Today
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. As the decades go by this becomes more and more important as fewer and fewer people are alive to remember it directly, and there are those who say that it never happened.
In My Day
I don't suppose that when my Grandfather Paul Bondy married Eva Freitag in the early part of the 20th century, they had any idea of the shape of their future. I guess there might have been a few family questions asked about his Jewishness and her Christian faith, but I assume they just built the difference into their life. They were both Germans, weren't they?
My Grandfather was a reasonably well-off man - a corn broker, my mother used to tell me. Well-off enough to bring up four children in a handsome house not far from Hamburg.
The children were brought up as Lutherans and celebrated all the traditional Christian Festivals. I think that Paul Bondy absented himself on these occasions and I also think that there was an estrangement which meant that in later years he didn't live with the family.
I don't know what he must have thought when Hitler came to power; certainly Mamma was well aware of the implications, insisting on her right to a private ballot. And she immediately, as a half-Jew, lost her right to a formal education or well-paid jobs.
What I have seen is the paperwork that assigned Paul Bondy to Auschwitz. How he responded to the summons I don't know, but history tells us that most Jews were pretty obedient, not realising or fooling themselves about the implications. Family opinion is divided about whether he went to the gas chambers or was shot or died on the journey there. I do know that he died as part of the "Final Solution" and that this had a lifelong effect on his family.
I don't think genocide is a thing of the past; it is going on somewhere in the world as I write. But, remembering our own recent history may help us to be generous to peoples of differing faiths or outlooks on life and to understand that tolerating intolerance debases us all.
We must never forget our common humanity.
Today
This morning my great niece, having gone out on a girlie night for the first time since her baby was was born, complained about her hangover. She blamed the Sambucas, as well she might.
In My Day
Not so long ago this one, but relevant. It was Becky's 30th birthday and we decided to hold a party in Brighton. We started the evening with champagne in the Kemptown Enclosures, then went up to the Kemptown Brasserie which provided a marvellous buffet and a band to dance to. Various relations and friends of Becky's appeared and the wine flowed freely.
The more sober members of the family peeled off at various times, leaving the hardcore party-lovers still dancing and drinking.
I'm not sure now what prompted Nick, the owner, to offer Lizzie a flaming Sambuca. Maybe he thought she wasn't drinking hard enough and he wanted to see her dance. Anyway, one Sambuca led to more and soon others were clamouring for them. This even included Paul who hates Aniseed drinks in any form.
I didn't join in, preferring to stick to Prosecco. This is just as well, otherwise we might never have been able to find our way home. Becky had rashly offered sofa space to cousin George and her university friend, Andrew.
Arms linked, we gaily set off back to the flat. We needed to link arms to stay upright. As Andrew told me repeatedly and tearfully how much he loved me, no, really, really loved me, I reminded him of the art of walking: "First the right foot; no forward, then the left......." and steered him up the steps into the flat where he collapsed onto the breakfast room sofa. George collapsed somewhere else and was that the night that Becky sprained her ankle getting down the three steps into the breakfast room and nobody heard her shouting?
They were a sorry bunch the next day, especially Paul who, as well as having the usual symptoms, was puzzling as to why he'd drunk the Sambucas at all, given his dislike of aniseed.
Ah well, plus ca change, and all that. There's nothing like a baby needing her morning bottle to help you get over a hangover.....
Today
During my singing weekend at Halsway, we sang a few sections of Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame which made me very happy.
For many this was dipping a toe into the uncharted waters of the 14th century but I was greeting an old friend.
In My Day
I was interested in early music from my teens and, probably bought my first recording of the Machaut about forty-five years ago.
However I didn't sing it until Cantilena performed it in December 1994. Tony, our music director, had coupled it with Palestrina's Missa Papa Marcelli, making this a most challenging concert for choir and audience alike.
During the term we learnt how to sustain a single vowel sound through several pages; we learnt how to hocket; passing the melody from one line to another.
While we were struggling with this, Tony's wife, Alice, struggled with what was, I think. her fourth or fifth pregnancy. She gamely turned up each week to rehearsals.The baby was due in late December and we all watched anxiously as Alice's girth grew.
On the night of the concert we were all well into some wonderful hocketting when Alice simply turned and walked out into the vestry. Tony continued to wave his baton about but completely lost eye contact with the choir, looking uncertainly after Alice. Was she having the baby all alone in the vestry? Should he simply stop the concert and go after her? Or should the show go on, regardless? While Tony vacillated and we gamely sang on, another soprano followed Alice, and he relaxed and we finished the concert.
In fact, it was simply a case of too much standing and David wasn't born until Christmas Eve. But listening to the Music inevitably conjures up that uncertain, tense moment.
I wouldn't mind a proper chance to sing it again, preferably without a pregnant dramatic interlude.
Today
Anxious about whether my throat would be equal to the demands of the weekend at Halsway, I tried a few notes out this morning in bed. "You've made me lose my place!" complained Paul. "What?" I demanded "You were only saying "doo-be-doo"." "I was singing Saint-Seans Symphony number 3", he replied with dignity "didn't you recognise it?"
"Well, I know that we can all expect there to be similarities between our husband and our father," I said "but a tendency to drone classical symphonies tunelessly wasn't wasn't on the list."
In My Day
Given Daddy's rocky start in life, it's amazing that he had such developed tastes in classical music. He always said that he learnt about music in the evening classes given by the Society of Friends which is where he spent his evenings during his late teens.
But a general liking for popular classics is one thing and not uncommon, but Daddy knew enough to start up and run the Henry Wood Gramophone Circle, preparing, with Mamma's help, challenging and interesting programmes. He loved opera and we had many opportunities to see them.
His love for music ran very deep and I think that he always went about with a tune in his head. Sometimes he just had to share. "This has been in my head all morning!" he's say, excitedly "Guess what it is?" He would launch into a tuneless mixture of las, doo-be-doos and other noises. "Hmm," we'd say, trying to take him seriously "a bit more? Nope! We give up!" "It's the Beethoven 6th, second movement," he'd cry triumphantly, as though he'd caught us out in a gross piece of musical ignorance. I'm not sure if any of us had the courage to tell him how different the tune in his head was from the tune on his lips.
Sometimes he loved the music so much that his droning was accompanied with a gush of tears, which didn't help us to recognise Scheherazade....
When he sang music hall songs to us, the tunes were much more recognisable, maybe because they were simpler.
On reflection, I think it's better to go about with a beautiful tune in your head and heart, even if you can't sing, than to have no music in your spirit. I just wish the Society of Friends had taught him to sing!
Today
In time-honoured fashion we hailed the new year by walking up the lane in hazy sunshine. I felt very warm in my duffle coat. I bought this one at Quill's in Glengarriff and it's made of Donegal tweed.
In My Day
I was never a fan of school uniforms and hated my c-cup bosoms being stuffed into a shapeless gymslip when I was thirteen and having to wear a crazy velour or straw hat. Pile on top of the gymslip a cardigan and gaberdine raincoat and you have a walking fashion disaster.
I managed to damage my gymslip sufficiently while in a chemistry class to gain permission to go straight to the (slightly) more acceptable middle and senior school blouse and skirt option.
By the time I was in the lower sixth I wished to align myself with artists everywhere. And that meant wearing a duffle coat, as all the Beatniks did (or so I imagined). It was hard enough persuading Daddy to spend money on clothes at all without expecting him to fork out on what must have seemed to him a frivolous fashion item. However, Mamma worked her magic and we sallied out to buy me this essential garment.
I was so pleased to have it; now I would be really hip when cruising around Upper Norwood and Croydon. What I had failed to mention to Mamma that there was an outright ban on wearing these items with ones school uniform. There was no way Mamma and Daddy could afford two coats. In the end I confessed and Mamma wrote a crawling (and lying) letter to the Headmistress Miss Harley-Mason, saying that she had bought the coat before the ban.
Miss H-M grumpily agreed; she already thought that I was a lost cause, destined for arty rebellion and this was just one more manifestation. I was jubilant and, I must say, wore the garment to death.
While I really like my duffle coat because of its warmth and nice snuggly hood, I wouldn't say today that it's stylish at any level!
