Why am I confused about the fuss over gollies and their older name that is now Not On.
And after a lot of musing I realised something. I am very odd.
Now, I realise this is not news to those who know me well, or to the odd person who not only knows me well but seems to still get on with me, but this is a little bit different.
As a child I had dolls – a collection of rag dolls at one point. I used to use them as the mechanics for my toy cars and garage . . . this may give you a clue why I say odd of course!
One was a golli***, and I liked the name – it had a completeness about it, it kinda rolled. I was stunned, utterly stunned, when a school friend told me that it meant a black person. I argued that it did not, so she called on the teacher (we were at infant school, so about 6, by the way) and thus I learnt that some people used the ‘w’ word about people, she also referred to ‘picanninies’ (which sounded like a type of pickle to me, I had recently discovered the joys of piccalilli), and explained that these were terms used by ‘civilised’ people to describe ‘savages’.
I can remember this exchange so very clearly, I can still feel the carpet with my toes as I bent the sole of my sandals back and ran my toes along the floor whilst she was lecturing me. I can also remember asking my mother about this when I got home, and never getting an answer as my father collapsed and we had another blue light flashing ambulance (this was a common thing at that time, it was a few months before his death and there were a lot of emergency admissions).
But I recall lying in bed that night, feeling really unhappy that the nice name two of my dolls had was being used about people. Because my dolls were NOT people, they were pretend people to let me play at things that I could not do otherwise (like run a garage!) The Tiny Tears was not a baby either, it was a DOLL. A toy. How DARE anyone make my toys a nasty name for people.
I also felt very uncomfortable about the way the teacher had spoken of ‘negroes’ and ‘niggers’ . . . the next day I asked my Grandad who explained that people were often nasty about things that frightened them, and maybe that was why. He said he did not know if a ‘white’ person was ‘better’ than a ‘black’ person because he did not know any and how could he judge what he did not know?
That last thought has remained with me for the whole of my life since. How can I judge what I do not know?
So – having waffled I am left thinking that I cannot see the ‘w’ word as a standalone insult because to me it is part of a longer word that is a name for a toy. I have never seen a need to describe people by their skin colour, other than to identify someone at times (she’s the one with red hair and a pink top, or the one with dark skin and white trousers, that sort of thing) – I find that most people are quite able to open their mouths and either endear or condemn themselves on ideas and thoughts alone! I would never use said word, and I now avoid the doll’s name as well, as it hurts others, but to me the latter is nothing more than the term for two of the rag dolls who looked after the engines of my matchbox car collection. And I think I may be very odd in feeling like this.
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