An Irishman's Diary

I’VE complained before here about the fall from fashion of the name Francis and its various derivatives as an option for parents with new-born babies. Even given the decline of saints and the rise of TV stars as an influence on such choices, it’s a bit of a mystery. Other equally old-fashioned names continue to thrive, after all, notably James, which topped this newspaper’s birth-announcement hit parade last year.

It’s all the more odd since the most common abbreviation – the one at the top of this column – is also an adjective, with positive implications. It’s never a bad thing to be called “frank” with a small f. But as for Frank with a big F, you’d be more likely these days to hear of babies called Fechin. Which is also an adjective – more or less – although not always a welcome one.

My only explanation for the Franciscan decline is the influence of Hollywood scriptwriters, who decided some years ago that, henceforth, all Franks in cinema would be either idiots or psychopaths. Since when, the spectrum has been defined by Inspector Drebbin of the Naked Gunseries, at one extreme, and by Frank Booth – the sadomasochist in Blue Velvet,played by Dennis Hopper – at the other.

There are a few cases slightly harder to classify, such as Frankenstein, and Frank N Furter (of Rocky Horror Picture Showfame). But none are cinematic heroes, exactly. Not even two-dimensional heroes of the Bond variety. Which, by the way, must be at least some of the reason for the enduring popularity of the name James.

All of which is a preamble to saying how much I look forward to a forthcoming film – it’s already in advanced production, apparently – about the life of a man named Frank Buckles, who died in the US last weekend.

I'd never heard of him until I read about his passing in the New York Times.But it turns out that not only did we share a forename, we also shared a birthday – February 1st. Only the day and month, I hasten to add: because on his most recent anniversary, Frank Buckles was 110. After which, he survived another 27 days, before being finally counted out around the same time as many of our general election candidates: late on Sunday.

Buckles was described in obituaries as the last of the “doughboys”, a quaint term that – possibly because the buttons on their uniforms resembled a cake of that name – was slang for US servicemen between the 1840s and the end of the first World War Born in 1901, on a Missouri farm, he was too young to enlist in that war. But in 1917, like many teenage boys at the time, he lied about his age: first to the US marines, then the navy, and later the army. When they didn’t believe he was 18, he decided that next time he would lie bigger. So on his last attempt, he claimed to be 21. And it worked.

Told that volunteering as an ambulance driver was the quickest way to get to France, he did just that. And in the event, driving was all he managed to do in Europe. He didn’t get within 30 miles of the trenches before the war ended. But as he said himself, it was not for want of trying.

He didn’t experience any fighting in the second World War either. In fact, Buckles could have been part of that fortunate generation who were too young for the first conflict and too old for the second. But fate decreed that he was working in the Philippines in 1941 when the Japanese invaded. So he spent the next three years in a prisoner-of-war camp anyway, losing 50lbs in the process.

A measure of his longevity was that, in old age, he could recall once having seen commemoration ceremonies involving British veterans of the Crimean War, which ended in 1856. He spent his own later years as a prominent figure in such ceremonies and in campaigning for related causes. As the last man standing, he was grand marshal of Washington’s memorial day parade as recently as 2007. And he was still driving a tractor on his West Virginia farm until 2006.

Along with being a hero called Frank, Buckles may also be an example of a less rare phenomenon that the diary has featured on occasion: nominative determinism.

This is the theory – unprovable but always entertaining – that a person’s name can be an influence, on his chosen career. (Which reminds me: belated thanks to Rory Montgomery for pointing out that the new legal adviser to the EU Council of Ministers is a Frenchman called Hubert Légal. Hard to argue with credentials like that). In the case of Buckles, the surname was a potential disadvantage for almost every career you can think of: except perhaps belt-making and shoe design. It should have been particularly undermining for a soldier. Especially since, in the sort of thing that can only happen in America, he was originally known as “Wood Buckles”, from his other given name: Woodruff.

Had he continued to be so titled, his full name might have been a sentence in more ways than one. Later, however, he became Frank with a capital F. And in counteracting the surname, his 110-year-long life looked after the rest. He must have done a lot things in his time. But buckle, according to all accounts, he did not.