Alexandra Elizabeth Waterhouse-Hayward & Rosa 'Princess Alexandra of Kent'

  A Rose & Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel

When our daughter was born on August 27, 1968 at the British American Cawdry Hospital in Tacubaya, Mexico, Rosemary decided that she (it was a girl) would be called like her father.

That, to begin with, was complicated as I am Jorge Alejandro. But everybody has always called me Alex. My very Anglo/British uncle Freddy Hayward used to call me Alexander (pronounced Alexaunder) and so did my father when he was going to whip me for being a bad boy.

We wanted it to be Alexandra. We thought of the racier Xandra. In the end our daughter became Alexandra Elizabeth as her mother is called Rosemary Elizabeth.

After a few weeks when we moved to Arboledas, Estado de México in 1971, everybody called Alexandra Ale (pronounced Aleh). And that has been the case since although I cringe when they pronounce it Alee.

In 1997 I photographed Ale in my mother’s silk Chinese coat. Under the framed photograph I put many of the names of our forebears:

Waterhouse-Hayward, Healey, Cooper, Galvez, Davis, de Irureta Goyena, Miranda y Roxas, Reyes and Puig.

Because my ancient (77 years) mind works with juxtapositions I liked the idea of mating Ale’s photo with a scan I made today of Rosa ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’.

Why not? Because.