Uncle Barney and Uncle Louis My dear Lauren Today I'm going to tell you about my mother's brother Barney and my father's brother Louis. Barney was married to Bertha; Louis, briefly, was married to Kitty. Auntie Bertha always called Uncle Barney 'Bernard'. No one else did. I suppose she thought 'Bernard' more dignified than 'Bar- ney', but it didn't help. Uncle Barney wasn't dignified. All his family thought he was rather foolish and I suppose he was. But he was good natured, child friendly and considered himself worldly wise whilst the rest of the world considered him not important. The rest of the world, that is, except for Auntie Bertha, who thought the world revolved around him. And he her. They were the happiest couple in the whole family, if not the whole community. And I guess they were so happy because they didn't know they shouldn't be. Uncle Barney was a joker. He joked with everyone, all the time, whether appropriate or not. Well, who's to say what's appropri- ate? Conversation to Uncle Barney was joking. My mother used to say: 'To Barney, everything's a joke' because, as his older sis- ter, she could criticise him. Then she'd say: 'But he's a good man' because, as his older sister, she didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. His jokes were not funny, and he repeated them a lot. Your father and Liz think the same about me but, believe me, beside Uncle Barney's jokes, I'm Ben Elton (Ben Elton was a very funny comedian in the late twentieth century, but he'd gone off by the time you were born). Once, when I broke my first arm, Uncle Barney was delegated to take me to hospital when it was time to have the plaster cast re- moved. He joked with the receptionist, he joked with the nurses, he joked with the man who was removing my plaster. I became more and more embarrassed. Afterwards, he took me to a cafe for tea and fairy cakes. And he joked with the waitresses and the other customers. My earliest recollection of Bertha and Barney is of their wedding day. My cousin Ronnie and I were pageboys. We appeared in white satin suits, wearing satin hats with feathers, satin shoes, car- rying satin covered prayer books. It must have been my first so- cial engagement since my circumcision (at the age of eight days). I can remember standing in the synagogue, behind them, for what seemed an awful long time. Ronnie was to the right of me, not close enough to speak but close enough to exert influence on me (which he did for many, many years after that). He is a year and nine months older than me and was clearly to be respected for his greater experience of life. At his instigation (that is, when he did it first) I sat also on my prayer book. I'm told this caused some disruption. In fact, I was three years old, so this must have been 1938 or 1939 - just before the war. I have their wedding photograph in front of me. I must say that neither of them resonates with the mental picture I carry. Barney was soon in the army; in the Eighth Army, to be precise. This was Field Marshall Montgomery's fierce fighting force, which had more loss of life than any other branch of the forces. This isn't a history lesson; you'll have to look elsewhere for de- tails. However, Barney was a signalman. This was drawing the short straw in a big way. Whilst he was doing this, his brother Hishy was teaching himself the language in Iceland, brother Sam was doing something in the army that we never really heard about - he was just a soldier - and eldest brother Les was arguably the oldest Jewish tailor in the British army based in Scotland. (One day, reputedly, they said to him: 'Sherman, what are you doing here? You're too old for this. Go on leave and don't come back.' So he did.) Barney's job was to go ahead of his fighting compan- ions to set up lines of communication. Often, he found himself at the wrong side of the fighting; that is, behind enemy lines and on one occasion, he recalled, he found himself up a telegraph pole, connecting wires, whilst men beneath him were hand and gun fighting. Barney was big on platitudes which he regarded as phi- losophy. 'Listen', he would say, 'You know what they say. God is good. He looked after us'. I don't know if that's what he thought whilst he was up the pole, but he thought it afterwards. I sup- pose there was no room in his philosophy for figuring out who put him up the pole in the first place. After the war, he came back to his old job as upholsterer. He made settees and armchairs in a furniture factory. The work was quite heavy and the pay only moderate. But he was very happy. As he would say: 'Listen. You know what they say. Count your blessings.' Bertha was profoundly deaf. She became very fat. It was a patho- logical condition; at one time, she was treated in hospital for obesity but with no success. She walked with sticks. She was very short-sighted and used thick spectacles. Barney was a well built man. He had to do a great deal of caring; the shopping, cooking, cleaning, all household chores. Although I don't believe he did them well, he did them willingly and with a good heart. Whenever they were out together (and, for all I know, maybe when they were at home together) they held hands. And, as I said, she called him 'Bernard'. They never had children. 'Listen', he would say, 'It was never intended to happen.' And that seemed to satisfy him. Their lives were restricted. They had no car and depended on public trans- port and the kindness of other people who had cars, although there were not too many of them at that time in our family cir- cle. I remember that, whenever I drove them anywhere, I always feared for the safety of the car. She really was very, very obese and I really did feel that the car springs, at least, were in danger. One night, when they were returning from a family function, they were sitting in the back seat of a car. The car went round a cor- ner. Bertha was pushed against the door. The door burst open and Bertha rolled out on to the road. She was unconscious for a short time, then she died. Imagine that, Lauren. They were sitting in the back of a car. They'd probably had a good time. They were ex- pecting to go home. They were expecting tomorrow. And then she fell out of the car. He never had chance to speak to her again and, of course, she couldn't speak to him. I expect they were holding hands as she fell out of the car. I was on holiday when this happened and knew nothing about it un- til I returned. When I saw Barney, he seemed to me to be well composed. 'Listen', he said, 'You know what they say. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.' Not that he was laughing. And I don't know what he did when he was alone. He lived alone for years after that. He lived in the Queenshill Estate which, if you've been paying attention, you'll remember was where Chaim Chatchy lived. Of course, he was long dead by then. Eventually, Barney started having blackouts and falling over when he stood up from a chair. He had low blood pressure. 'Listen,' he would say, 'You know what they say. There are lots of people worse off.' He didn't look after himself very well and the family came in and helped as much as possible. They wanted him to go into care (which is a euphemism for 'nursing home' which, of course, is itself a euphemism). He refused. Eventually, he died. 'Listen,' he used to say, 'You know what they say. There's no point in grumbling. No one ever listens if you do.' Uncle Barney's Jewish name was Baruch. Baruch means Blessed. Uncle Louis was a sadder man. My first recollection of him was when I was, maybe, three years old. I'd just come out of hospital where I'd been treated for an abscess on my back which I acquired when I'd fallen backwards down the flight of stone steps outside our home whilst carrying a chair back into the house. It was only a short flight of steps and it was only a small chair but it still landed me in hospital for a few days. Actually, I was a slow learner when it came to flights of stone steps. A couple of years later, I rode my first tricycle down Aunt Julia's front steps. That was a flight of about a dozen. I suppose it never oc- curred to me that it couldn't be done. After that, I left steps alone (except for ascending and descending them in the course of a lifetime). Anyway, my first recollection of Louis was when I returned from hospital to find a load of new toys set out on the living room carpet - trains and cars and other things to push around. They seemed like a great idea, except all you could do with them was push them around. I remember Uncle Louis against this background. Not that he played with me; that wasn't his style. I simply re- member him sitting there, with his legs stretching half way across the room (Louis always sat in an armchair in what Oscar Wilde would have called 'a semi-recumbent posture'; his back right down in the chair, with his head below the top of the chair-back and his legs stretched out in front of him. You proba- bly know what I mean. The way which makes your mother and father say 'Sit up straight, Lauren'). And his pipe. His evil smelling pipe which gurgled as he sucked on it. That was the only impres- sion he made on me. He visited quite frequently, to see my par- ents and to visit Aunt Jennie, who lived in the next street to us. He visited Uncle Max and Aunt Marion quite frequently and Un- cle Harry and Aunt Anne less frequently (Uncle Harry didn't have much time for him). As far as I know, no one ever visited him. I don't even know where he lived at that time. He was married to Kitty but I don't think I ever met her. They lived with her mother. In fact, I think it's truer to say that he lived with Kitty and her mother. They had no time for him, ei- ther. He was always alone. Somewhere along the line, they adopted a son - Malcolm. They had no children of their own and I think it was pretty clear to everyone why they had no children of their own, though no one said so (at least, no one said so in my pres- ence). Soon after, Kitty and her mother threw him out. I have no idea why she married him in the first place. It certainly wasn't for money, it wasn't for his appearance (his clothes were always crumpled and none too clean and he always looked as though he had shaved badly, if at all) and I don't think it was for his person- ality. Older people always seem to live in the past, don't they? They're always remembering the good times (and even the bad times) that they used to have. Louis seemed to spend more time there than most. He always spoke of past times and people he used to know. There seemed to be nothing in his conversation about the future, although there was something of the present but I don't remember hearing him speak of the pleasant or, for that matter, of hope. There was something of the tramp in Louis. From time to time, he wandered off for a spell. He didn't pack and he didn't plan. He just wandered away. Once he disappeared for quite a spell. I suppose it took a little time for anyone to notice he had gone. Eventually, when he re- turned, he visited again. He'd walked to Middlesbrough and back. Just in the clothes he stood up in. He'd slept rough and, I sup- pose, he'd eaten rough too. Why had he walked to Middlesbrough? He'd decided that he wanted to see the house where he was born. The round trip is about 200km. Louis had epilepsy. I'm not quite sure when this manifested it- self. He worked in an iron foundry, as a labourer. One day, a load of scrap metal (I think) fell on him and he was in hospital for a time. I don't know if that is when the illness started. Anyway, he received some money in a compensation claim; not a large sum of money, but enough to look after many of his needs and, as it turned out, enough to make him unhappy. He didn't open a bank account. I don't think he understood banks and I think he wanted to have the money 'looked after' for him. By this time, he was living in Shaftesbury House, a Leeds hostel for the homeless. None of his family could, or would, give him a home and, in all fairness, had they done so, I'm certain he would have been obtru- sive and made everyone very unhappy. As he had nowhere to keep his money, and as he was distrustful of banks, he passed the mon- ey to his brother Harry to look after. I think Harry opened a bank account and Louis used to ask him for whatever he wanted. Now, I can't imagine Louis wanting more than enough for tobacco and newspapers and occasional essential things, but the arrange- ment with Harry didn't work out. Every time he wanted some of his own money, Harry asked him what he wanted it for; he started to regard himself as guardian and Louis as his ward. Very reason- ably, Louis thought it had nothing to do with Harry how he spent his own money. He also thought that Harry didn't like to see him too often (he was right). So he asked my father to take over the handling of the money. Now, I know my father was scrupulous in his handling of this mat- ter; he kept a written record of every single transaction. Howev- er, the money seemed to reduce faster than Louis thought it should. Despite the paper records (and the fact that my father was the most honest person I have ever known, and everyone knew this to be the case), Louis complained to Aunt Edith. Edith spoke to my father, who was horrified. He insisted that Edith took over the handling of the fund. I don't know how well that worked but, when Edith emigrated to Canada, Louis asked my father to take it over again. Heaven knows how small the fund was by that time, but my father refused to become involved again. So Max and Marion took it over. I don't think Max was really capable of looking af- ter his own money, but that was the situation until Louis died. It hardly brought him great happiness. One afternoon, I got a phone call at work from Marion to say that Louis had died. As the only family member alive in this country, it fell upon Max to sort out all the arrangements, and that real- ly meant it fell upon Marion, although she certainly needed help. So I arranged to cancel my appointments for the next day and I went to Max and Marion's in the morning to help them sort things out. I realised that I didn't know if Louis was still married - it was many years earlier that they had separated, but I didn't (still don't) know if he was divorced. I didn't know if Kitty was still alive, or where she lived or even what name she was using. I did know that Malcolm was a pharmacist. I don't know how I knew this - maybe Marion told me. But I'd never met him, not even when he was a baby. Nor had I ever met Kitty or her mother. Nor had I any idea where they had lived. Imagine that! My own uncle and, apart from the time he lived at Shaftesbury House, I had no idea where he had lived. Even Shaftesbury House was nothing more than an idea to me. I knew where it was and what it looked like - a big, brick, square building perched halfway up Beeston Hill and quite close to my practice. I'd had many patients from Shaftesbury House. They tended to be a shiftless population, ever changing and moving on, and they had a tendency to break their spectacles very frequently (an event which was often accompanied by a broken nose or a black eye). Once, long after Louis' departure (from both Shaftesbury House and the world) I was asked to set up a clinic in Shaftes- bury House and that was the first time I ever set foot in the place. It was a bare, sad building and I was very unhappy to think that anyone had to call it 'home'. So we decided that we ought to try to trace Malcolm. It wasn't very difficult. The Health Authorities keep lists of all con- tracted practitioners - doctors, optometrists, dentists and phar- macists - and Malcolm hadn't strayed far away from the area. We found him in the Leeds list and phoned him at work. I told him who I was. He was even less interested in me than I had been in him for all those years. I told him (it was a difficult conversa- tion for me) that his father had died. It seemed to be a less difficult conversation for him. He wasn't interested. Please don't read any note of criticism from me in all of this; I don't know how I would have felt, had I received similar news some decades after I had last seen my father, especially as I don't expect Kitty and her mother spoke about him in glowing terms. But I do know that Louis used to speak about Malcolm with affection, although I guess he really had no idea what this 'Malcolm' was like, or even looked like. Malcolm said he didn't think it had anything to do with him. He never told me if Kitty was alive and, I suppose, I didn't ask. So we went ahead and buried him. Why have I written to you about Barney and Louis in the same let- ter? Well, I think they occupied similar positions in their own fami- lies. Both were on the margin. Neither was taken seriously. There were differences, of course. The main difference is that one was happy and the other wasn't. With much love Granddaddy Sydney