Red-faced?
Christina Bucher, 40, from Southend
When I learned my girl Isadora was having a second baby at 22, I wasn’t jumping for joy.
At 18 months, her son was barely walking and she had just finished university.
It’d definitely stop her chances of getting a job.
All I could think of was how she and her partner would cope financially with another child, and that overshadowed the excitement. ‘Scarlett’s her name,’ she told me happily. ‘That’s horrible,’ I moaned. ‘It reminds me of the movie
Gone With The Wind.’
Of course she was too young to know about it. The movie was released in 1939, based on a 1936 book. ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘You don’t have a clue,’ I replied. The movie tells the story of Scarlett O’hara, who was very unlucky. ‘Scarlett was cursed,’ I said. That was enough to put my daughter off the name. Days went by and the big news had settled in. I realised I hadn’t been very nice, felt bad.
I went to my daughter’s house to let her know Scarlett was a great name.
After all, Gone With The Wind was just a film and the character was fictitious.
That same day, my new deck of tarot cards arrived in the mail. Inside, there was a paper bookmark that came as gift. To my astonishment, it had Scarlett O’hara on it and was promoting the book Gone With The Wind. What are the chances of a 1936 book being promoted in 2017? I called my daughter and told her the news. ‘I’d been asking for a sign from the Universe for her name,’ she told me. ‘I guess this is it – she’s called Scarlett.’ And this 3 July, beautiful baby Scarlett was born, weighing 8lbs 2oz. She’s our precious gift.
In the film, Scarlett O’hara was very unlucky