How could you not know?

This morning, I met a chap whose surname is Darwin. He'd come to quote for some work we need doing on the house. I was dying to know, so I asked the obvious question: "Any relation?"

"We don't know, but we've always assumed we must be," he said.

How could you not know? With a surname like that, how could you sleep at night, not knowing for sure whether you were related to the greatest man ever to draw breath? You'd find out, wouldn't you?

Interestingly, the chap lives within spitting distance of Ilkley, where Darwin took the waters when On the Origin of Species was being published. A nice one for the conspiracy therorists, perhaps.

Postscript: I have since learnt that Darwin visited relatives while he was staying in Ilkley, so the likelihood of the chap I met being a relative himself sounds even more plausible.

Richard Carter, FCD

Writer and photographer Richard Carter, FCD is the founder of the Friends of Charles Darwin. He lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.WebsiteNewsletterMastodonetc…

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