ANNE SEGAL'S TALE

LIFE IN GERMANY

I was born on Yom Kippur 1929 in Lindenthal, then a smart area of Cologne. My father, Sally Segal was a businessman, born in Poland of orthodox Jewish parents who had two daughters and a son, and educated in Germany. He had no special skills. My mother, Caecilia Segal, nee Schwarzbach, had three siblings, the eldest brother died during the First World War. The second survived the Holocaust, and another was a sister who also survived. Mum was born in Cologne of an Austrian mother and a Polish father, both Orthodox Jews. She matriculated there. Her parents had a patisserie, and she met her future husband in the shop and they fell in love. Her parents were well known for keeping an open house, entertaining strangers for Shabbat. They married in the late twenties and had three children, Josef, Paula and myself.

Before she met her husband, one day in the shop while she was combing her hair, a blonde blue-eyed Gypsy girl came in and asked to tell her fortune. My mother was puzzled at the girl's appearance, and she told her that she had been kidnapped by her Gypsy "parents". She read Mum's palm and told her that she would meet a tall, dark handsome stranger, from whom she would have three children, but that her life would end in tragedy. She came later with a Gypsy medicine for period pains, which helped my mother's friend who was unwell, and they became friendly.

My father opened a gentswear shop after they married, and she opened a jewellery shop, and business started badly but improved. The jewellery shop, which included antiques, was a type of business that was state-controlled, and, as a consequence, she was known to the Burgomeister of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, later to become the post-war Chancellor of West Germany.


Under the Nazis, daily life for Jews worsened, restrictions such as not being allowed to use lifts, sit in parks abounded. My mother was warned by Adenauer to leave Germany as soon as possible because he had heard that my father he would be taken shortly to a camp. Overnight she locked up the house where she lived, leaving all her possessions behind her, and they took off clandestinely to Holland. Josef was in a convalescent home at that time, and in order not to make matters obvious she arranged for my Grandmother to pick him up on the following day, and that both should follow us. After a few days in Holland, she saw her name splashed all over a German newspaper as being the subject of a search. Knowing that war was imminent they decided to leave Holland for a safer place....she favoured England, but it was impossible as the British were impervious to the fate of the Jews. France and Belgium were too near Germany so the only country available for her was Republican Spain. SPAIN


They arrived in Barcelona, and decided to open a bakery and patisserie as both of them knew how to run the business. Meanwhile, my Grandmother was unhappy being in Spain and she decided to leave despite family protests, she went ahead and was never seen again. Somebody reported to us, after the war, that she had been seen in France, but her fate remains unknown.

The bakery never came to be due to the political upheaval, and to support us, Mum made up shampoos and went from door to door with me trying to sell them. She took in a tall unattractive Polish Jewish woman who had nowhere to live. Mother felt sorry for her, as she was alone. After a while, the Civil War started. We were so hungry and had to go and get food after curfew, carrying a white flag. A man could not go out in the street without the risk of being shot. We had to declare ourselves as German, (we had arrived with Polish passports), due to the Fascists being in the area. We lived in a fine block of flats, which had a marble entrance. One day, my elder sister Paula was taken away by some nuns while she was walking behind us and was missed by my mother. Mother panicked and a woman told her that she had seen a little blonde girl being taken into a nearby convent. My mother had to create a scene, banging on the convent door to get her out of there. Shortly afterwards, Paula suddenly died of meningitis, while my mother was away for one day. She was a genius at 9 years of age, speaking Catalan fluently and translating for all of us. My mother never forgave herself for not being at her side at that terrible time.


The situation became so bad that we had to flee to Switzerland, leaving Josef with my father in Barcelona. In the German speaking part of Switzerland, we lived together in a room, owned by an openly anti -Semitic couple who were unaware we were Jews. I remember they had a black and white cat called Peter. Mum obtained documents from a Jewish committee where some people she knew were members, in order to facilitate the passage of all of us to British Palestine. We had to claim we had capital, which we certainly did not have, to qualify.

BETRAYAL

We were reunited in Switzerland and traveled together to Palestine by ship. On arrival in Palestine we stayed in a small hotel in Haifa and after a short stay we rented a flat. There was no work obtainable. Doctors were sweeping the streets to earn money. One day, my father said he was off to England, claiming that he had been sponsored, and declared that with the help of a friend of his there, he would be sending for us. He left. My mother went to the bank to withdraw cash and found to her horror that her account was empty. A letter from England arrived shortly afterwards addressed to my father. The sender was the Polish woman she had felt sorry for in Barcelona. In the letter she had written that she was looking forward to seeing my father in England. It was clear that he had deserted us for her, stealing our money in the process, and leaving us penniless. We were reduced to selling Mum's jewellery and sleeping on the roof of the flats. Mum asked some people she knew if they would take care of Josef, while she went with me to England...she did not have the fare for Josef at the time, and, as I travelled at child's rate, she could afford just that. The intention was to get to England and send for Josef as soon as she could. That, unfortunately, was never to be.

EN ROUTE TO ENGLAND

We took a boat to Pireus, and, because we were Jews, therefore, in their eyes, Communists, we were not allowed on shore. We also were not allowed to sit on deckchairs so we had to sleep on the uncomfortable deck itself.
The next day we were escorted to an Italian ship going to Italy, and we eventually ended up in Milan. Mum went to a Jewish committee and found people she knew there who helped her financially. On arrival there her Polish passport date expired. Despite repeated attempts, renewal proved impossible to obtain due to the anti-Semitic attitude in the consulate. The political situation was so grave that for the three months we were there we had to sleep at a different address every night in safe houses...we could only enter them after midnight. When the janitors went to sleep, the occupants would drop the key to us. We had to leave the premises before they resumed their duties in the morning, and, consequently, we had very little sleep. She was so desperate, she was considering altering the expiry date on the passport so that she would be free to leave Italy, and even prepared special ink to do so.

One day when she went to the Polish Consulate there was a different official there who gave her a renewal in the joint passport, but it was written extremely badly. However, we managed to use it to reach England (where Mum had spent a holiday once before). When we left, my mother bought me a pink bag I had set my eye on in Milan station, which she had promised me...I always had a thing about handbags, and she kept her word, despite all the more important matters she had to deal with.

LONDON

She was emaciated when we arrived in Aldgate in the east end of London, she weighed only 77lbs and was in a low state of health. Despite that she went out of her way to treat me to a doll, which I had wanted. We stayed in a small hotel called the Stern hotel for one night. The next day she went to Woburn House, where the Board of Jewish Guardians HQ was situated, and found people, who were members of the famous wealthy Sassoon family there who she had known in Germany. We were granted permission to stay for two months in a shelter in Mansfield Street E1, which, for us, was Heaven. It was like a dormitory with the beds separated by dark curtains, for women only. We were also granted six shillings weekly, four shillings for her and two for me. Following that, we rented a room and she worked as a cleaner to pay for it. She tried as soon as possible to send for Josef but had problems with the Home Office, and wasn't able to do so.

Josef, my brother, at 11 years of age

CONFRONTATION

Armed with the letter sent to my father she went to confront him, in Clapton, East London. When she arrived, the woman was no longer there, but the owner of the flat told her that my father still lived there, and the woman made her welcome and invited her in. My father then turned up and he nearly died when he saw the two of us. He tried to embrace me, but I repelled him. He attempted to be friendly to Mum, and made useless excuses for the appalling way he had treated us, but she certainly did not want to know about it. Apparently the Polish woman had deserted him (or vice versa?). He told us that had obtained work as a Shammas (beadle) at a local synagogue. I never saw him again.

LIFE IN LONDON

Mother heard of a Mrs. Harris who had a room to rent. She took the room. Meanwhile, despite my father's dreadful behavior, Mum, who was still friendly with his family and wrote to her father-in-law sending him some money asking for him to send my cousins Ruth and her brother Harry here.

Both arrived on the famous Kindertransport. Ruth was first and had to join a local family, where she was very unhappy. She was taken to our home by Mum for the day and did not want to go back to the family, so she stayed with us for a couple of days and the police came round searching for her, while she hid in the wardrobe. Mum rang a Mrs. Schwab whom she knew from Germany, who was influential here, who advised her to send Ruth back provisionally with the guarantee that she would not have to stay with that family. She soon found alternative accommodation further from London with another family with whom she stayed during the whole war and was very happy with them.

The English police, on investigating Mum's badly written passport, accused her of forging the date on it...which was not true as they soon found out, after she spent a half day in the cells. They even took off her shoelaces!

Mrs. Harris took ill and was in hospital for weeks and Mum took care of her kids while her husband worked as an engineer. He was paid for her services by the Jewish Board of Guardians, but he never gave her the money to which she was entitled.

EVACUATION
In 1939, when I was seven, they knew war was going to break out. Mum was living in a room in a house in Church lane with the Harris’s, who had two younger children. Evacuation was discussed and my mother did not want to be parted from me, and Mrs. Harris accused her of selfishness. In the end, she relented and I went with the two children to Aylesbury. We went by train carrying gasmasks together with about fifty other children, and I found it exciting. However I left my unopened gasmask on the train. On arrival we went together with some teachers into a church hall to be met by a crowd of men and women who picked us out. I was the first to be chosen, but refused to go with the couple unless my two "sisters" came with me. I was told that the couple were wealthy and would give me a good time but I still refused, despite the evident fact that the two children were not my real sisters. They refused to take the three of us. Another couple wanted two of us, and I refused. We attracted a lot of attention due to them.

COUSIN HARRY ARRIVES


After a few weeks, Mother and Mrs. Harris came to visit us. I was unhappy and had a good cry and wanted to come home, and despite the attempts to persuade me to stay I did so. Mrs. Harris had to take her own children home too as they would not stay there without me, and she was very annoyed about it. London was quiet at that time, we had no school, and my mother taught all three of us. My cousin Harry came later to join us and lived in our kitchen. Harry was 6 foot tall and fifteen years old, and had arrived a couple of months before the war and I hid from him when he arrived as I expected a little boy cousin, not the giant who arrived.. He had lost an eye after being run over by the Germans. A day before his sixteenth birthday, on the13th November, which he considered unlucky, he took us out to the cinema expecting to be interned on reaching sixteen. It happened, and by the time Mum went to the police station in Mansell Street he was en route by ship to Australia. She found out that the police inspector, who knew her, was not on duty on that day, otherwise he would have never been sent there. Of the 2 ships sent to Australia, one was sunk with one survivor. His journey there was horrendous, surrounded by Nazi sympathizers who stole his watch and ring from him. However, he arrived there safely and was sent to a camp, where he was visited every month by our mutual aunt who lived in Sydney. The aunt tried to get him out of the camp, but permission was refused.
An attempt to save his mother, Salmi, failed as she had to state she was separated from her husband, and she could not bring herself to do that. She prevaricated too long and the war broke out meanwhile, she was in contact with the Red Cross till about 1943, after which all trace of her was lost. My mother's brother Leo survived the war. He was an engineer, and escaped the camps several times. After the war he ended up in Israel in very poor health and married a woman called Yvonne, who was known to be somewhat unstable.

While Harry was away, my mother did not want Ruth to be upset, so she disguised her handwriting and style and wrote letters to Ruth purporting to be from Harry. She did this for a whole year, and explained to Ruth afterwards that she did it so spare her worry. Ruth had been oblivious to the ruse. Harry had always claimed he was unlucky, and indeed he was. When the war was over he had to return to England. He was a religious boy when he had to leave us, and came back from Australia a non-believer. His uncle in America sent for him and his sister, Ruth. They prepared to go and suddenly an application arrived from Australia for them to go to Sydney and stay with their aunt, who was childless. The die had been cast and they reluctantly went to America to the great disappointment of their Australian aunt. Both of them died in their forties, Harry had a lot of problems was unhappy in America, and Ruth was deserted by her husband who ran off with her best friend, leaving her with three children and a stressful divorce. She died from complications of a stroke.

AIR RAIDS

A few months later the air raids started. One night we took shelter at a place called the "Tilbury", near to the docks. When we came out we found that the houses next door to us, and a restaurant had been badly bombed, our home, luckily, was still standing. Mrs. Harris took her her two children and went to Glasgow, where her husband had family, while he stayed in London with us. During the Blitz, I was unable to attend school and remember one day when the Duke of Kent came to the Tilbury shelter, and I presented him with a bunch of flowers. he was later to die in an air crash. We regularly went to the Tilbury at nightime when the raids started in earnest. Mum had her briefcase containing our money and jewelry stolen in there, too. One night, a bomb hit the lift in the shelter, which was near to me, and many people were killed. My memory was of many people, some dead, (unknown to me,) were covered in white dust. One blonde woman to whom I had been speaking earlier suddenly became gray haired infront of me, which made me, in my ignorance, laugh out loudly. Little did I realize that people had been killed, I was soon hushed up.

ISAAC

My mother met a Mr. Isaac Gould and another couple, who were friends of his, Rene and Danny, in the shelter .As she was having such a hard time cooking unpaid for Harris and paying his rent, Isaac suggested that we and a distant cousin of ours who also came here, called Toni, should pool our meager resources and move in together. We found a flat in Artillery lane near Liverpool Street, costing us one guinea per week. Toni let us down before we moved, and we later found out that she had moved in with the Harris’s who had returned from Scotland. Mother found another refugee called Honey, who moved in with us and shared expenses. When she told Harris she was going to leave him there was a tremendous row and Harris threw a table and chairs at her, which Isaac managed to block. The arrangement with Isaac involved a sharing of expenses and her cooking for him. This lasted for a couple of years. One day, Rene and Danny came for tea, we had no gas or electricity at the time due to bombing, and they suggested we go to their place. When we arrived there we found that their home had been bombed, the only one in the street to be demolished. My mother suggested that they live with us. After a few days, Isaac didn't like the idea, and wanted them to go. They fell out, but stayed for a further three months even so. There was a bad atmosphere as a result despite the fact that they had been Isaac's friends for years.

KENT and SHEFFORD

After that I was evacuated to a place in Kent together with other girls, and went to a school there, staying nearby in a well-appointed place with a matron in charge. Servicemen were often there, having been invited to join in the entertainment available there. When there was dancing to a band during parties, my friends and I would watch and nip down and pinch nuts and sweets from the tables. I was there for one year. At first I missed mother very badly, but became accustomed to it after a fortnight. It cost my mother one pound a week to keep me there, but she was unable to afford it and I had to return to London. After a few months I was sent to Shefford in Bedfordshire, together with two girls from my Jewish school, and was billeted cost-free with a childless couple called Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy who were good to us. I was very fond of Mr. Cassidy, who called me "Schoenheit", and the other girls "Kluegheit" and "Frescheit". When bath time came around, which was a weekly experience, he took the tin bath off the scullery door, where it hung and we bathed in turns. I was granted the first bath in exchange for help I gave to Mrs. Cassidy who made brooches for the Red Cross, which I designed for her and help her make. Because of my talent she made the most money of a group of twenty ladies and was very pleased with me.

We went to a Jewish school there run by a Rabbi Schoenfeld, whom my mother knew. I was there till the end of the war and mother visited me when she could afford the fare. She found this very difficult as she had no real income.

ESCAPE FROM JACOB

While I was away, a frail elderly lady knocked at my mother's door and introduced himself as Isaac's wife. My mother did not even know of her existence and assured her that there was nothing untoward going on, between Isaac and herself. A few months later one of Isaac's two sons turned up who told her he was a doctor, and a few weeks later the second son came, who was a solicitor. He also had a love child called Doris whose mother had run away leaving Doris with Isaac. Doris was sent to Kent, where I met her. Isaac had an ulcer and was in constant pain and was put on a milk and boiled fish diet, which my mother had to prepare for him. He became very moody and impossible to please. We were recommended by Rene and Danny to go to a flat in Old Montague Street, which was inferior to the Artillery Lane house, just to get away from Isaac and be independent. One day while he went to work early in the morning we made our escape with the help of Danny, leaving outstanding expenses and a note. For a few weeks we dreaded every knock on the door thinking it might be Isaac bent on revenge. However, we never saw him again. Years later I met Doris, who was working in a dry cleaners...she recognised me and told me that Isaac
had taken in a very dominating woman who controlled his life. Unfortunately, he had died of cancer. When Mum was in Northampton, her cat, which used to follow her everywhere, was left in Isaac's hands. When she returned he told her that the cat was in a "good place", meaning that he had put it to sleep. This upset her greatly and she saw his true colors.

NORTHAMPTON

After the war, mother wanted to go to Israel to see Josef and his wife, Malka, whom he had met in a kibbutz. She needed money for the journey. She was offered a job as a cook in Northampton in a very large house, owned by a Jewish family who welcomed military personnel, mainly Americans based in the area.. I arrived when I had my school holidays and my mother told me how hard she had to work and that one hundred airmen were due for dinner and she had to cook for them, on her own, that very night. The breakfasts started from eight o'clock and ended at eleven o'clock. I changed the hours making it from eight to nine thirty. If they arrived after nine thirty they had to make their own breakfast because I told them my mother needed a rest.

Foreign fruit at the time was an expensive luxury. I was advised not to eat too many grapes by the house owner as they cost twenty five shillings a pound. I argued that I was entitled to eat anything I liked as I was working unpaid, helping my mother. She was a nice lady and she gave me a banana which I could not eat as I did not like the smell of the strange fruit. She told me it cost five shillings, a lot of money considering I only had eight pence a week pocket money. Finally, mother worked so hard there that she collapsed, and the doctor advised her to give up the job, despite the lady's pleas for her to stay. So she had to leave Northampton and returned to London. She was there a total of six weeks.
She finally made the journey to Israel in 1949 after four years of saving for it. She stayed for two months with my brother and his new wife.

Anne, winner of the "Miss Drene" competition

ACCOMODATION PROBLEMS

We were living in desperately bad accommodation and applied for a council flat. At that time the LCC was very demanding and had stringent rules for its tenants. Our place was so bad that I never invited any of my friends there, as I was so ashamed of our poverty, despite the efforts my mother made to improve the place. I went out with three boyfriends who invited me to their homes to meet their families, but I was too ashamed to let them see how I lived. We had a butler sink on the landing and had to share toilets with many people. We were promised a flat in a new block with a lift and two bedrooms, lounge and kitchen, and were told it would be ours in three months. We frequently went to nag the authorities without success, being consistently put off by them. We found out after waiting ten years and agitating for better accommodation, that the official who promised us had been taking bribes of £30 or £40 and letting us languish on the housing list. In sheer desperation my mother and I put all our savings in a house together with a mortgage we could not afford. As soon as we had exchanged contracts, a council flat was made available to us, but, of course, it was too late by that time.

DESIGNING AND WORK

At the age of eleven, there was a school project where I demonstrated my ability to make a shoulder bag from the leather upholstery from an old car. The bag was a great success and we donated it to the Red Cross and it was auctioned at a high price, and I received a certificate for my effort, and everybody congratulated me for bringing in a lot of money for a good cause.

Later it was suggested that I go to a design school, when I made a hat for the headmistress for a wedding she attended. I was unable to do so as we could not afford it. I started work at the age of sixteen, making tea and running errands for the workers in a clothes manufacturers. This lasted for two weeks. I was near a high fashion company called Evans, who made clothes for the stars in the British film industry. I decided I would try to work there and they let me start from scratch. I was one of the youngest, the others most being old maids in white overalls. I learned by hard experience there, how the garments were constructed. The work was extremely demanding but I was willing to learn. I had increased my weekly income from thirty shillings to six pounds...while a bus driver's wage was only five pounds. We personally delivered the clothes by taxi to the actresses, and were well tipped by them. I stayed there only for nine months because the couple who ran the business were arguing continuously in front of the staff, she was twenty years older than her husband, whom she bullied, and was emotionally unstable. I found the atmosphere very stressful.
Having left Evans it only took me two weeks to find a new job. I applied to Marks and Spencers, John Lewis and Harrods, all of whom seemed interested in me knowing I had worked for Evans, whose quality was renown. I found that a large manufacturing company called Lanes, who made classically designed clothes, had a vacancy for someone of experience who could deal with all aspects of the business. I bluffed my way through the interview, wearing one of two suits which I had had made for me, which I was buying on hire purchase, (credit cards were unknown at the time), and together with a severe hair style drawn back into a bun and secured with sugar water, (there being no lacquer then), I was accepted by the boss and the manageress without even a trial. I asked for fifteen pounds a week plus bonuses such as theatre tickets, free clothes (which were not to my taste) and found myself in at the deep end. I was positioned with a very capable lady, who had been there for six years and only earned six pounds a week, who liked me from whom I learned quality control., and from then on I tried every aspect of the business and succeeded in them all. I was very happy and worked there for over seventeen years.



STAMFORD HILL NORTH LONDON

In 1957, we bought a three- bedroom house together in Stamford Hill spending all our money furnishing it. After some months she took ill and was unable to work. When she recovered she found out that the bakers, where she had been manageress, had been sold and she had lost her job. We had difficulties paying the mortgage and other expenses. I had the well-paid job at Lanes, but still had to struggle. I ended up having to do three jobs, a Saturday and a Sunday job and some outdoor work to cover expenses, working well into the night. Mother had badly paid piecemeal jobs such as basket making to help me. We had to take in a lodger who cost us money because he was lazy and never had the rent. Mother felt sorry for him because he was like a son to her. Eventually, he had a tax rebate and paid us almost what he owed us.



In 1956 we went to Israel by ship from Marseilles with stateless documents, to see my brother and his family. On return, we got on the train at Marseilles, only to be told by the ticket collector that due to a new rule ,we lacked a special stamp on our documents. We had to get off the train, and Mum decided that she would deal with the matter and I was left guarding the cases on the platform for five hours, unable to eat, drink or go to the toilet. The five hours felt like five years, and I feared that she had got lost. When she did turn up, she explained that she had had to go from one office to another, dealing with functionaries who were unaware of the new ruling. When we returned to England we decided that we would apply for British nationality.

POSTWAR LONDON...

This period was a time when there was more camaraderie amongst people than there is today. People always queued in turn for buses, which were always clean, so clean that when one went to the West end, which was an occasion calling for gloves and smart clothes, one could travel in light-colored clothes without fear of sitting on a greasy seat. Nobody ever ate or drank on public transport. The upper decks were for smokers.


Some streets were still gas-lit, where the lamp-lighter came round nightly and ignited each lamp in turn; some homes were gas lit too, having gas mantles which needed to be individually lit which ignited with a loud pop. These were fed from a meter, usually placed high on top of a cupboard in an unreachable position, which required climbing on a chair with a stool on top of it, in order to fill it with pennies, which provided gas for a short while and frequently needed refilling. Once I tried to fill it, standing on the chair and stool and wearing high heels and I ended up in the casualty department of the London Hospital with a sprained ankle. My cousin, six foot tall, came by later and organized a replacement meter which accepted shillings instead of pennies, and so required less attention. As he was tall we asked him to clean our windows while he was there. He had to lean out while he did it, and he always was wolf whistled by any girls passing by .

Factory workers turned up to work with curlers in their hair, covered with a turban, as time was in too short supply to arrive well coiffed. Clothes washing was performed using a washing board and a mangle, and were hung out pegged on lines or hung from a retractable rack on the ceiling for drying, and wardrobes contained evil-smelling mothballs to keep the creatures at bay. Trains were steam driven, giving the blackened stations a particular smell. Drug addiction was unheard of, the main item of abuse being surgical spirit, which disabled its victims in short order, leaving them as huddled forms in derelict corners.


There seemed to be more odd characters about than nowadays, some of whom remain in my mind. There were two seemingly elderly sisters in the East End, both of whom sold bagels within shouting distance of each other in the street. The elder one was jealous of the younger and used to screech and curse her when she made a sale.

My mother managed a patisserie, and outside the shop there stood an old man who sold matches, (no lighters at that time). She used to give him sandwiches, cakes and tea two or three times a day and one shilling a week from her pocket, as she felt sorry for him. This went on for five years. One day he collapsed and she called for an ambulance. By chance a tall good-looking man passed by announcing that he was a doctor, and he helped the old man and accompanied him in the ambulance. A few days later he came to tell my mother that the old man had died and to thank her for all she had done for him. My mother was surprised and asked why he had thanked her, and he said it was because the old man was his father. In conversation it turned out that the father was very well off and had left a fortune of ten thousand pounds. This was at a time when the average footballer earned £7 a week and needed another job to help his family. There was another old man near where we lived, who used to play rotten music on an old wind-up gramophone, complete with a massive sized horn. He wore a dirty old hat and never shaved and he suddenly disappeared after four years or so. Nobody ever could recognise any of the tunes he used to play.

COUSIN HARRY

Near to where we lived were a mother and two daughters. They were filthy. The mother looked about one hundred years old and was well rouged with a dark red lipstick,. They sold herrings from barrels. The floor was always sticky in their shop. The three of them were always arguing with each other. My cousin Harry, recently back from Australia...religious when sent there, and after his awful experiences, secular when he came back, came to visit us one day and presented us with some chopped herring. When my mother heard where the herring came from, she told my cousin that she had no appetite for it, and as she had no icebox, she told him to take it home for himself. He usually visited every couple of days, but as he did not show up after three days, she became worried and we went round to see him. He wasn't in and we asked his landlady if he were well. She appeared surprised and told us that he had gone out with a girlfriend. Next day he came round with another gift, which was wrapped up, and we were worried in case it was another herring. To our relief it turned out to be a plant. He said that on his way home he would buy a herring for himself as he really enjoyed them. He felt sick when my mother told him "Don't!" because the shop and the sellers were so dirty.


There was a couple, living in a flat above us in Old Montague Street. He was from Poland and she from Germany, they had been married in London. One day there was a knock at the door and I found two CID men, each over six foot tall, wearing gray gabardine raincoats, asking to see the couple. Apparently theirs was a bigamous marriage. The woman was adamant there had been a mistake, and said so in the court case that followed. However, present in court, unknown to both parties were his real wife and daughter who had arrived from Belgium. The woman claimed that she was unaware of the status of her "marriage", and he was sentenced to three months imprisonment. She was seven months pregnant at the time but lost the baby shortly after birth. He appealed against the sentence, despite advice to the contrary from my mother, lost his appeal, and had to serve a further six weeks imprisonment. Later, they had to demonstrate his infidelity using my mother as a witness in order to get a divorce and marry. My mother's testimony involved her stating that she had seen the (rather fat) couple together in a single bed. They married legally shortly afterwards.

In 1950, I had an exclusive party to go to, run by the directors of the firm I worked for, a well-respected manufacturer of dresses called Rivers. I went to Raymond's the famous hairdresser, also known as "Teazy Weazy" and asked for a quote for Mr. Raymond to attend to me personally, but was told that it would cost ten pounds but that he was booked ahead for a month, anyway. I wanted a bubble cut, which was top fashion at that time and was worn by Jean Simmons and Elizabeth Taylor, I saw an assistant who turned his nose up at a photo I showed him of the cut, and instead suggested a longer style which lay flat on the head. I didn't like it, but paid thirty five shillings (£1.75p) for it,, my mother and cousin didn't care for it also, in fact my cousin asked if i had just washed my hair!. So I went to New Road and took a chance at another hair dressers, where I had been recommended, and for five shillings and six pence(27p) the assistant cut it exactly as I originally wanted...I was so happy that I gave her ten shillings (50p). I went to her for years after that and she gave me preference over her other customers. The party was a great success for me due to my hairstyle, which attracted a lot of favorable comment. I didn't reveal where I had had it cut as the crowd there was very high fashion minded. Next year Vidal Sassoon was the favorite hairdresser in London, but I never went to him as I was so satisfied with the New Road hairdresser.



In those days the average working man went to the local pub on Sundays, and one often saw their kids sitting outside on the curb while their father was drinking inside. The average holiday was one week a year plus four Bank Holidays. Shops closed all day Sundays with a half day on Saturdays in the West End. Locally the shops closed on Sundays plus half a day in the week. Petticoat Lane Market was open on Sundays and was a big attraction. The market was a tricky place to shop in, my friend's father bought what he thought was a pair of childrens’ shoes and found when he was home that they were both for the left foot. He took them back the following Sunday, and was told by the assistant that by coincidence another customer had told him he had bought two shoes for the right foot, and would return them the following week.. He had to wait another week till he sorted the matter out, but when he returned he found the staff had changed, and they refused responsibility. He lost his temper and threw the shoes at them!

We used to go to the Marble Arch Lyons Corner House, one of three giant restaurants belonging to the same group, the other two were in Tottenham Court Road and the Strand. There were many smaller Lyons Corner Houses all over London for years until the owners, the Salmon family, had a disagreement, and dissolved the whole business As you went in the Marble Arch restaurant, there were a cellist, violinist and pianist playing in the foyer. At the entrance, next to the players was an assortment of salads and chocolates. On the first floor there was the "Salad Bowl", where one helped oneself for one shilling and six pence (8p). Tea was served by waitresses, who were called "Nippies", who wore little white caps and aprons, and we used to leave them a tip in the saucer.

There was a famous restaurant in Wentford Street in the East End, called Barnetts. Their specialty was salt beef sandwiches with or without mustard, on plain or rye bread, accompanied by gherkins and lemon tea. These were served on one side of the shop, where one sat on benches. The floor was covered in sawdust. On the other side of the shop meat was sold. A portrait of Mr. Barnett on one wall greeted you as you entered, and on the other wall there was a stag's head. It was dark and extremely busy at lunchtime, packed out with local office people spending their three shilling luncheon vouchers.

At that time there were no cafés, no tables in the street, just so-called "Milk Bars", with large black and white floor tiles, where soft drinks and tea were served. The arrival of the Italians with their Gaggia coffee machines revolutionized that. Coffee was a novelty till then. The only coffee sold in the shops was a liquid form called "Camp Coffee", which was probably made from chicory.

In the late fifties and early sixties the Regents Palace Hotel had a three piece band playing during afternoon tea, served from three till five pm,. Dinner dances were held at weekends, where two full sized bands played in turn and three course meals were served. Many of their customers had been going there for twenty five years or so and were excellent dancers. For financial reasons they closed in 1975.

The Café de Paris in Leicester Square, bombed in the war, was reopened for dancing. Tea dances were held at afternoons, accompanied by a six-piece band from 3 till 6pm, the cost being 70p in 1976, and evening dances, where alcohol was served, from 7pm till 11pm, costing 90p. There were a lot of odd characters there. I was mad about dancing and went there while my husband was working during the evening. The standard of dancing was high, but the food was unappetizing and not too hygienic, and the toilets were so bad that. I had to change clothes in the nearby Hospitality Inn hotel. One of the characters I recall was a Mrs. Green, a lady in her seventies. She had bleached hair drawn back in a bun, and always had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and wore wedged heels. She never danced, because she could never reach the downstairs dancing area, but was highly critical of the dancers, effing and blinding as she did it.

.A pot of coffee in the four star Piccadilly Hotel cost £2 then and was beautifully served. Hotels like that catered for traveling businessmen, know as "travelers", who were mainly from the North. The rise in the hotel prices put pay to them. There was a floorshow held regularly at the Trocadero, which was of a very high standard too.


We never saw any Indians or Pakistanis then. There were one or two Black people in the East End, who were regarded with affection, one of whom styled himself as Prince Monolulu. A tall and imposing man, he walked around in fancy dress and charged people for horseracing tips. There were no betting shops and bookmakers were illegal, but somehow he managed to get away with it. He used to shout out "I've got a horse", over and over again.


In 1958 there was a bus strike, which lasted for nine weeks. I was living in Stamford Hill at the time and thought nothing of taking lifts from complete strangers, including on one occasion from a group of men. The streets were safe, and the thought of danger was the last thing in my mind.


One of the rituals we underwent was the twice a week visit to the Gouldstone Street Public baths. There, for one or two pence, one could bathe for a fixed period of time. I used to tip for them to supply me Dettol and extend my time there. If I needed more hot water and I were in cubicle nine, I would call out to the attendant " More hot water in number nine, please". There were a lot of jokers there who would request more hot water for people they did not like, and shrieks and screams were not uncommon.


Every November, because of the weather and the prevalence of coal burning, there was always a thick yellow fog, called a "pea souper", which lasted several days. In 1952 my cousin Joe and his wife picked me up by car and we went to a function. The fog worsened, and on the way home we could just make out Aldgate Station. He was lost. We had to abandon the car, and using a torch and holding hands together inched our way to Old Montague Street, where I lived .We arrived after an hour. They stayed the night and he slept on the floor. The fog cleared the following morning, but he had no idea where he had left his car. So we called the police for help and after an hour they found it.

My mother was very attractive and had admirers who used to accompany her home from work and carry her shopping. I was very possessive and resented them.

One of them was a tall accountant with a big head who worked for the company and used to sweat profusely, very noticeable in the small flat where we lived. I did not like him, as I was rather possessive and he did not appeal to me. She occasionally made him dinner at home as he was always very kind to her and bought her gifts, and gave me chocolate too. He sensed I did not like him and she decided to cool the relationship and although he carried her shopping she stopped inviting him for dinner. He did not turn up for work one day and after several days, enquiries revealed that he had unfortunately died from a heart attack. He left a ten-roomed house and a shop together with a shirt factory. My mother told me that if I had not been so possessive she might have married him and been a rich widow in record time. I agreed with her that had I known that he was going to die so soon I would have approved of her marrying him. End of story.

Another of her suitors was a violinist who worked for Lyons Corner house in the Strand. I liked him, but she found him too young, and she was earning more than he did, and she introduced him to her younger friends, but none of them appealed to him. He continued to pursue her till she was promoted to work in another branch of the bakers in Middlesex Street.

We were both naturalized as British citizens in 1957. The certificate cost £22.50, four times the average wage, and was conditional on future good behaviour.

I met my future husband, Fred, a pharmacist, who, coincidentally had the same surname as me, Segal, one day in 1957 at a dance and we married in 1959. We honeymooned in Italy and I had to obtain a new passport with Mrs. Segal on it, rather than using my old passport, which was still valid, which named me as Miss Segal, as people were narrow-minded at that time. Nowadays, it would be inconceivable. Times have changed.


A friend of mine who went away on holiday with her lover, had bought a ring in Woolworths, to show she was “married” to him, and signed the register as “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” To her horror, as they were about to go in the hotel dining room for breakfast, she spotted her manageress, who was there, by pure coincidence. They had to flee the building before she was noticed, losing one night’s accommodation, and had to have their breakfast elsewhere.

We lived together with my mother for four years, after which we decided to move nearby, and I became very friendly with a local estate agent who found us a very suitable house. We lived there for nine years, during most of which Fred worked in a nearby pharmacy.

In the mid sixties, knitting and crotchet became very fashionable. I taught myself to knit, and one day on a bus, I was seated near the entrance and my needle fell into the street. The conductor stopped the bus and retrieved it. However, knitting was too slow for me and I learned to crotchet, which gave me faster results. I became madly keen and crotcheted during the night and early morning, and my work turned out well. I was able to make articles, such as a trouser-suit, without a pattern, in a week. Every member of the family had some of my work. This carried on for about ten years, and I tried to make a business of it, but was let down badly by my so-called customers. One dress I made to measure was for a girl who had a 16 inch waist. She wanted it for a party, and when I had completed it, she told me that she had become pregnant, and she would not require it. I couldn’t even give it away. Fate intervened in a cruel way, for her. She had a miscarriage, and when she had recovered she asked me for the dress, which I was pleased to see the back of.

We booked three holidays during 1971, Palma, Benidorm, and Israel. We were in Benidorm just two weeks and we received a telegram with the devastating news that Mum had had a stroke. We tried to return early but were held up for two days, and on return found that she had died in the local hospital. We discovered that a friend could not get an answer on ringing the front bell and called the police who broke in and found Mum on the ground, conscious enough to describe her fall. We calculated that she was on the floor for some thirty hours. It was hard to arrange the funeral, which had to be delayed to allow for as Josef to come from Israel. I lost 21 lbs in one week from the shock. Her death devastated me. She was a mother in a million to whom I owe my life, who managed in unbelievably hard circumstances to take care of me.


We sold her house in a hurry for a faction of its real value, as the association with Mum’s death made it unbearable to visit.

In 1973, we moved to St.Johns Wood, after having to queue for three nights in the street in order to secure the flat, which was in great demand. This action was so unusual that we were splashed all over the newspapers. We lived there for some fourteen years before finally settling in a flat in Hampstead. In the winters we used to go away to Tenerife from November to April for several years. We were bored sitting around doing nothing, and Fred learned to paint there, and we sold costume jewelry, Spanish stamps with themes such as football and Italian miniature prints in frames, which we bought on the other side of the island and sold at double the price. Selling Fred’s paintings, was difficult, so on return to London I invested in costume jewelry, starting with only £5, and found I had a penchant for it and the business expanded. We had positions in St. James’ Church Piccadilly and Covent Garden, which was very hard to get into and involved arriving very early in the day in order to acquire a stall. Despite the fact that the work was difficult, we enjoyed it.


We managed to get a spot in the Trocadero, which we held for nearly two years, in front of two restaurants, one French and the other Italian, with a Venetian theme, where operatic recitals were given nightly. It was very hard to survive there and I had to work late into the night to cover the rent, and get up early the next day to go to the wholesalers. Fred, meanwhile, worked upstairs three nights a week in a pharmacy in the same building, and managed the stall in Piccadilly Market a few days a week. He had virtually given up pharmacy and worked with me, an arrangement, which lasted for about twenty years, until the Eastern Bloc was liberated and imports from Czechoslovakia, where most of our crystal came from, became too expensive.

Anne at her stall in Trocadero, London


We bought stamps from charities and repacked them into appealing packets, which sold successfully for twenty-five years, thereby making a lot of money for the Cancer Research and Save the Children charities.
Unfortunately, I could not carry on dealing with the stamps as the supplies dwindled as less people use them these days, and also because my eyesight is not what it was. However, I look back on those days when I was kept so busy, with a great deal of nostalgia.

Letter to Anne from the Queen


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Although this is a true account of my early life, names of some people and firms have been changed, in order to spare descendants of some of the people named in this story any embarrassment. Any resemblance to the name of any person or company mentioned above is coincidental.