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Listen - I’m Going To Tell You A Story
It was a few years ago now, you can tell, because I had to get up from my chair, walk to the kitchen and pick up the phone.
Hello .. John Philpin
.. and those were the last words that seemed to make sense in this particular conversation. The following is paraphrased, my memory is not that good.
Oh hello, we are calling to see if you have any commentary on the recent developments in Gainesville.
Sorry, could you repeat that?
Oh yes, we are following up on some recent developments around the murders in Gainesville, and calling to ask if you might add any perspective.
Iâm sorry .. what kind of perspective?
Well given your involvement at the time, we were thinking ..
Sorry. What involvement?
Is that John Philpin?
It is.
P H I L P I N ? (Spelling it out).
Yes.
Well given your connection to ..
Iâm sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else.
But you are John Philpin ..
Yes. Tell you what if you give me your number, I will look into who it might be and get them to call back.
.. number exchanged and I sat down.
In 2024 if you Google âJohn Philpinâ, you will indeed find that there are two of us, but back then, there wasnât a Google ⌠I know kids .. hard to believe. There was something called âAlta Vistaâ and Yahoo - but nascent at best.
In all honesty, I canât recall exactly how I went about the next step. We had Compuserve - and of course at Oracle I had access to the ‘real’ ‘internet’ - but - there still has to be something at the other end to be found for a âsearchâ to work ⌠so this was going to be tough.
But ⌠BUT - you may not know this, but âPhilpinâ is a pretty uncommon name. Uncommon like there may be 5 to 6 hundred of us - tops - around the world today. I can also tell you that 75% of them live in Pembrokeshire, Wales, or at least in South Wales.
Ok - I jest - but it is not so far off.
Donald Philpin - a cousin of my dadâs - did some research back in the 60s and 70s and unpacked a family tree of sorts essentially connecting us all back to a âWalter Philpinâ of Tenby, Pembrokeshire in the 1600s. (When I say - research - this was no internet search (see earlier google comment), this was serious - visiting parish churches, pouring through registers of birth, deaths and marriage and painstakingly putting it all together, by talking to family members. (Now THAT was commitment.)
Anyway, long story short (letâs assume I used Compuserve) and tried to find this other Philpin. I failed. Kind of. I found an author called John Philpin - who was probably the writer this journalist thought I was. But - no way of connecting - no phone - certainly no email - even for the publisher - just an address in NYC, which IMHO seemed too hard. (Clearly I was no ‘Donald’.)
I also found a musician by name of đľFive Philpin and there seemed to be a connection to a John Philpin - and I am a music nerd anyway - so what the hell - I reached out to him through email that seemed to be associated with his music.
And nothing ⌠for a few weeks and I then got an email from Five.
We exchanged emails - and I bought every CD he had ever released - ( I like to support âsmallerâ musicians and hell - with the same last name as mine - of course I was.)
Asked him about John - and turns out John is his father - at the time Five was in LA / Seattle - and dad was over In New England. Anyway could Five connect me?
Five - âLeave it with me.â
⌠delivering a result a week or so later, hereâs Dadâs phone number - give him a call.
I did.
We talked for a couple of hours ⌠mainly around who both us ‘John Philpins’ came to be us ‘John Philpins’ .. and given the tightness of our Family tree, we tracked back to our mutual roots ⌠in .. Pembrokeshire and and and âŚ
.. and finally I got round to telling him about the call from the news paper asking for a comment .. and there was a silence, and then .. (again ..paraphrasing)
I have no interest in talking to these people whose only job seems to be title tattle, so I wouldnât bother getting back to them ⌠but should they call again, I would answer their questions. They are looking to speak to John Philpin and gather âquotesâ .. give them. Donât let knowing nothing about the cases they call about get in the way .. make it up .. it would stand more chance of being right than some of what they write. Might be fun?
We chatted a little longer - said our good byes and moved on with our lives.
I never heard anything more from the journalist - or any other for that matter, so I never got to try out Johnâs idea. I sporadically kept in touch with Five - had one more email exchange with John - but basically all our lives just continued, with this one tiny dent of connection.