Rosa 'Ketchup & Mustard' 30 June 2026

My memory has played strange tricks in my years of existence. As an example when I was born I remember that a photographer with a magnesium flash almost blinded my entrance into this world.

When I was 8 in 1950 in Buenos Aires we had a live-in housekeeper called Mercedes Bazaldúa. One morning my mother told her, “Mercedes ve a la almacén de la esquina y pedí una botella de cátsup.”

Not long after that we were invited for dinner at the home of my Uncle Harry who was my father’s older brother. I watched him put sugar into his mixture of Colman’s Mustard. Since then I always use Coleman’s (also called Keen’s) and I put a bit of sugar.

Uncle Harry had been born in Manchester and he and his parents moved to Buenos Aires in 1901. At the time the custom in my family was that the firstborn male would have the middle name of Waterthouse. When my grandparents and Uncle Harry arrived to Buenos Aires my father found out that his parents had gotten married in Buenos Aires. He immediately told himself that his brother was a bastard and that he, my father George was the true first born. So he started using the name Waterhouse. When I was born he tried to have the name Waterhouse in my name George Alexander. At the time names in a foreign language that could be translated into Spanish, were prohibited to stand in the foreign language. When my father then insisted on Waterhouse, he slipped a coima (a bribe) an told the registrar that my surname was Waterhouse-Hayward.

And yes I eat my French Fries with Catsup.