Barbara Esam
Like most translation companies, Anglia has a panel of expert and experienced linguists based principally in their native countries, and we have worked with them for many years.
The relationship we have with translators based in China or France or Sweden is both distant and yet intimate. Although we rarely meet them, indeed very often we do not know what they look like, we get to know about them, their families and their interests – all via email or telephone.
We worked with Barbara Esam for getting on for 15 years. She translated from German to English, and was based not too far away from our offices here in Huntingdon. Not that this proximity necessarily meant that we came into frequent personal contact, but our relationship developed via email. Barbara was an expert on engineering. Nothing mechanical seemed to faze her. One of our clients is a German engineering institute and their researches take them to the very edge of technical innovation and technology. Barbara would set to and produce the finished goods on time, always garnering high praise from our client for the quality of her work. Personally, I wasn’t too keen on checking these assignments because to be frank, I didn’t really understand them so had to spend a lot of time on the internet researching the terminology.
It was not long into our partnership that I discovered that Barbara and I had a shared enthusiasm for Blackadder. It first came to light when mention was made somewhere of the venerable Samuel Johnson, he of the English dictionary, who turned up in the Ink and Incapability episode of Blackadder. It prompted a comment from Barbara about “that globulous fraud Dr Johnson”.
This led to a constant reference to Blackadder’s inventive vocabulary. Barbara would complain about the ‘contrafibularities’ of some text or other, but I would advise her not to get too ‘frasmotic’. Over the years we had a few ‘pericombobulations’ but no particular problem and “those long winter evenings simply flew by.”
There was one word however that became a standard whenever we posted an assignment to Barbara. One day, we received an urgent request from one of our major clients. (Actually all client requests are urgent. “Our 10 person marketing dept has just spent 50 man days polishing this astonishingly persuasive promotional material. Can you translate it by close of business”?)
So we asked Barbara to do it as quickly as she could. Back came the email response: “ I will do it interfrastically” she said and that became our motto. I’m thinking of using it as our tagline: “All translations executed interfrastically.”
There was always one final Blackadder moment and that was when she and her family went on holiday and frequently it was to the Lake District. We would get a polite reminder from Barbara, advising of her imminent departure. It usually read something like: We’re off to the Lakes for a few days next week and we are looking forward to receiving the typically gracious welcome from Mrs Miggins.
BARBARA MARIE VERONICA ESAM-EHLERT
14 May 1947 – 30 January 2016
R.I.P.
