Me too, now it's mentioned. It's the sort of nickname a parent or sibling would use, given in childhood. I should have figured it out.Jericho941 wrote:I can definitely see "Matthew" becoming "Maffew" and then just "Maff."
Sometimes these family nicknames can be the sort of thing you REALLY don't want your mates to find out about...in a moment of daftness a friend of mine told me how his daughter sometimes calls him 'Daddy Two Bums' ( bum = arse, not hobo ) after he had to get hospital treatment for an abscess on his arse. Of course I now call him that all the time
It's quite likely Mathew Fords mates called him 'Fordy' - it's pretty standard here, creating a nickname by simply adding a 'y' to your surname.
RIP Lance Corporal Ford