Here's Mr Marlow from Marlow (From Bucks Free Press)

Here's Mr Marlow from Marlow

10:51am Wednesday 23rd December 2009 in

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BACKCHAT has discovered the man with the most confusing name in Bucks.

Stand up Adam Marlow, originally from Ickenham, but now a prominent figure in… you guessed it… Marlow.

Mr Marlow, 27, decided to set up an oriental boutique in Spittal Street, Marlow. And he is also a key member of Marlow Chamber of Trade.

His name does cause some confusion and bemusement, he told Backchat.

“It’s always when I’m in a bank and with delivery drivers sometimes, I think they think I’m making up my surname,” said Mr Marlow.

More baffled, however, were hotel reception staff who simply could not grasp the idea of somebody having the surname Marlow when they greeted young Adam’s grandparents.

“Once my nan and granddad went to the Compleat Angler and made a reservation. They said ‘yes, we are in Marlow, but what’s your name?’ so they said Marlow again and they said ‘yes that’s where we are, but what’s your name?’.

“I think it took three or four times before they accepted it.”

He’s soon made his stamp on the town, having become retail spokesman for the chamber of trade.

His fellow chamber members have even joked about the Marlow newspaper becoming the Adam Marlow Free Press due to his frequent comments in articles and prolific championing of the retailers’ cause.

So did the coincidence cross his mind when he and partner Tish McDonald were looking for a place to set up shop last year?

Not really, he said, he just liked it.

“We looked at Henley as well but decided we preferred Marlow.”

And was there any link between his name and the town historically?

“It’s old English for pond or something like that. You never know I might own half the High Street!”

Backchat’s researchers tell me the surname Marlowe comes from a place name meaning ‘drained lake’ in Old English.

Meanwhile, by an even more bizarre coincidence, Mr Marlow also went to school in Ickenham with our very own Midweek reporter James ‘Noodle’ Nadal, who covers Marlow for our papers.

Noodle couldn’t believe it when he came across Mr Marlow again while reporting on the Marlow patch.

“I rang up to speak to this Mr Marlow from Marlow and he almost instantly recognised my voice from our schooldays,” said Noodle.

So now Noodle and I are on the search for Mr Wycombe from High Wycombe. Or Mr Beaconsfield?

Or how about Mr Gerrard Cross from Gerrards Cross?