So why am I called Herb?
When I was a schoolboy at Portsmouth Grammar we were initially all called by our surnames. Being too dumb to ask each others Christian names (
in those days we all had Christian names, even those who weren’t C of E ) we invented nicknames for each other e.g. Gasser, Blossom and Ipse.
As I was a reasonably speedy but small cross country runner, rather than being called Dusty or Windy, they called me Mick; after Mick the Miller.
I didn’t like it, so at the age of 13 or 14, when my best mate George Miles
decided he’d like to be called G, I put about that I’d like to be called
Herb – after Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
The name stuck. Even my parents called me Herb. So when I first started at IBM I asked for that name to be put on my badge. Many years later, when I first got a Notes ID, the P for Peter got inserted into my name. I’ve never liked it.
And did I know about Glenn Miller’s brother in those days?
Answer: No