This Much Is True

My grandfather spoke haltingly, in broken English: ‘Firstly, I want to thank you very much for seeing me this afternoon. My son has received his papers to join your regiment and go to France. Sir, he is the thing I love most in the world, my firstborn, my beloved son.’ (It always makes me cry when I tell this story.) My grandfather continued, ‘I come here to ask for something. It is a very big thing. But I must ask. I want you to take my son’s name off the draft. We want him to grow up; he is a fine young man, the first member of our family to go to university, to Glasgow University. He has won a scholarship to study medicine, but if he goes to France that cannot be, because you know and I know that he will not survive. But I cannot just ask for something. I must also give.’

My grandfather paused, put his hand in his pocket, and when he took it out, there was a glistening diamond lying in the palm. ‘This is the most precious jewel in my warehouse. It is not completely flawless, but it is nearly flawless. And I beg that you should take this — please take this — please — in exchange for the life of my son.’

I tell this story in my one-woman stage performance, The Importance of Being Miriam, and when I reach this moment in the show I pause, and ask the audience, ‘What do you think happened?’ One night in Adelaide, I overheard two Scottish women talking after the show. One said to the other, ‘Did you hear what she said about the commander? That’s unthinkable! No Scottish officer would dare to take a bribe.’

But he did and my father’s name was taken off the draft. And if he hadn’t, I might never have existed. So Daddy survived and thrived and became a doctor.

In those days, to be a doctor (or a lawyer) was the acme of Jewish achievement. It was what every immigrant Jewish family wanted for their child. University was a tough experience for Daddy. Anatomy was a particular disaster for him and he had to take the exam twice.

Daddy graduated in 1926, and then he left Scotland because he wanted to experience life. His first job was as a ship’s surgeon, on the Paddy Henderson line, plying between Glasgow and Rangoon. He looked very dashing in the white merchant seaman’s uniform, but no one had explained all the rules of shipboard life. Once the ship gets into port, apparently it’s the captain’s job to issue the command: ‘Haul down the yellow flag!’ — meaning that the ship is free from disease. As ship’s surgeon, Daddy thought it was his job, so in a very loud voice, on the top deck, he shouted, ‘HAUL DOWN THE YELLOW FLAG!’ From the crew’s amusement and evident derision, he realised he’d made a gross error. He never forgot the shame he felt and was always severely shy in company, afraid to stand out in any way. That was part of his temperament and he could never understand my delight in being different. He wanted to blend into his surroundings. I never did.

He said Burma (now Myanmar) was enchanting and beautiful, and I think it was that trip that gave him the gentle attitude he always had towards Asian people. Once settled in Oxford, he became the doctor for all the Indian restaurants. His Indian patients particularly appreciated his care of them and we were greeted as honoured guests, we never had to pay; Daddy particularly appreciated that!

On his return to Scotland, Daddy decided to go to London as a locum at a local surgery in East Ham. He got a house in Plaistow and engaged a housekeeper, Miss Shrimpton, to cook and look after him — she stayed with my father and later joined the marital household, only leaving when the house was bombed and my parents left for Oxford. In London, Daddy hoped to settle down and lead the conventional life of a respected doctor.

He was never a sportsman and pointedly despised football and cricket, but a sports club was a place to meet respectable girls. Jews were not welcome at most sports clubs but in a huge place like London he discovered that there were Jewish ones to join instead. And so it was at a Jewish tennis club in south London that Joseph met my mother, and everything changed.

Mummy

Without a doubt, the most important person in my life was my mother. Perhaps she still is. She died in 1974 when I was thirty-three, but she has never left my side. She bound me to her, quite deliberately, with emotional hoops of steel.

Mummy was short and stout, with wavy grey-white hair, piercing blue eyes, a high forehead and a generous mouth. (She looked a lot like Gracie Fields, whom she admired greatly.) Her hands were expressive, with perfect nails and soft skin. Her wedding ring was white gold; she had several beautiful diamond rings, the one I loved best was a solitaire dazzler set in black onyx. She stood very straight and was always telling me to do the same — shoulders back, head erect, no slouching.