Strange Case Of Dr Green And Mr Knipe…And Beluga Caviar And Scotch Whisky And A Bust Of Hitler, c22 December 1981

There is an internet adage known as Godwin’s Law, which states (I paraphrase) that any internet discussion will eventually descend into a Hitler comparison.

But surely my own safe space, Ogblog, can be a Hitler-free site? Well, up to a point.

I had a massive recovered memory over New Year 2018, because Janie, bless her, decided to treat us to a quiet caviar-fest:

I don’t suppose this is making any sense at all to the casual reader, so I had better get on with it and explain.

From my infancy all the way through my childhood in Streatham, we had a wonderful lady doctor, Dr Edwina Green. I learn by Googling that she died in 2012; I have scraped her impressive BMJ obituary for you to click here – see page 2.

Edwina was a GP who went way beyond the call of duty.

For example, because I was…how should I put this?…more than a little fearful of my jabs as an infant, she came round to our house to dispense the vaccinations. On one famous occasion, when I was feeling particularly averse to being stabbed, Edwina indicated to mum that my rump might make a better target in the circumstances. I worked out the coded message and tried to bolt. The end result was a chase around the room and eventually a rather undignified bot shot delivered by Edwina under the dining room table –  I was, later in life, oft reliably reminded by my mum.

Not even the trike was fast enough for me to escape Edwina’s needle

This extraordinary level of pastoral care and attentiveness went beyond zealously inoculating reluctant Harris miniatures – Edwina and her family became close friends with our immediate family, Uncle Manny’s branch of the family and especially Grandma Anne:

Grandma Anne With Dad (left) & Uncle Michael (right), c1930

In the early 1970s, at Christmas-time, my parents would go to Edwina’s house for a seasonal party, along with many other patients and members of the local community. Naturally, my parents plied Edwina and her family with gifts…many of Edwina’s other patients and guests most certainly did the same.

A strange tradition arose around that time, in which Edwina reciprocated our present giving by handing down a generous gift she would always receive from a family of wealthy Iranian patients; an enormous jar (I think a pound; probably twice the size of the jar shown in the photo below) of Iranian Beluga caviar:

By Mai Le [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Edwina and family didn’t like the taste of caviar. Nor did my dad, as it happens. But mum loved it and I acquired a seasonal taste for it too.

Each year, mum and I would eat Beluga caviar on toast for breakfast for the first couple of weeks of the year.

Even back then caviar, especially Beluga caviar, was very expensive. Not equivalent to the “critically endangered, barely legal, hard to get hold of” price levels of today, but still very much a pricey, luxury item.

I remember mum warning me not to tell my friends at school that I was eating caviar on toast for breakfast, because they would surmise that I was a liar or that we were a rich family or (worst of all) both.

There was only one problem with this suburban community idyll; Mr Knipe. Don Knipe. Edwina’s husband.

Don liked his drink. Specifically Scotch whisky. More specifically, Teacher’s, as it happens. A bottle of Teacher’s always formed part of our family Christmas gift offering, but that sole bottle formed a tiny proportion of Don’s annual intake.

By ramkrsna (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramkrsna/384365364/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Even when I was quite little, I remember being warned that Don Knipe was eccentric, that I shouldn’t pay much heed to some of the silly things he says, etc. But I guess as the years went on, Don’s eccentricities gained focus and unpleasantness. Specifically, Don’s views became increasingly and extremely right wing. He joined the National Front, at that time the most prominent far-right, overtly fascist party in the UK.

I recall one year, when I was already in my teens, my parents returned early from the Knipe/Green party. I learned that Don Knipe had acquired a large bust of Hitler, which was being proudly displayed as a centrepiece in the living room. My mother had protested to Don about the bust, asking him to remove it, but to no avail. Mum had taken matters into her own hands by rotating the bust by 180 degrees. When Don insisted on rotating Hitler’s bust back to its forward-facing position, mum and dad left the party in protest.

Mum explained to Don and Edwina that they remained welcome at our house but that she would not be visiting their house while Hitler remained on show.

One evening, just a few weeks or months later, I think, my parents had Edwina and Don (and some other people) around at our house. The topic of Hitler and Nazi atrocities came up. Don started sounding off about the Holocaust not really having been as bad as people made out.

Edwina And Don At My Bar Mitzvah, Natch.

My father stood up and quietly told me to go upstairs to my bedroom. I scampered up the stairs but hovered on the landing out of view to get a sense of what was happening.

My father was a very gentle man. I only remember him being angry twice in my whole life; this was one of those occasions.

“You f***ing c***!”, I heard my dad exclaim.

I learned afterwards that my father, not a big man but a colossus beside the scrawny form of Don Knipe, had pinned Don to the wall and gone very red in the face while delivering his brace of expletives.

I heard the sound of a bit of a kerfuffle, a few more angry exchanges, ending with “get out of my house”. Then I heard Don and Edwina leave the house. Edwina was weeping, apologising and trying to explain that Don doesn’t know or mean what he says.

Dad – a supremely gentle fellow…usually

The story gets weirder as the years roll forward. Edwina remained our family doctor, although social visits were now at an end. Uncle Manny’s branch of the family and Grandma Anne continued to spend a great deal of time socially with the Knipe/Green family.

Most importantly, for this story, the seasonal exchange of gifts remained sacrosanct.

For reasons I find hard to fathom, I became the conduit for the seasonal gift exchange. Why my parents (specifically, my mother, who organised the errand) felt that I would be less defiled then they were by visiting a household that displays a bust of Hitler, I have no idea.

Maybe it shows that mum had great confidence in my judgement such that, even as a teenager, I wouldn’t be corrupted by Knipe’s vile views…or his habits. But perhaps the lure of a huge jar of Beluga caviar was so great that all other concerns and considerations went out of mum’s mental window.

Anyway, for several years I would go to Edwina and Don’s house to deliver our presents and collect the fishy swag. I think there was an unwritten rule that I didn’t go into the large living room where Hitler’s bust lived; the Knipe/Greens had quite a large house – I would usually be received in a smaller front drawing room.

As I got a bit older, Don would ask me to join him for a whisky and a cigarette on these occasions; offers which I accepted.

My diaries are utterly silent on this annual ritual, other than, each year, the mention of the word “shopping” on one day in the run up to Christmas. I vaguely recall that I would always bundle the errand with my single little shopping spree to get small gifts for my immediate family. The shopping trip provided a suitable time window; a smoke screen (as it were) and a bit of a sobering up period from the underage drinking involved.

Don never raised political topics when I made those seasonal visits. He’d make the occasional oblique reference to it being a shame that he didn’t see my parents socially any more. I can’t recall what we talked about. I think he just asked me how I was getting on and we chatted vaguely about my family and the weather.

But I do recall what we talked about on my last visit in this ritual. 1981.

Uncle Manny had passed away suddenly and rather dramatically in May that year – explained here in a piece about Hoover Factory:

Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

Grandma Anne never really recovered from the shock of Uncle Manny’s demise and died in the autumn that same year.

By late December 1981 I had completed four terms of University at Keele and was far more politically aware/sensitive than I had been in earlier years.

Don greeted me at the front door, as usual, but this time said, “come through to the living room and have a whisky with me.”

“Not if Hitler is still in there,” I said.

“Oh don’t start all that”, blustered Don, who I think must have made a start on the whisky before I got to the house that morning. “I really want to chat to you about your late uncle and your grandma.” Don started to cry.

I relented and entered the forbidden chamber.

There was the bust of Hitler, resplendently positioned with books about the Third Reich and such subjects on display around it.

I accepted a generous slug of Teacher’s and a Rothmans; then I reluctantly sat down.

Don was crying. “I miss your Uncle Manny and your Grandma Anne so much”, he said, “you have no idea how fond of them I was. I love your family.”

I remember saying words to this effect, “Don, I understand that you sincerely love my family, but I cannot reconcile that love with Hitler, Nazi memorabilia, your membership of the National Front and you keeping company with those who hold such views. Those are antisemitic, out-and-out racist organisations and people. It makes no sense to me.”

“It’s not about Jewish people like your family. I love your family.”

“So what sort of people is it about?” I asked.

“Other people. You don’t understand”, said Don.

To that extent Don was right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand. It isn’t as if members of our family were so secular and Westernised that you wouldn’t recognise the family as ethnic. Uncle Manny’s branch of the family were (I believe still are) traditional, orthodox practitioners of Judaism.

“Godwin’s Law, Godwin’s Schmo, Don Was Always A Mensch Towards Me”

Grandma Anne, who spent her first 30 or so years in the Pale of Settlement, spoke with a thick Russian accent, peppered with “bissel Yiddish”. The old lady shouting out “give him some chicken soup” in the 30 second-long sketch linked here sounds just like Grandma Anne.

So I don’t understand who or what these “other people” might be, nor why someone like Don Knipe would be attracted to racist ideologies, despite knowing (and even loving) plenty of good decent local people from diverse ethnic groups.

I think I was polite in making my excuses and leaving fairly quickly. The visit certainly didn’t end in any acrimony or hostility. But I did resolve not to run that errand again and (as far as I recall) didn’t visit the Knipe/Green house again.

Strange case.

All that memory came flooding back simply as a result of sampling caviar with Janie…

Proust can keep his madeleines – pah…

…and we weren’t even sampling Beluga – Janie’s generous New Year’s Eve offering was Ossetra caviar, so although we couldn’t afford to eat again for a week, at least we can afford to eat for the rest of the year ;-).

The Last Four Weeks Of My 1981 Summer Job, Including New & Old Friends, Preparing My Return To Keele, A Near Miss & Losses, 30 August To 26 September 1981

Satays – Alpha from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0

Sunday 30 August 1981 – went to Rasa Sayang for birthday treat – walked town – lazy evening

I’m guessing this will have been an outing with mates from work – I wouldn’t have “walked town” with my folks.

Several of the Newman Harris juniors were from Malaysia and they had introduced me to Malaysian cuisine at the Rasa Sayang in Chinatown three years earlier when I did my first summer job. [A link will be inserted here when I write up that seminal event.] I had fallen in love with that cuisine and would often choose it as a treat…still do 40 years on.

Malaysian style food became a significant part of my cuisine at Keele, not least because I shared flats at one time or another with Mohammad Mohd Isa from Malaysia and Hamzah Shawal from Brunei. Not only did I enjoy the food prepared by the Malaysian gang at Keele but I learnt to cook some Malaysian dishes myself – satays becoming one of my signature dishes. Grilled chicken thighs in a Malaysian-style marinade was another of my specialities. Here’s a link to a not dissimilar recipe, except that my marinade had a secret ingredient or two…naturally. 😉

In August 1981, Sandy Yap will have been involved in the trip to Rasa Sayang no doubt, as would Andrew Choo. I think some from the Alan Prince, Dilip Vora, Lailash Shah, Mike King and Duncan group would have been party to that too.

The word “lazy” features a great deal in my diary for the next few weeks, as does the word “work”, which I was apparently starting to find “tough” by that stage of the summer. I think the managers had worked out that, if they gave me more and increasingly challenging work to do, that I would actually knuckle down and get it done.

Paul [Deacon] gets a couple of mentions that first week; bank holiday Monday at ours and then the Saturday at his place. Caroline for lunch midweek (Thursday).

Sunday 6 September 1981 – Went to Wendy’s [Robbins] in afternoon -> BBYO thing in evening.

I think Wendy was top banana at Streatham BBYO at that time – just coming to the end of her tenure before going off to Leeds Uni. I have no idea what the “thing” that evening was about or even where it took place. I think the club might have been meeting in Norwood by then.

Thursday 10 September 1981 – Hard work today. Went to Hillel after work – met Lloyd [Green] – saw the lads.

Meeting Lloyd Green at Hillel I think was connected with the Anti-Fascist Day we were involved in organising for the coming term at Keele. There had been a groundswell at Keele against a small but venal outbreak of extreme right wing, racist activity on campus and a committee had been formed dedicated to an education campaign against that sort of thing. Joe Andrew, I recall, was heavily involved with that group, as were several other academics and the University chaplains.

The idea morphed latterly, partly at my bidding, into a more positive idea – the International Fair, which became a twice-yearly feature in the Keele calendar and my small part in it was one of my proudest achievements. But at that early stage, the idea was to have an awareness day. Lloyd and I had taken on the task of mining Jewish resources for educational materials against racism; a worthy but thoroughly depressing task.

“Saw the lads” will refer to the students who resided in Hillel House, with whom I had lived briefly the previous summer while filling the inter-regnum in the BBYO office.

Friday 11 September 1981 – Work tough. Ashley [Michaels]’s last day – lazy evening (phone etc.)

Yes, part of my hard work those weeks might have been related to helping Ashely Michaels (who was Stanley Bloom’s manager and who had supervised much of my work that summer) finish off his jobs before leaving Newman Harris. I think he had already returned to the firm by the time I went back the following summer. Ashley was certainly a feature there throughout my articles in the mid to late 1980s.

Saturday 12 September 1981 – Lazyish day – shopped in afternoon – bought suit – lazy evening

The purchase of a suit towards the end of the summer suggests that I knew by then that I would return to Newman Harris and work several more summers, which I did.

These last few weeks of the summer were of course punctuated by that summer’s saddest and most significant family event; the death of Grandma Anne:

While the diary for the first couple of weeks of September didn’t show it, the diary for the second couple of weeks did.

Sunday 13 September 1981 – Went to [Grandma Anne’s] flat to clear -> Knipes -> home for supper – v. tiring.

“Knipes” meant Dr Edwina Green and her husband, Don Knipe. I have written about our family’s unusual relationship with the Knipe family elsewhere – see here or below.

Thems was strange times.

Tuesday 15 September 1981 – Work OK. Met Jim [Jimmy Bateman] in evening at UCL -> The Sun.

I have written up similar evenings elsewhere.

Thursday 17 September 1981. Work OK, Met Caroline for lunch. Lloyd came over in the evening.

Friday 18 September 1981. Work OK. [Sandy] Yap’s send off after. Relaxing evening.

“Yap’s send off” was probably in The Phoenix on Cavendish Square. We were working in this building…

Harcourt House – Nigel Cox / Cavendish Square, W1 / CC BY-SA 2.0

…which made The Phoenix, just across the square, the nearest pub by a long chalk.

Sunday 26 September 1981 – OK day. Pincus family came to tea – easy evening.

Monday 27 September 1981 – Work OK. Met Helen [Lewis] for lunch. Easy evening at home.

Arnold Pincus and his family were long-standing “lands-leit” friends of the Harris family. They probably came to pay their respects regarding Grandma’s passing a few week’s earlier.

Wednesday 23 September 1981 – Discovered we’d been burgled in the morning. Got to work late. Busy day and evening.

My beloved Sony TC377 and all the hi-fi was gone

The thieves took all of the hi-fi. The big loss for me personally was the Sony TC377, which I loved. We replaced it with a Phillips, which was good but not the same. Years later I bought a second hand replacement (depicted above). We stuggled even more to replace the rather grand Yamaha amp and preamp that dad had bought in 1973; the mid-range Sansui replacements were not of the same quality.

Good…but not great.

My prevailing memories of the burglary are two-fold.

Firstly, I remember my strongest emotion being relief that none of us had been disturbed by the burglars. I could imagine mum going downstairs and confronting intruders, which might have just scared them away but might have been truly disastrous.

Secondly, I recall dad telling me a story from later in the day, after the police had arrived and long after I had gone to work. Dad bemoaned to one of the policemen that the burglars had taken all of our lovely hi-fi, but had left behind the TV which, as it happened, had recently broken down and was awaiting an expensive repair. The policeman said,

if I’d been in your shoes, I’d have taken that TV out the back and put my foot through the screen before the police got here…

…which absolutely horrified dad, who simply wouldn’t and couldn’t have conjured up that dishonest thought.

Friday 25 September 1981 – Last day at work – OK. Went for drink after -> home for dinner & lazy evening.

Saturday 26 September 1981 – Lazy day. Went over to Anil’s in evening – got back very late…

…looks as though I was starting to ease myself back into student-style life as soon as I finished my summer work.