Name Changing - Kevan Smith

Always wanted to be called “Bradley.”

Don’t know why but “Bradley Bandicoot” always ‘flows’ for me.

My parents’ birth-named me “Marmaduke”.

Having that yelled out as a cooee allowed all the other bush creatures to titter and giggle.  When you have a long snout and often get mistaken for a water rat, having a silly long name sets you up for ‘their’ jibes and guffaws.

So, I have settled on “Bradley”!   The alliteration of BB has a certain ring to it, in my ears.

I remember, a long-ago time when someone said they could read Big Folk scribblings and Marma(something) was a sticky, sweet jelly.  They said they were hiding in the grasses and garden brushes nearby Big Folk who were making sipping noises out of thin deep bowls with long sides with thin handles and crunching on that baked bready stuff.  They had a jar there and was spreading great dollops of sticky stuff on the burnt crusty bread.  The jar was lying in the grass and Bobby Beetle says that it had writing on the see-through pot with the letters M and A and R, M and another A and, I think they said, the word LADE…..Well Bobby crawled up the side of the tall see-through thingy and sniffed n sniffed.  He’s a rhino beetle with a biiggg nose so he smells real good…..and can spell too!

Well, from then on, all the moles and grubs n garden folk started calling me “Marma Lade” after the stick sweet stuff.

I did taste some in the grass from a dropped bready bit.  It was sweet n lovely but no growing fella wants to be named after Big Folk Sticky Sweet stuff.

SO, “Bradley” it is!!

Bradley Bartholemew Bandicoot ………that’s me.  (yep, I like the 3rd B too, kinda classy huh).    None of this sweet, sticky stuff that ants try to steal.