poliphilo

I also had a friend ( a human friend that is not an imaginary one) who we called "Mouse"- a small. good natured boy- whose surname was Lawrence and whose first name I can't remember because we never used it,

Boys of my generation (and class) didn't call one another by their first names. We used surnames and nicknames. Therefore my friend was Lawrence or Mouse and I was Grist or Gristle. Even in secondary school where boys (it was a single sex school) fell in love with other boys (though they wouldn't have used such soppy language) the lovers would continue to call one another Smith and Jones, never David and Jonathan.

It was a taboo I never questioned. Had anyone asked me for an explanation I wouldn't have been able to supply one- and still can't.

However, when I was in my upper teens the taboo suddenly disappeared- and my best friend was no longer "Head" but "Rupert". I can't remember being particularly conscious of the change. Things had been one way and now they were another way- and both were entirely right and proper.

Rupert followed family tradition into the Royal Navy and we lost touch. The internet tells me (though its information is out of date) that he retired with the rank of Commander and is now living squirearchically in a village on the far side of the county- not so very far from where we were at school...