ORAL HISTORY - 1 ORAL HISTORY - 2 ORAL HISTORY - 3
This 'Oral History' section publishes transcripts of conversations between family members recorded in about 1985. The starting point was a conversation around a dinner table. I happened to have with me a dictating machine (as one does) and managed to record most of the conversation. On a later occasion I showed the transcripts to Minnie and Sophie, and recorded their conversation as they read through it - and then again repeated the process on a third occasion.
Conversation One
CONVERSATION ONE Date: 23/8/85 - Min's 72 birthday Present: Steffi, Mary, Min, Roger (and Daniella for part) The recording starts in the middle of a conversation about Lammie.
Min
Lammie had married secretly and came over to Jo and Dorrie to bring his wife to meet them. He didn't know, but Mama had come over to have a little holiday with Joe and Dorrie. He knocked at the door and he said "Dorrie I've got a surprise for you -- I've got married!" And she said to Lammie "I've got a bigger one for you -- Mama's here!"
I mean now you can't realise the enormity of intermarriage for my mother. It happened a second time to my mother. I mean Joe was the apple of her eye.
Steffi
On the other hand she had all the children, and none of them died and nothing happened...
Min
... And they all went through the war; every one of them except Moishe...
Roger
Was Moishe wounded?
Min
No. It wasn't in the war. He fell as a child, and developed a TB hip... But Jo was in the First World War in the RAF, and all the boys were in the second war. And they all came out. Lammie went down in the Arc Royal. He was fished out of the sea. He had a mental breakdown, and Edie and I went to visit him in the naval hospital.
Steffi
After the war?
Min
Yes. He was very strange, but he got over it.
Roger
Was it a head wound?
Min
Yes -- but it left him mentally disturbed for a while. He got a disability pension. But he was all right afterwards.
Steffi
When did he go to Loch Lomond. Before the war?
Min
No, after the war.
Steffi
And had Grandma accepted it then?
Min
Oh yes. She was very broad-minded.
Roger
Didn't he lose contact with the family?
Min
No. Once he got married he went back to Hull. But we didn't see much of him because he lived in Scotland.
Steffi
What year did your father die?
Min
1925
Steffi
So she actually brought you up...
Min
All of us! When he died Lionel was only two. I was 11. Cyrie was nine, and Edie was two years older than me.
Steffi
How did she cope? Where did she get money from?
Min
I don't know. Well, Joe. And Moishe was earning. The Geoffie.
Steffi
And they all gave a little bit to her.
Min
A widow's pension then was five shillings a week. I think Sophie was working.
Steffi
Because when you think about it she must have had seven children living at home and only three working...
Min
And she had to do all her own baking and cooking and everything. She was a marvellous cook.
Steffi
... "She made this tin of salmon go round 14 people..."
Min
Yes. That's what Binkie always remembers. She made a tin of salmon go round 14 people. You remember Grandma don't you?
Steffi
Very clearly. Funnily enough I remember her more and more clearly.
Roger
Every time I looked at Auntie Sophie I see her.
Min
She looked like Sophie, but in personality she was like me.
Steffi
On the Saturday when I went round to Auntie Sophie's, Auntie Edie and Uncle Charlie came round that day -- just before the shiva -- and she went into the kitchen to get some tea, and Auntie Edie said "Oh you looked so much like Mama -- just then" -- the way she was walking.
Roger
I always see it.
Min
No. No. Well, she looks a bit like her -- but I would say that Edie looked more like her really.
Steffi
Yes, definitely. She had a strong face, and she had these lines here, that Edie's got.
Min
But her personality was really much more mine -- except she was foreign.
Steffi
What was interesting was her language. It was such a mixture.
Min
She was very shy.
Steffi
And I do remember I went to visit her in Gracefield Gardens and she spoke Yiddish, and Russian, and a bit of this that and the other. That was after Tilson House.
Min
That's why I was so annoyed when Lionel broadcast and said she was illiterate. She wasn't illiterate. I asked him. He said, "Well no. Illiterate means you can't read or write."
Steffi
Quite right. He didn't mean it in contemptuous way...
Min
No, but it sounded (that way)... He was devoted to her. No one he was more devoted to her than he was.
Steffi
Yes I remember he was still at home at Tilson Court...
Min
... When he went to war.
Steffi
I remember he had all these PG Wodehouse books on the window sill -- and browsing through them.
Roger
I remember a story about somebody who was an artistic type or was in entertainment or something. It might have been your mother's father. And he more or less left everything to the wife to do, and went off gallivanting around...
Min
No! You're thinking of somebody in Bill's family.
Steffi
There was somebody. The story was the Grandma Davidson was very sniffy about whoever it was.
Roger
I thought it was her father.
Min
No. She never knew him. He died very young. She talked about her mother.
Steffi
What was he? He was Salit.
Min
I don't know what her parents names were. I'll tell you something. Her father died young, and her mother had to earn a living as a wet nurse to a wealthy family. And so because of that Mama was sent to live with an aunt who she adored. And she named me after this aunt -- it was Malka. And she lived more with that aunt than she did with her mother because her mother didn't have time to bring her up, because she had these other children, the three sons and two daughters -- she was the youngest... No Jack was the youngest...
Roger
So, your mother's mother was Salit and her father was a Shotness...
Min
No! That was on the Noble side.
Steffi
Shotness was Schachness. I'll tell you...
Roger
No -- we'll deal with the Nobles some other time! What was your mother's mother's name? What was her family name?
Min
I might know her first name, but I wouldn't know her family name.
Steffi
How did you refer to your grandparents?
Min
But I never knew them.
Steffi
Did you refer to them as Buba and Zeda or...
Min
No. We never used terms like that in our family.
Steffi
Isn't that interesting. Why not? Because you used Yiddish.
Min
No. I didn't. Mama used to. But I never could speak Yiddish -- I could just say a few words.
Steffi
Did she not refer to them?
Min
No. They weren't grandparents to us because we never knew them -- we never saw them. I mean they were living in another country. It was like a mystery. We weren't aware of them.
Roger
Yes. You haven't got a parallel today. Jane's kids know you very well. Because you can travel today
Min
Exactly. It was unheard of. I mean the journey coming here for my mum must have been a terrible ordeal.
Steffi
What year did she come over?
Min
I can't remember now.
Roger
We've got it written down in DAVNOB somewhere.
Min
Yes -- Joe knew all that.
Steffi
But you see she lived to be over 80. Uncle Lionel told me she was 81 when she died. I thought she was about 79.
Min
I think she was 79. Did he say 81?
Roger
She came over in about 1900
Steffi
Let's work it out. What year did she die?
Min
She died the year before I got married -- 1958. Bill never met her. I was married to Bill when there was the stone-setting. No -- she died just before I met Bill. It was April 1957 -- no April 1958.
Steffi
It was 1958 because I was in Nancy.
Roger
No. You were in England -- because I remember when you (Min) told us, you (Steffi) were with me.
Min
No. You weren't in Nancy -- you were in Brussels.
Steffi
I was somewhere, because I remember getting a letter from Julian about it, funnily enough. He wrote to me, or I wrote to him -- I can't remember. It was just before my A-levels. 1957 was Nancy, 1958 was Brussels -- the Brussels exhibition.
Min
Blimey. I must have laid out a lot of money for your fares!
Steffi
No. It was something special... It cost £30.
Min
£30 was a lot of money in those days.
Steffi
Listen. Grandma Davidson had nine children -- all of whom survived to adulthood -- and she never went into hospital. She never had surgery of any sort in all her life. Isn't that an extraordinary thing.
Min
Well that's the same as I hadn't until this (recent minor surgery for a blocked saliva duct).
Steffi
Yes but although your early years were not so good, in terms of nutrition you were all right... But she didn't. I mean she came from the very humble background...
Min
Oh, not only that. She had a very hard life until very much later.
Steffi
It's quite amazing. And all that number of children. You gave up after two!
Min
She always looks smart and elegant. And when you knew her she was still slim -- she never let herself go.
Roger
(pointing to family tree) Did any of these (Grandma Davidson's brothers and sisters) come to England?
Min
Her eldest brother Uncle Melach was in England - he came first. He lived here first in Hull.
Roger
Did he have any children?
Min
Yes -- Ray, Rosie and Fanny and Eva.
Steffi
Who was Gittel?
Min
Gittel was Uncle Jack's daughter.
Steffi
Uncle Jack's another brother?
Min
Yes -- the youngest brother. Sophie used to say that she thinks that Clive's beginning to look like Uncle Jack. I said, well, you say that Roger looks like Clive, and Roger certainly doesn't look like Uncle Jack...
Steffi
Roger doesn't look like Clive. Uncle Lou said today that Noach looks just like Bernie. There are a couple of pictures he saw. He said that profile looks just like Bernie.
Min
Did he really? I can't see it.
Steffi
I remember he used to have his hair back. He used to take two brushes, and he used to brush his hair back, with Brylcream. Now when Nochi's hair is back and short, he's got quite low brow -- and although I think that Nochi's features aren't as chiselled...
Min
He was very good-looking. More like Grandma Noble... More like Roger. Kathleen always says Roger is the image of him, but I can't see it actually.
Roger
Rosie and Gertie always say that.
Min
Anyway, we've got to Uncle Jack...
Roger
No we're at Uncle Melach..
Min
Uncle Melach was the eldest brother -- he had Ray, that's Rachel -- Lou Wayne's mother -- she married Abe; Rosie -- she married Mick; and Fanny married Meir Branski. Now my mother used hate him. He used to come in and call Lionel (we used to call him Leib) Leibel -- he used to say - medicine bottle label -- I always remember that -- he was a real joker - and a bit of a rogue. He married Fanny and eventually they came to live in Battersea. He had a barber shop in Battersea.
Roger
Now who is Eva? We never heard of her.
Min
She married somebody called Blackshaw, and she is the one Nickie Riley looks the image of - a very good-looking woman.
Steffi
Can I get back to the "mystery"? It was your father who couldn't go back.
Min
We didn't know that he couldn't, but we don't know why he didn't.
Steffi
He suddenly changed his plans.
Min
He had come from wealthy family, and had been sent travelling. Why he should want...
Steffi
Was this before he got married or after?
Min
Before he was married.
Steffi
Maybe it's as simple as that. He decided to stay because of Grandma. Or is that too obvious?
Min
I really don't know quite honestly. Sophie might fill you in there. When I said to Lionel, when he told me he'd got them (the journals), and he showed me them, they're beautiful, they're big journals. Some are dated Paris, and some are dated America...
Roger
This was your father?
Yes. He travelled all over. There's pictures of him taken with the man with a top hat, and all dressed with cravat...
(A discussion follows about finding a translation agency)
Roger
Now Ray married Abe, and they had...
Min
Lou, Jack and Jo. Rose married Mick very late in life. They didn't have any children. Fanny had two -- Marlene and Cecil -- Marlene was a hairdressing in Tooting -- we've completely lost touch with them. Eva married somebody called Blackshaw.
Roger
Did they have any children?
Min
Yet -- Norwood Blackshaw -- he became a town clerk of somewhere or another -- he was quite nice boy. I vaguely remember him. And another son, but I don't remember his name at all. In fact the last time that Edie went to Hull, Eva was in an old people's home, and she saw her there. She went to visit, and Eva talked to her. And that was when she said that she realised that Nicky looked like her. And another funny thing when the Edie went to Hull, there's what they call... They have a Jewry thing, asking people all over the world to send in any old local pictures, and she said there was not only a picture of the Jewish girl guides with Edie on it, wearing her big hat, but there was Uncle Jack in the army with his bayonet and his funny hat. She's got a picture of them. She's got those pictures.
Roger
Now Sorettel, your mother's eldest sister, she didn't come to England?
Min
She did. She came to England soon after Mama, but she didn't... Her husband was a bit... I think it was her husband who was a bit of a rogue. They were the parents of Harry and Berl that came to England with the hair-nets.
Roger
Who you had contact with just before the war?
Min
Yes
Roger
They died in the war, in the camps...
Steffi
Did a lot of family die in the camps?
Min
All of them. We never heard anything from any of them... Except the doctor, Tevye's daughter, she came over after the war to try and make contact. And she made contact, she got in touch with, and went to visit... I don't know whether she visited Mama and Mama didn't know who she was, and she didn't have an address, and she went back, and we never got... Now Lionel will tell you that. I can't remember what happened.
Roger
What was her name?
Min
I don't know. Sophie will tell you that one because she knows that...
Steffi
So she survived then. In Russia. She came from Russia.
Min
But we never heard any more about her, and we think that she got, you know, that she can't get away. So she is the only link that still might be there.
Steffi
How old would she be now?
Min
She'd be, let me see, Joe's age...
Steffi
So it is conceivable, but she won't be travelling...
Min
And the other interesting thing is that Berl left some money in England in Charlie's name, at the bank. He was staying with Edie and Charlie at the time, and he wanted to leave some money here because it was just getting very difficult, and they had quite a bit of money that family you see, and they put some money in the bank, and I think Charlie made it over into Joe's name, and then we discovered that the legal heir would be Uncle Jack, because he was the last surviving brother of that family. But I still don't know what happened to that.
Roger
Now Jack?
Min
Jack married somebody called Fanny, and they had Gittel, Edie and Jo (who lives in America) and Becky -- Becky Salit. All Salits. Gittel lives in Leeds - I had a letter from her. She lived in Hull and married somebody from Leeds. Jo went to America. Edie married out, I can't remember what happened to her. You see the family names keep coming in again.
Roger
And Becky Salit -- what happened to her?
Min
I don't know what happened to her. Gittel's the only one we keep in touch with. Because Gittel came to London and lived with us when we lived in the High Road Streatham. That house. She lived there for a few months. She was going to get a job here and settle, then she got homesick and couldn't find a job. She worked with Edie actually, in that little draper shop in the High Road. She worked with Edie, and then she went back. But Edie sees her when she goes to Leeds now. We keep in touch with her....