Lala Yousuf and I are discussing surnames. Lala seems to be harking back to the simple life.

“We need to have surnames that reflect what we do in life,” he starts. It has already happened in England. Take the name ‘Smith’ — apparently it is abbreviated from Blacksmith. And then there is ‘Cooper, the name of someone who makes barrels from wood and metal. Well done Lala.

“Don’t get this mixed with nicknames,” he says. Even good nicknames are not easy. They have to be appropriate. Somehow they have to fit.

A good nickname is accepted in an instant. It’s almost a name waiting to be born. Take for instance ‘chairman’ — this can only belong to a particular person in the community.

He doesn’t have to be a chairman of anything or a chairman for very long but somehow when you refer to him as a ‘chairman’ everyone seems to know its right.

Sometimes the whole family gets to be known against a simple name.

In the village there was a lawyer, who eventually became known as ‘The Barrister’.

No one in the village probably knew what a barrister does. It was ‘out of reach’ enough to infer your own meaning. So his children became known as ‘the Barrister’s boy’ or ‘the Barrister’s girl’.

We already have ‘Dhudwalas’ or ‘Ghiwalas’ in the community in Blackburn — and these names were carried over from India.

Now we have settled in the UK families have developed ‘family occupations’ and therefore they should be known by their occupations.

Lala gives me some examples ‘Ticketwalay’ for those families that run travel agencies, ‘Factorywalay’ for those that have a few factories, ‘Jhoodwalay' for those who practice black magic.

“How are you known why you visit the village?”

I think about it. Well, when I am in Pakistan they refer to my family as the ‘Englaaandwala’. How ironic.