In 1962, a little known "pop" singer trading under the moniker "Gene Chandler" released a song entitled "The Duke of Earl". It sold a million copies in little over one month. It was a huge hit, Number 1 for three weeks in 1962.

It is a matter of very real regret to me that the one question which I most often get asked is "Didn't you steal your name from a song ?"

No, I reply, the song stole its name from my family !!!

The story is as follows.

In 1944, my father, Augustine, 21st Duke of Earl, was on active service in Italy, serving as a Major with the Queens Own Light Infantry. In the Autumn of that year, he found himself billetted in a small town by the name of Cochichellio di Santa Mare. Although quite desperate to fight in the front line, my father was posted on the staff of the Regimental command. Command was housed in a large farmhouse just outside the town, and shared facilities with a small American Army contingent.

Being a very passable cook, my father was often asked to eshew matters of a military nature, and help prepare food for the unit¹. It was during one of his vegetable picking excursions that he encountered a US Army cook named Eugene Dixon, a native of Chicago. The two "hit it off" straight away.

It would seem that, despite coming from very different backgrounds and ranks, these two men had in common a number of things - love of food, shooting animals, and, though one hesitates to mention it here, a distinctly libidinous attitude towards the female species. Their friendship was cemented in the heat of the kitchen, over many bottles of local vino, and in the bars of Cochichellio, over warm beer and grappa. Need I say that the girls of the town found a warm home in the arms of my father and his new-found friend ?

And so it came that Dixon and my father earned themselves quite a reputation in the area, to the extent that local men would exclaim most heartily when their names were mentioned. Indeed, some of these local chaps took it upon themselves to hide in the bushes by the lane which the two warriors habitually used on their way home at night, and on at least one occasion, fisticuffs ensued.

Dixon, being a passable singer, was in the habit of writing songs, and many of these songs concerned the pair's adventures in that town. One of those songs... ah but you've guessed it ! Often they sang that song together as they boiled and flambéed.

Towards Christmas of 1944, my father's regiment was given orders for mainland Europe, and so he and Dixon reluctantly bade each other a fond farewell, and went their separate ways, vowing to keep in contact, and perhaps reunite after the whole sorry War business was concluded.

The pair, despite all best intentions, never met again, postal addresses being most unreliable at that time.

It was in 1962 that my father heard that song again. The reader might imagine his surprise at hearing his name emerge from the wireless ! His enquiries revealed that Eugene Dixon was now "Gene Chandler", and a rich man on the back of our good name. Worse still apparently, this knave had taken to imitating my father's style of dress, wearing a cape, top hat and cane on stage ! Pictorial evidence of this scandalous behaviour can still be found here !

My father instituted legal proceedings at once. Alas, owing to a disease he had picked up in the Far East², his mental faculties were at that time not what they were, and his suit was dismissed for lack of sense. He died in 1965, a broken man, the dreadful lyrics of Dixon's song on his lips as he breathed his last:

So that is the sad tale of how my family's name, centuries old, was purloined by a cook. And this is the burden myself and my ancestors must carry.