Swinton Man Makes Devastating Deedar Discovery
2016-10-23
A Rotherham man has been left reeling after discovering that he is half Deedar. Chris Hunt, 38. was brought up in Swinton and had always accepted what his parents told him about his background – that he was Rotherham born and bred – but then a random message on Facebook turned his world upside down.
“This bloke called Terry contacted me” he told us “and said he was my mums brother. I told him that couldn’t be right because all my mums family had died in a series of freak accidents before I was born. But he told me some stuff only someone close to my mum could have known.”
Chris confronted his parents who at first denied everything. But then mum Julie, broke down and said it was true but they’d tried to keep it from him. She’d met Chris’s father, Mick at a chicken-in-a-basket night in The Tivoli Nitespot at Millmoor in 1978 and it was only after she fell pregnant that Paul learned the truth about her background – that Julie was from Pitsmoor. Despite everything, he decided to do the decent thing, but only on the understanding that she broke all ties with her Deedar past.
“Obviously mixed marriages are still frowned upon today” said Chris, who has written a book about his ordeal “But back then it was a real taboo. I suppose I can understand what my dad went through.”
We spoke to Julie who confirmed the story, “It’s been hard but we’ve come to terms now” she told us “When MIck found out he said that if he’d known he wouldn’t have touched me with someone else’s. But we got married in a secret ceremony at Rotherham Registry office and we both agreed never to speak about my past or go back. Mick even got me elocution lessons to hide my Deedar speech impediment. I can remember having to repeat phrases like ‘That’s the dog that did this dump’. It was tough, but we got there in the end and nobody ever guessed. Until now. If anybody ever asked about me, Mick just told them I was a pikey who’d run away from the fair to try and hide the truth.”
Chris has been left with mixed feelings. “Like everyone else, I used to laugh at Deedars and take the piss out of the way they talk. “ he said “And part of me still wants to. But it’s made me a more tolerant person. I know now that they can’t help where they’re born and they’re people, just like us.”
Chris’s book ‘My Deedar Ma’ comes out in paperback on November 7th just in time for Christmas.
