When Sophie married George, she took his surname of Northcliffe, but kept her own of Prosser to go with it. At the time, I expressed my unasked-for opinion that no matter which way the two names of Northcliffe and Prosser were joined by a hyphen, it looked, and probably what’s more important, sounded unwieldy. As a compromise, I suggested Sophie used her family name for correspondence as well as pursuing her career as an author with a well-known publishing house. She could then, as she’d expressed a desire so to do, write children’s stories under the name of Sophie Northcliffe, perhaps publishing with a lesser-known company, leaving nobody the wiser.
My recommendation appealed to her and even allowing for the passage of time since her compliance, it was with a sense of conquest I ascended
