Gather Ye Rosebuds Dear p.nut There could be quite a lot of mail waiting for you when you emerge. I really don't know how you're going to find time for feeding. Don't feel obliged to reply immediately. First, a correction or two. Vilnius is not 400km NE of Moscow, it's about 400km NE of Warsaw. It's about 800kn W by SW of Mos- cow. But I expect you spotted that. 'Ann Frank' should have read 'Anne Frank'; it may not seem all that important, but I think that people are entitled to be recorded accurately - they deserve it. Anita and I went to an Anne Frank exhibition yesterday (17/1/98) in York. There was little new in it, of course, although there were a few photographs that I don't remember seeing before. A few years ago, we visited the house in which she hid in Amsterdam and it was very strange yesterday to see images of her standing in the very place that we had stood. But one thing that most im- pressed me was how many visitors had brought young children to the exhibition - some in pushchairs, some toddling and asking to be carried (you know how it is with toddlers), some even bigger but still at hand-holding stage. Parents were trying to answer quite simple questions, such as 'Why did they want to kill her?' and 'Why didn't people stop them?' and 'Why didn't they like the Jews?'. Now the questions were simple, but the answers were pretty elusive. Parents knew that they had to give answers and (as these were the parents who thought it important enough to bring their children) they knew they had to be responsible an- swers, but you could tell that, whilst trying to answer in terms that the children could understand, they felt their answers were trite. Well, I wanted to tell the parents 'You're doing well. Later, you can tell them more. But, right now, it's good that you brought them.' Because it is important that the stories are passed on. Today I want to tell you something about my mother and father. In my last letter, I wrote a good deal about randomness. Well, I don't propose to labour the point any more; in fact, I'll try not to mention it again. But in practically everything I'm going to tell you, I'm sure you'll be able to recognise that theme recur- ring. I think that a new theme for today might be 'Life isn't a dress rehearsal'. My father was born in Middlesbrough on April 28th 1903. He came to Leeds when he was nine, went to Montreal for a couple of years when he was in his twenties, came back to Leeds, met my mother, got married and died in Leeds in December 1957. He was fifty four years old. My mother was born in Leeds on January 24th 1903 or 1904 (I'll tell you about that confusion another time), met my father, got married, lived all her life in Leeds until the last few years, when she moved to a care home in Harrogate where she died in No- vember 1990. So she was a widow for thirty-three years, which is a lot more years than she was married. 'Gather ye rosebuds whilst ye may...' They had two children. That's the bare bones of the story. Now, as far as possible, we'll flesh it out. I believe my father was the fourth or fifth of nine children: Sydney, Harry, Sophie, Louis, David (my father), Lily, Edith, Jenny and Max - more or less in age order! Sydney, the eldest, died before I was born. Indeed, that's one reason why I am called Sydney; it is a Jewish custom to name babies after dead relatives, never, never after living ones. By the time I was born, not only was Uncle Sydney dead but, of course, my grandfa- ther Solomon was long dead. It was natural that I should be named after them. I should tell you that jews are given Jewish names as well as English 'equivalents'. My grandfather was, in England, Solomon Isaac, Jewish name Shalom Yitzchak and this was given to me. Thankfully, the English equivalent that was given to me was Sydney Irving (You want to know why? I'll tell you why -don't ask.) (Jewish joke). I've never really liked the name Sydney Irv- ing, but I'll tell you this - it sure beats the hell out of being called Solomon Isaac. I do like being called Shalom Yitzchak (al- though I'll withold your next birthday present if you ever dare call me that - and you can tell your parents that goes for them, too) because of its translation - it means 'Peace' and 'Laugh- ter'. The family (surname) was Levin, but when I grew up I de- cided to drop that and became just plain and simple Sydney Irv- ing. Uncle Sydney was an actor. More accurately, I suppose, he was a 'performer'. He did monologues, poetry, one-man shows. I guess people paid to see and hear him. I've seen one photograph of him, in tail suit and performing mode a long time ago. I seem to re- member that he looked impressive. I don't know if the photograph still exists; if you're interested, you could ask cousin Barbara in Montreal - she's as likely as anyone to have it. Sydney was the first to emigrate to Canada, to Montreal, where he died at not too great an age, leaving his wife Jenny (not to be confused with Barbara's mother Jenny - names keep recurring in these fami- lies) and, I think, two children Mildred and Harry (not to be confused with my two Uncle Harry's - one my father's brother, the other my mother's brother). I think I met Harry once but I don't remember him - I think he gave us a couple of neckties. Mildred I do remember meeting and I remember it with great fondness. She and her husband Issy came to visit in Leeds, I think just be- fore your father was born. They were travelling in England with Jenny and Phil (Barbara's parents) and they stayed with us for a few days. When we met, I think there was an instant recognition of kinship and we seemed to become close friends immediately. Af- ter a few days, they went off to see more of the country, but a couple of days later, Mildred phoned and asked if they could come back to Leeds - they wanted to spend time with us and not with England! By the time they had to return to Canada, we had plans to meet up in Montreal the following year. Sadly, we never made the meeting. There was some reason why we couldn't travel to Canada, so we put it off. I think it was the year after that she became seriously ill and died. 'Gather ye rosebuds...' I met Issy once when I did eventually get to Montreal. So did your father and Liz, but I don't think they'll remember him. They had no children. I really meant the bit from Uncle Sydney onwards to appear in a later letter. To be logical, I should tell you now about the rest of my uncles and aunts, so I won't. Another time.... Back to my father. My father knew poverty. The whole family was very poor, as you can imagine: immigrant parents, many children, no real trade. Most of the information I have reached me grudg- ingly; I guess people don't like to talk about it. Just an exam- ple: the first time he ever had any money of his own was when he was a small child and someone gave him a penny. Not a penny like the pennies you know. One of the pennies we used to have - worth a two hundred and fortieth part of a pound. He told me his mother took it from him to help buy food for the family. He told me he wept and wept and wept. I don't think it was for the loss of the buying power of a penny that he wept, because he was never a per- son who spent a lot of money; I think it was for the loss that he wept. I don't think he blamed his mother, and I don't either. She had a family to feed. And, who knows, maybe she wept, too? When he was thirteen years old, he left school and went to work. Most people did, then. Education was not an option for older children of immigrant families. But education was something he always respected and craved. One of his few possessions was a set of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia - twelve volumes of sev- eral hundred pages each. He bought these sometime before he was married, on the 'weekly payment' scheme and he read them through, from the first page of Volume One to the last page of Volume 12. Now, that might strike you as a funny, strange thing for a person to do; after all, you and I know that the way you use an ency- clopaedia is the same way you use a dictionary - you look up top- ics (or words) in which you happen to have an interest. I'm sure he knew that, too, because it was he who taught me to always look up in a dictionary a word I didn't understand, and he joined me in looking up in the encyclopaedia any topics which we wanted to know more about. So why did he read the encyclopaedia from cover to final cover? Well, I believe he was searching for education in the only way he could think of. In common with very many unedu- cated people, he thought that wisdom resided in facts. He didn't realise that wisdom resided in him. I always feel very sad when I think of him reading his encyclopaedia. Sad because it was a lonely thing to do. Sad because there seems to be an air of des- peration about it. And sad because he didn't realise his own po- tential. His interests were quiet ones. Country walks (not energetic hikes), public lectures, political discussion, listening to radio 'talks' and 'features', reading his newspaper, weekly magazines and books - largely biography and travel - and watching Leeds United play football. OK, maybe that last one wasn't all that quiet. He used to take me to watch football matches and I went with him to Elland Road right until the time I was too old to be seen out with my father. By the time I was old enough to be seen out with him again, or could find the time, he had died. 'Gather ye rosebuds...' He was a very gentle man. He spoke softly. He respected people. He was a stranger to violence. Except, I believe, on one occa- sion. My mother told me that once, just once, he smacked me. Now, from my memories of him, I know that he was not a man who easily lost his temper - I only saw it happen on a couple of occasions. So, if he smacked me, I must have done something pretty irritat- ing. Anyway, my mother told me that I cried and cried and bawled and then I cried some more. I certainly knew how to make them pay. Then my mother became angry with my father and he said that he would never ever smack me again. And he didn't. Do you know, the funny thing is that I can't remember what I'd done, I can't remember him smacking me and I can't remember crying. If my moth- er hadn't told me, I'd never have known. My mother's family was not so impoverished as my father's. He was a tailor and a sewing machinist (two different crafts) and he opened his own shop in Leeds, where he sold trousers and chil- dren's shorts (called 'knickers') which he made himself. He must have been reasonably successful because he supported his wife and children - Leslie, Bessie (my mother), Julia, Sam, Barney, Mickey (female) and Harry - adequately. Unlike my father's family, they all managed to stay alive until I was grown up - in fact only Sam (who died in New Zealand) was not alive when your father was born. As the eldest daughter, my mother was given much responsibility for looking after house and younger children, with her mother. Leslie was older but, of course, he was a boy so had no such du- ties - don't blame me, I merely tell it as it was. When her moth- er died, I think she must have had to take over the full respon- sibility for the home. Apart from this, she led a normal life for young women in her circle. She craved no education after she left school (also aged thirteen) but went to work as a sewing machinist. She filled her leisure time with dancing, with socialising (especially with 'boys') with films and with reading the popular novels and wom- en's magazines. In fact, she would have been the perfect wife for anyone but my father. So how did it happen? Well, both their mothers died about the same time. Now, both ob- served traditional Orthodox Jewish mourning. This consists of seven days of deep mourning (called 'Shiva') where immediate fam- ily sit at home constantly and friends and neighbours visit. Then there follows eleven months of less intense mourning; mourners rejoin normal life, they work and they take recreation within well defined parameters. They don't go to cinema or theatre. They don't go to dances. They don't go to parties. They take their recreations seriously. They can go for walks, they can even visit quiet cafes. You get the picture? Well, my father met my mother through my Uncle Les (who he worked with) and asked her out. They took their serious recreations together and eventually they got married. I can't think of any way that my parents could have married in different circumstances. Their spheres of interest were so dif- ferent that I can't see how they could have developed a relation- ship that would have ended in that way. After they married, in about 1933 or 4, they had their first child. It was a boy and it was born dead. It would have been called Sydney. I was born in July 1935. I don't know what I would have been called if 'Sydney' had been taken. Come to that, I don't know if I would have been born. Just one more thing, and then we can both go to bed. Your father will remember my mother as an old lady, sometimes de- manding, often irritating, grey haired, little, fat, walking with a Zimmer frame, with the aura and smell of old people. That's how I remember her towards the end of her life. She lived in a couple of rooms on the first floor of our house and watched television and slept. But I also remember her when I was younger and she had blonde hair and smelled of face powder and I thought she was pretty. And I also remember an old photograph of her when she was very young and she looked very attractive indeed. And there was an even earlier photograph of her when she was in pantomime at the Empire Theatre or the Theatre Royal in Leeds. Yes. When she was about eleven or twelve, she defied her father (so what's new?) and went to audition for the Sunbeams. You won't know what a Sunbeam was. Well, in those days, professional pantomimes al- ways used to recruit a dozen or so local young girls to create a chorus of Sunbeams - to dance, to sing. It wasn't easy to be se- lected. And your great great grandmother was a Sunbeam for two years running. And if there isn't a 'Gather ye rosebuds...' in that last para- graph, I don't know where you'll find one. Much love Grandaddy Sydney