Page 26 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Autumn 21
P. 26
17-YEAR-OLD SHORTHAND My Mother made my clothes and dressed me
in outdated styles that I hated wearing. I
TYPIST LEAVES HOME TO JOIN much preferred to dress simply and to go off
COMMUNE IN SUSSEX, hiking in Ilkley and Otley with my beloved
(YORKSHIRE EVENING POST, Father. Born in Manchester in 1897, he
OCTOBER 4TH, 1964) moved to Leeds, when he married my
Mother. He worked from
YEHUDIT VINEGRAD Monday to Friday in a
I tailoring factory for low
t takes a special trigger to make
he
which
wages,
someone make a huge change in
received in a brown
their life. This is my story.
paper packet at the end of
My parents, first generation offspring each week. On Sundays
of Yiddish-speaking Lithuanian he would take me hiking,
immigrants, were old enough to be emulating the folk song
my grandparents. We were a by Ewan MacColl, The
working-class family, living in a Manchester Rambler.
terraced house in Leeds. My Mother was a
dressmaker, who worked at home. In 1947, My parents were not religious but kept the
they had two daughters – aged 14 and 19, and traditions of Pessach and the High Holy
then I was born. My Mother always told me Days. It was made clear to me from a very
(in a loving tone) that I was a “mistake”. I early age that I was Jewish because of the
was the only young child in a family of food, the Yiddish expressions, and the fact
grownups, even my cousins were adults. I that they would ask me if there were Jewish
grew up playing with fabrics and cotton reels children in my class in infant school. Not
on the floor by my Mother’s sewing machine, really sure what this meant at the age of five,
listening to The Archers, Mrs. Dale’s Diary I presumed that anyone who had dark hair
and Listen with Mother (“Are you sitting and brown eyes was Jewish.
comfortably? Then I’ll begin.”) In 1961, my Father had been very ill and he
I spent a great deal of my formative years sent me to the public library to find books for
alone or with my father. Holidays to boarding him to read. I was an avid reader. My parents
houses in Blackpool and Filey were pretty never bought books and from the age of six,
miserable events as I had elderly parents and the library was my second home. I had long
no siblings to play with. My father saved the since completed the children’s section and
day by taking me for walks and down to the was now on to the adults’. Some people say
sands, while my Mother sat on the that things happen because they are meant to.
promenade or the pier. My parents were As I scanned the shelves I came across
usually at loggerheads over money issues, Exodus by Leon Uris. This was the book that
and there was often an atmosphere of tension changed my life.
between them.
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