# He called himself a Eutherian



## Olly Buckle (Aug 14, 2015)

My dad never joined a church, he was cautious of groups. His was the generation that came of age before the Second World War, and he was intelligent enough to realise what had happened at mass rallies like Nuremberg. This was reinforced when, immediately before the German National Socialists moved in to Austria, he had broken a leg skiing there. The Germans arrived and insurance paid for him to share a private ward with an enthusiastic young Nazi officer for some weeks. 
Excitement and emotion used to evil purpose had made him cautious of all groups, nevertheless he was a Christian. 
My mother was a member of The Religious Society of Friends and secretary to her local meeting for a while. Dad would attend meeting sometimes, but he never joined, knowing Friends I don’t suppose he was ever asked to. 
His working life was as a Biology master, and he was inordinately proud of those students who had gone on to follow related professions, such as medicine. Though his excesses would have appeared modest in most people, and his pride was in having the honour to associate with them.
When I was a teenager he suffered from a perforated gastric ulcer. In those days the treatment was still an operation. I can vividly remember seeing him in the crisp white bed, his face almost the same colour as the pillow, even to the slightly blued lips. It was my first real taste of mortality and a terrible shock, he was so far removed from the vigorous man I had always known. 
His background must have given him considerable insight into his condition, it had not prepared him for Sister. She came wielding a form and accompanied by a speechless acolyte, supposedly learning the trade. The form almost completed she concluded her inquisition with a demand for his religion.
“Christian”, he replied.
“I’ll put that down as C. of E. then, shall I?” she said
“Certainly not”
“You are a Catholic then?” lilted the speechless one with pleasure, revealing her Celtic origins. 
"No"
“Agnostic”, countered the sister with finality, silencing the acolyte again with a glance.
“No, I am certain of my beliefs”, my father was not one to be organised into things he did not agree with.	
The expression on Sister’s face showed this had now gone far enough, she did not have time to waste.
“I am sorry, but I must have a denomination Mr ...” She paused to check the sheet “Buckle”
The ignorance of his name and the bullying manner irked him. He was ill, tired from loss of blood and knew the information was only required in the event of the hospital being left with an unclaimed body, most unlikely.
“I am a Eutherian”, he replied, ending the matter and saving himself an argument.
After the operation young nurses would point him out “We have got one of them”, and wondered who might visit come Sunday. The junior doctors who came to check his progress read his notes and smiled quietly to themselves.

Eutheria (from the Greek: "true beasts") are a group of mammals consisting of placental mammals plus all extinct mammals that are more closely related to living placentals (such as humans) than to living marsupials (such as kangaroos), Eutherian, a member of this group.


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## DATo (Aug 14, 2015)

Three cheers for your father! Having been indentured (I can think of no more appropriate term) to the good Sisters Of Loretto during my formative years I can relate quite closely to the "inquisition" your father endured. I am, and will always be grateful for the discipline and education they provided however. I am most grateful to the God I no longer believe in (because they absolutely beat him out of me) that at that nascent period of my education I was not aware of such things as The First Council Of Nicea (325 AD), where Jesus was declared a god by popular vote; or, the history of all those nasty Borgia popes, for I surely would have thrown these things in their faces and been burned at the stake.

OK, on to your story: it was fine, and I truly did enjoy it; however, I would have preferred a better ending. I do hope your father left the hospital in better shape than he arrived; but, see what I mean?, the story offers no closure other than the fact that your father put one over on the nuns regarding his religious affiliation.

Still a good read, and thank you for sharing!


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 14, 2015)

Thank you for reading, and the comments; a slight misconception there, this was the North Middlesex, a public hospital. I am talking some time in the mid fifties, and hospital wards were run by severe matrons in starched uniforms in a quasi militaristic manner, I can see why it made you think of nuns. The clue, if you're English, is that when she hears he is 'Christian' she assumes he is 'C of E' ; that is the commonly recognised shorthand for 'Church of England', the establishment Christian church. English people are acutely aware of people's class, my father would have come across to a stranger as the sort of upper middle class intellectual  who would inevitably be, like the Sister C of E ( a moment of enlightenment, a ward sister is the person responsible for the day to day running of the ward on a particular shift, not a religious sister, I must make that clear, thank you) 

Thanks also for the very valid comment about the ending, it is not something I had considered, but I will


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## aj47 (Aug 14, 2015)

I would have liked him.


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## DATo (Aug 14, 2015)

Olly Buckle said:


> Thank you for reading, and the comments; a slight misconception there, this was the North Middlesex, a public hospital. I am talking some time in the mid fifties, and hospital wards were run by severe matrons in starched uniforms in a quasi militaristic manner, I can see why it made you think of nuns. The clue, if you're English, is that when she hears he is 'Christian' she assumes he is 'C of E' ; that is the commonly recognised shorthand for 'Church of England', the establishment Christian church. English people are acutely aware of people's class, my father would have come across to a stranger as the sort of upper middle class intellectual  who would inevitably be, like the Sister C of E ( a moment of enlightenment, a ward sister is the person responsible for the day to day running of the ward on a particular shift, not a religious sister, I must make that clear, thank you)
> 
> Thanks also for the very valid comment about the ending, it is not something I had considered, but I will



My mistake Olly. Over on this side of the pond the term "sister", especially when applied to any sort of humanitarian role, usually suggests nuns. I did immediately get the C of E reference though. Thankfully nuns are going the way of the dodo over here - a blessing in a way, but unfortunately they are not being replaced with anything better in the form of educators unless you have a lot of money for a private (English translation = _Public_) school.

Hey you !!!! You forgot a period at the end of your last sentence. Don't mind me, I'm just getting payback for your castigation regarding the fact that I began a sentence with a conjunction in my _Crossroads_ story *LOL*

I wrote a story which I attempted to stylize with an eminently British flavor. Since you are a Brit as well as a writer I would be exceedingly grateful for your critique. I do not wish to appear to be promoting my own threads, therefore I will send you the link in a PM.


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## Plasticweld (Aug 15, 2015)

I liked it Olly, it is almost as is we were sitting together at the pub.   After a comfortable silence you started out with your opening "My Dad never joined a church."  The opening does away with all pretense and assumes you are a comfortable friend.  The lack of the introduction achieves this with an economy of words.

Not that I would pretend to tell you how to write but you might consider changing the way the wording flows so that it is told in a more personal narrative, you did after all suck the reader in with a very personal intro.


"He broke his leg once, skiing, in Austria.  The German Socialists had just taken over.  or  "My mom was a member of The Religious Society of Friends." Instead of being formal with the word mother.  The use of the word mom or mum says you are sharing the story with a friend.  With a rolling gait added to an already friendly cadence this is really a charming story.  I think you have the perfect ending, by just repeating your opening.

As I said, " Dad never joined a church."   The story works for me because it does not have a standard beginning middle and end; it shows a lot of personal detail about your dad without ever being obvious or by doing and info dump. yet any reader could clearly picture your dad... Well done thanks for sharing...Bob


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 16, 2015)

Thanks for the ideas, I like the one for the ending, making it circular and referring back to the start. Tbh I felt I was already getting familiar calling my father 'Dad', there are long generations in my family, my parents were born in 1909, and my father was the son of a second wife,  so his father was about 60 when he was born.  Both my parents called me 'Oliver', because it was my name, despite everyone else calling me 'Olly'. My father called his father 'Sir', always wore a hat if he went out of doors, habitually wore a suit and apologised if he took his coat off to sit down at table to eat on a very hot day, eating, of course, always took place at table, no one started until  every one was seated, and no one left until every one had finished, and the table was always properly set. The past was another world, we did things differently there. My parents were a little less formal than my Father's elder stepbrother,he was retired when I knew him, but had been a foreman carpenter, and went to work in a blue stripe three piece suit with a gold watch and Albert in his waistcoat. Bet that cracks you up some 

Some ways the story can not have a standard structure, because it is not a story in the sense of being fiction, but a memoir, so it is as it was and the aftermath was not remarkable, but you certainly encourage me to  pull a few more of these boring old reminiscences from the back of my brain, blame yourself


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