The Davidson Saga by Joe Davidson (1960) first appeared in the early gestetner printed editions of Davnob at then end of the 1950s - and was reprinted in the early 1990s.
PART ONE (First Published in DAVNOB in September 1958) PART TWO PART THREE
To the limited but knowledgeable readership of DAVNOB, it would be pointless to say that we are a family of immense numbers. They all know this! But there are many in the family to whom it would be good to offer the reminder that even 40 years ago we were a big family.
Should we therefore, just to get this saga into good chronological order, start right at the beginning - so that we may know from whence we came?
On a fateful day of March, in the year 1894 - 64 years ago - a ship, casually known as one of the "immigrant ships" docked in the port of Hull. Standing, crowded together, on the deck, were some hundreds of frightened-looking Jewish men and women, each holding tightly on to their queer-looking bundles - bundles which held all their earthly possessions. They had reached their destination.
Some were lone pioneers to this land of freedom and opportunity. Others came to relatives who had arrived a year, or some years, before, and having found work of some kind or other, had established a sort of bridgehead to which their loved-ones, whom they had left in Russia - the Land of Oppression - could one by one be brought over - and for whom the fare money, shilling by shilling, was hungrily scraped together.
But, my dear readers, it is no part of this chronicle to recall the poignant story of those immigrant days. We of DAVNOB are concerned in this writing with only one of these immigrants, a young and lovely girl, standing white-faced, with heart-throbbing - and wide, frightened eyes that searched behind the iron barricades on the quayside for a brother she had not seen for five years - her eldest brother, who was to meet and shelter her in England.
As she looked to her left and to right, a cold dread and terror must have gripped her. Had anything gone wrong? Had there been some terrible misunderstanding? Were the papers she c1utched all in order? How could she explain to all these lordly Immigration, Customs and Passport officials, who barked orders and herded them together, that her brother Malech should be there, that the fare was paid, and that Malech would make everything right?
How she must have prayed, "Send Malech, Send him quickly."
And then she saw him, and almost fainting from joyous relief, she saw that he was running towards her. Soon she had left the dockside and was secure and happy with her brother and his fam11y.
And so, Annie Salit, at 16 years of age, having left her homeland, her widowed mother, two younger brothers and her elder sister, faced a new life, in a strange, new land.