen Carter. My father argued that, technically, Harry, the son could not have Waterhouse as his middle name. This was an honour bestowed on the firstborn male and Harry was not a legitimate firstborn even though his father and mother married later. When I came along, my father George Hayward named me Jorge Alejandro Waterhouse-Hayward. In Argentina, until recently, babies could not have foreign names. The only way my father was able to insert Waterhouse as a middle name was with a hyphen and a 50 peso bribe. And that is how I became the first and last male of the family to have that surname. My daughters will not transfer the name to anybody and up to know I have two granddaughters. When Hilary Waterhouse-Hayward Stewart was pregnant for the second time I told her I would disown her if she had a little boy! What could I possibly do with a male grandson? I love my two little females, Rebecca and Lauren.

Perhaps my fondness for the little girls has all to do that my eldest daughter, Alexandra (Ale) Elizabeth Waterhouse-Hayward, besides being most beautiful and femenine, she also has the qualities of the perfect son. Consider that she can assemble barbecues and Ikea furniture in record times while I am hopeless at it. Best of all, Ale loves airplanes. Could I hope for more? She was so keen on airplanes that Patrick Reid gave her a job at the trade arm of the Abbotsford Air Show (Airshow Canada) for a few years and Ale was even hired by the Chilean Airforce to go to Santiago to help them there with an airshow. Going with Ale to an airshow was fun as she not only admired many of the airplanes that I admired, like the Sukhoi here, but also I must admit that after the F-100 Super Sabre I lost count with American fighter plane nomenclature. Ale can tell the difference between the F-15 and the F-18 and knows what a Tomcat looks like. One of my favourite photographs ever is one that Ale took of me with our favourite Sukhoi.