During the first covid-winter I was re-reading a work that has been in the family library for more than forty years. Somehow my eyes were drawn to the name of the author, Mansur Darlington. I had opened this book on many occasions but that name had never registered before. Was there not a Mansur Darlington, elder brother of James, at Saint Christopher School?
St. Christopher School had its fair share of unusual names. However this one would not have been entirely alien to some of the vegetarian students. Al-Mansur is the arabic for 'the victorious'. This title was used by the second 'Abbasid Caliph (754-75); the founder of Baghdad. It would not have seemed an unusual name to his descendant Dina Abbas.
I can recall the hierarchy making a fuss of Dina and it seemed out of character at the time. Years later I heard a tale of Dina being chauffeur-driven in a Palestinian Embassy limousine. By that time I had filled in some of the gaps in my understanding of the religions of the world. I finally grasped that I had been at school with a member of the Holy Prophet's uncle 'Abbas' family. One of Sunni Islam's nearest equivalents to a royal family.
The only other muslim kids at St. Chris at that time were the Shah siblings, Vijay and Mina. By a strange coincidence that same covid-winter brought a radio report where a Republican Party Spin-Doctor was trying to lead the story away from Donald Trump. It was the spin-doctor's name that caught my attention, Mina Shah.
Vijay and Dina must have been close to the same age. I do not recall any great warmth between the Shahs and Dina. If the Shah kids came from the followers of 'Ali, the Shia, they would have considered Dina's family to be illegitimate and opportunistic claimants to the succession or caliphate. Then again the Persian word shah can be translated into English as 'king'. It may have been that the Shah siblings felt themselves to be at least the dynastic equals of any of the 'Abbas clan.
When the public libraries re-opened I was able to put 'Mina Shah Republican Party' into the box-of-tricks. Sure enough, there was a beautiful and elegant woman who might very well be a later edition of the girl I went to school with.
Mina Shah, Republican Party Spin-Doctor. Is this the same Mina Shah who had her understanding of democracy distorted at St. Christopher School?
The Muslim minority did not have a monopoly on regal pedigrees at St. Chris. The O'Mahoney sisters bore the name of Ireland's most important royal dynasty; the family of Brian Boru (941-1014). The O'Neills represented another royal line. The Moore's reflected a lesser Irish dynasty; though they pretended to be English.
The Scots also contributed to the regal ambiance. Margaret Stewart bore the name of Scotland's best-known royal dynasty; distant cousins of the Clan Windsor. The Mair brothers were connected to the Mormairs of Moray. In an earlier, Welsh-speaking, era these Mormairs were Kings of the Northern Picts.
The English could claim that they had an Art Teacher who was a king of his trade. They did have another claim to genuine nobility. Anthony Wolesely-Wilmsen taught me, at the age of 12, the little that I know about the theory of how the City of London is supposed to work. I did not admire Anthony because he was the only boy in the class who wore a tie to school. My sincere respect was for the understated, diplomatic disdain that he clearly expressed for the entire muddle-class and their fellow-travellers.
Years later I learned that Anthony had quit a job as a Merchant Bankster. This seemed to confirm my earlier positive estimation of his character. He would not have told them to get somebody else to launder their drug-money but I would guess that may have been thinking such thoughts. Anthony (or Don Antonio) is now a published author.
I have not, as yet, read this work but I hold the author in high esteem.
He was living in Paraguay the last time I put his unusual name into the box of tricks. Anthony is an aristocrat in all the best senses of the word but he had no claim on royalty.
Which only leaves that creepy individual who added “King-” to his name to spin away from his Scottish origins. If only I had the literary and diplomatic skills to write his biography ...
