Cracked Eggs and Chicken Soup - A Memoir of Growing Up Between The Wars. Norman Jacobs
house was second on the right going from Shepherd Street. In the first house lived Joe Wallenstein, a toy merchant. Between his shop and our house was a wall along which he often lined up lots of boxes of dolls. When I was about six years old, my cousin, Ikey Isaacs, then in his early twenties, was up our house. He took me to one side and said, ‘Ikey, can you go down and get me a doll? Make sure nobody’s looking when you take it.’ Not knowing any better, I did what I was told by the grown-up. I found out later that Ikey was a bit of a gonif and spent several spells in prison.
Next to us on the other side lived Esther and Marky Woolf with their five boys, just like the well-known Fry’s chocolate bar of the time! One of them, Manny Woolf, was a particular friend of mine. The youngest son Mickey did a bit of professional boxing when he grew up, calling himself Mickey Woods. He never got very far.
Fourth house down saw Fanny Robalus, a widow with her daughter, Mary. Then Mrs Sarlavy, and her niece Ray Ray Papier. Mrs Sarlavy was a nice old dear. We called her ‘old mother rinking hat’ because she always wore a dark woollen hat.
On to Dickie and Hester Saunders. They were very friendly with Mum and Dad. They had two children, Morrie and Rosie. I was very good friends with Morrie and stayed in touch with him long after we left the Tenterground.
Then came Joey Waterman; I can’t remember if he had any parents. He was about fifteen or sixteen years old. He was a milkman and always seemed to carry a wet cloth about with him. Whenever he saw me he would try to whack me with it.
Ray Ruffel, a widow (I wonder now if she was a war widow) with two children, Alfie and Doris, came next.
Finally, on our side of the street, came Bottles. He was always addressed thus, never heard him called anything else, with his wife, Julie Bottles, and their two children.
Across the street at our end lived Sarah Rosenberg with her husband Judah, and son Woolfy.
One morning when I was very young, probably about four or five, I was outside with Mum when Sarah came rushing out of her house screaming, ‘Help me! Help me! Somebody help me! Judah’s trying to kill me!’ Although there were a number of people out in the street astonishingly to my young mind no one took any notice of her or went to see what was wrong and just let her carry on shouting and screaming while they continued doing whatever it was they were doing. Sarah meanwhile was getting more and more hysterical and eventually I couldn’t stand it any more. So, I finally yelled, ‘Mum, Mum, that woman says someone is trying to kill her, shouldn’t we do something?’
Mum barely looked up from scrubbing the front door step. ‘Don’t take no notice, Ikey, she’s forever doing that. She just likes the attention.’
Although I was still a bit concerned I felt that if Mum said not to worry then I wouldn’t. Eventually Sarah calmed down and just sauntered back indoors to face her husband.
Over the years I lived there, I came to realise that Mum was right as this little scenario was played out every few months. Mind you, the more I got to know Judah, the more I thought he might really be hurting Sarah as he was a funny sort of bloke and frankly I wouldn’t have put anything past him. But no one else ever seemed to care and I never actually saw her with any bruises. Their son Woolfy was a nice sort, always smiling. I got on all right with him and he never seemed worried about his parents so I guess Mum was right.
Of course wife beating was not unknown and was probably far more common than it is today, but amongst our mainly Jewish community I didn’t know of any cases where this happened.
The Kutner household, which I have already mentioned, was directly opposite us. Living with Ruby and his family was his grandfather, Myer Kutner, an itinerant glazier who used to walk the streets with a frame on his back containing sheets of glass.
Going on past the Kutners was Mottle Simons with his wife and two daughters. He once cycled all the way to Brighton unbeknown to his wife to look for work. It must have been quite a while before he returned, sadly, still jobless.
Natie Shine was the third house from the end; a very staunch Labour man. I believe he must have been some sort of agent for that illustrious party because he always turned his front room into a Labour stronghold at election time. During the 1924 general election he stuck a poster in his window urging us to vote for Harry Gosling, whose kindly face looked out upon us from the poster. His opponent in this parliamentary battle was one Major Kiley, a Liberal. As we local youth came almost exclusively from Labour families we took to the street with our battle hymn:
‘Vote, vote, vote for Harry Gosling
Knock old Kiley in the eye
Cos Kiley is a yok and he’s got a pointed cock
And we won’t vote for Kiley any more.’
The penultimate family were the Strongs, Harry, his wife and two sons. Joey Strong was about my age, the other son was younger. Harry dealt in china. Every Sunday morning he would be down the Lane auctioning dinner services, tea sets and other items of chinaware.
The method he employed was to spread the sets he was selling out on a big metal tray and clap his hands above his head a few times to attract a crowd. Once there were enough gathered round, he’d begin by bouncing the dinner service up and down on the tray and barking:
‘Look at this dinner service! You’ll never see another like it. It’s unique. The only one ever made with this pattern. Genuine Wedgwood. It’s worth a fortune, but, ladies and gentlemen, you’re in luck today as I’m in a particularly good mood cos my gee-gees came in yesterday so I’ve decided to share my good luck with you and give it away for practically nothing. So, I’m not asking £1, not even 10 bob, 5 bob, half a crown. It’s yours for 2 bob!’ At which point he would strike the tray hard with the flat of his hand. ‘Who’ll be the first to put their silver down?’ All the while he was doing this he kept on bouncing the pieces up and down till finally he stopped with the final line, ‘All right! You’re robbing me blind but it’s yours for just two tanners.’ Several hands would go up and he’d point to one, saying, ‘My kids’ll starve tonight but you should worry at least you got a bargain!’
With that, he’d give one final bounce of the dinner set, gather it up and the proud buyer would hand over his shilling and take it away.
As soon as the purchaser had gone, he would reach under his stall and take out another dinner service, identical to the ‘unique’ Wedgwood set he’d just sold, and the process would be repeated.
He used to fascinate me and I’d go down the Lane sometimes just to watch his performance; in all the times I saw him do this, he never once dropped or broke a single piece of crockery.
Finally there was Nobby Josephs with his mum and dad. They were greengrocers and also had a stall in the Lane. Nobby had bright red hair; he was a few years my senior.
LOKSHEN SOUP, JAM JARS AND KEATING’S POWDER, 1919–26
‘Sorry, Becky, but we’ll have to tighten our belts next week. My job’s come to an end. There’s no work next week and I really can’t see when I’ll be able to get some more.’ I’m not sure exactly how old I was when I first heard those words as Dad walked through the door on his return from work, though it obviously wasn’t the first time he’d said it and I didn’t really know what it meant, but I knew it couldn’t be good as Mum started sobbing and said, ‘Oh, Jack, we can’t keep going on like this.’ As I grew older this was to become a fairly regular occurrence as Dad would often return home from work on a Friday afternoon, announcing that we would all have to ‘tighten our belts’ as he had no work to go to the following week. Somehow, though, she, and we, always did carry on.
On this particular night, however, Mum reminded Dad that we had company that night. ‘Oh no,’ she wept, ‘Woolfy and Betsy are supposed