Category: Friends and Family Events

Pass Time With Good Company, With “All Good Sports” For A Few Days, Mid October 2022

Rohan “Candy” Candappa & David Wellbrook

Violets & Fatt Pundit With Mark Ellicott, Simon Jacobs & John White, 17 October 2022

For some reason we were all being too grown up to take photos, but this was a special get together reuniting people who had all known each other at Keele for one reason or another.

I had re-engaged by e-mail with Mark Ellicott during the latter stages of the pandemic while writing my “Forty Years On” series, not least to compare notes over Princess Margaret debacles, a cricket match for which I got picked for the craziest of Ellicott-induced reasons and more recently some exchanges over playlists (or, as we used to call them, mix tapes) from 1982.

Mark Ellicott (right), next to Neil Baldwin of Marvellous fame, 2016

In particular the musical aspects intrigued Simon Jacobs, who wondered out loud to me why I hadn’t set up a get-together with Mark.

Simon, in 2019, trying to make a silk purse out of my (then) sow’s ear voice

Actually, John said something similar when I shared my Mark correspondence with him when we met up in the summer. I had no excuse, so I felt duty bound to act.

John questioning my judgement with his eyes and body language, August 2022

I booked a table at Fatt Pundit in Berwick Street and chose Violet’s as a suitable close-by bar for us to meet for a pre-dinner drink.

I played tennis at Lord’s – a draw at singles seeing as you were going to ask – before hot-footing it (via the flat) to Soho.

I arrived at Violet’s, grabbing a table – just inside but suitably quasi-open to the street – about five minutes before Simon arrived. From that vantage point, we observed Mark walk straight past us and then four or five minutes later he returned having got as confused as everyone else by the Berwick Street door-numbering. John arrived fashionably but not ridiculously last.

We had a good chat and a drink at Violet’s before heading a block or two up the road to Fatt Pundit, where the food was excellent and the chat got even better.

A few comedy moments with the sweet waitress whose high-pitched voice is possibly in a register that none of us, given our advancing years, could hear. But the menu was pretty-much self-explanatory, so a mixture of sign language, reading the menu and common sense allowed us to order a cracking good meal.

It was a really enjoyable four-way catch up.

Goldmine With Rohan Candappa & David Wellbrook, 18 October 2022

This gathering was originally conceived in Soho when Rohan and I met for dim sum a couple of months ago:

Dim Sum At New Loon Fung In Chinatown With Rohan Candappa, 2 August 2022

It was basically a “barbeque meats challenge” based on my assertion that the Queensway specialists therein, especially Goldmine, are better than those in Chinatown.

It turned into a small-scale Alleyn’s School alum thing. David Wellbrook, being Wellbrook, needed to join in the challenge, not least because Queensway is an alma mater of his where he attended the University of Romance (his wife used to live there when they were courting).

We tucked into plenty of barbeque meats, diverting briefly at the start and end of the lunchtime feast for some dim sum, just in the interests of science.

At school Rohan Candappa was always known as Candy, so it was with great mirth and merriment that David spotted “Candy World” across the street.

Rohan Candappa’s world

After lunch, we retreated to my flat where I showed the lads my centennial family relic, on what was, after all, its century day.

Hamsters v Dedanists At Hampton Court Palace, 20 October 2022

Almost everything that needs to be said about this match is contained in my match report on the Dedanists web site – here…or perhaps best to read it from the scrape here, scraped before the current piece drops down the running order.

For those who don’t like to click and/or who don’t want all the tennis detail – here is an extract:

“It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall,” said your intrepid reporter to Carl Snitcher, having braved the 3.5 mile high-pass journey from Notting to Primrose Hill in just over 35 minutes.

“There’s a bad moon on the rise,” agreed Carl, gnomically.

We arrived at a rain-soaked Hampton Court Palace in the nick of time; just as well, as your intemporal reporter was playing in the first rubber. Some might argue that our arrival was actually “worse than two”, but a more substantial discrepancy soon revealed itself; the marker’s sheet was showing a lesser handicap for the Dedanists than the sheet that James McDermott & I had been sent.

In order to avoid a major diplomatic incident, James & I acquiesced to the lesser handicap, yet still somehow contrived to win our rubber, albeit narrowly…

McDermott hitting, me watching

On finally staggering away from the court, your incognizant reporter picked up a message that the Prime Minister had resigned. “That’s the second Liz whose expiration has been announced while I was on the real tennis court in the space of six weeks”, I mused, having been informed of the late Queen’s demise by Tony Friend while I was on the Lord’s court.

I thought I might be the tidings-bringer this time, only to discover that most of the group had learnt the demise of Liz Truss some 45 minutes earlier.

Anyway, this was no time to ponder the fate of shambolic politicians – it was time to tuck into the pies before they too were to become a footnote in history. A positive footnote in the case of the pies of course – once again a delicious choice of
• Chicken Ham & Leek;
• Steak & Ale.

Bread and cheese (yes please) and two species of yummy desert that self-discipline allowed me to avoid, along with the jolly wines on offer…

Pictures by Tony Friend

There’s no better way to lift the spirits on a gloomy, worrisome day than a day of pastance with Dedanists and Hamsters. Symbolically, as the nation’s political shenanigans moved on to its new phase, the heavy clouds and rain of the morning had lifted to reveal a gorgeously bright, sunny evening as we all left.

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen”, said Carl, gnomically, as I dropped him home.

“Pass time with good company”, I replied.

The Only Known Relic Of Grandpa Harris Reaches Its Hundredth Birthday, October 2022

This summer, while taking a voyage around the Harris Family’s earliest steps in the UK…

A Voyage Around My Harris Grandparents & Uncles, Summer 2022

…I was acutely aware that we only have one actual relic of Grandpa Harris: the large certificate of honour depicted in the headline picture. We do not even have a surviving photograph of him – he died in the early 1940s – all such things were disposed of when Grandma moved out of the family home (104 Clapham Common Northside) in the 1960s.

I suspect that the certificate only survived because of its religious significance and the lingering, somewhat superstitious sense that such a thing should not simply be destroyed.

It lived at the back of my dad’s shop for at least a quarter of a century – then it lived in our Woodfield Avenue attic for another quarter of a century.

Mum nearly (accidentally) gave it away when dad died, but I managed to rescue it thanks to the good offices of Michael and Tessa Laikin who in any case hadn’t quite believed that I wanted shot of it, even if mum did.

It was in a pretty shocking state by the time I took it to Janie’s favourite picture framer in Bayswater, who declared the artefact to be on the verge of disintegration and recommended a specialist restorer to preserve it and bring it back to life before framing.

Several weeks and several hundred pounds later, it has pride of place on the hall wall in my flat.

The stunning, large certificate (60 x 45 cm unframed, 75 x 60 cm framed) commemorates my grandfather being honoured in the synagogue as Chatan Torah on the festival of Simchat Torah on 14/15 October 1922 – now 100 years ago. Or, in Hebrew calendar terms, 17/18 October 2022 is exactly 100 years after the event.

As it happens and by strange coincidence, Janie and I found ourselves on 15 October this year just around the corner from 14 Manette Street, which is the building which was, back then, the West End Talmud Torah & Bikkur Holim Synagogue.

I couldn’t resist the urge to walk around the corner and photograph the very building on the very 100th anniversary of Grandpa’s honour:

14 Manette Street, Soho as snapped by me, 15 October 2022

Religion isn’t my thing, but it was my grandparent’s thing and this honour would have been one of the most notable moments in my grandfather’s (relatively short) life.

That Soho synagogue – the West End Talmud Torah and Bikkur Holim was a rather fascinating and controversial thing, if Gerry Black’s Living Up West book is anything to go by (which it is…go buy it if you are interested). He describes it as an

orthodox and shtetl-like shule [synagogue, where comparatively] …the service, rabbi, and fervid atmosphere were more typical of the heim [the old country].

This shtetl style apparently emanated from the “larger than life” Rabbi at the place, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Ferber, who hailed from Kovno (Kaunas) – which is, coincidentally the Lithuanian part from which my mother’s Marcus family hailed.

There are some wonderful passages in Living Up West about that Rabbi; I do remember my father talking about him as a formidable figure, even though my father was still quite small when the family moved away from Fitzrovia/Soho. Intriguingly also, the book reports that, by 1926, the congregation had grown so large that they needed to hire The Scala Theatre in Charlotte Street for overflow services.

Living Up West also has an astonishing, detailed account in it about the 1930 AGM and elections in that community that

…were on the point of coming to blows…

…Ultimately the meeting broke up in chaos and confusion.

I am minded to write more about that strange community, not least because those detailed accounts include the names that appear on Grandpa’s certificate.

But at the moment, 100 years on, we get more than enough such chaos and confusion from a more southerly part of Westminster. In any case my purpose today is really to commemorate my Grandpa’s big day in 1922.

A Voyage Around My Harris Grandparents & Uncles, Summer 2022

27 All Saints Road – possibly where it all started after “the boat”.

Following my 1921 census and street trawling research in the spring, which, with enormous difficulty, discovered my Harris family disguised (through erroneous transcription from hell) as the Rossiter family…

Meet My Father – Teodoro Rossiter, The Truth Uncovered, 24 April 2022

…my cousin Angela Kessler (née Harris) leapt in to the research fray and started uncovering all manner of wonderful stuff about our family’s earliest steps towards and in the UK.

Let’s start with the family legend that my grandfather Harris (aka Herz aka Hescha) set off for America but ended up in London due to a relatively minor infection/illness on arrival at Ellis Island that resulted in him being turned away from the USA.

On the above document Angela found Herz Russinov on a ship’s manifest setting off from Hamburg 6 May 1911, but clearly not for a USA destination as this is not a USA manifest. Left hand column just over half way down, record 518, listed as a 22 year old shneider (tailor).

Angela also found Hersch Russinov on a USA bound ship out of Rotterdam on 12 May 1911. He’s third from bottom on this manifest, listed as a “Hebrew” from Vilnius, aged 23. It states that his occupation is tailor, that his wife’s name is Hesha (Grandma Anne’s real name) and that the wife hails from Minsk province.  This ticks our family boxes.

Uniquely on this page, no destination in USA is listed for Grandpa Hersch. Instead, in very small print, you can see a stamp that says “hospital” and “discharged” just above the hand-written word “tailor”. This does seem to prove the family legend.

One intriguing aspect of the boat records is Grandpa’s stated age; 22/23 years old. For the 1921 census and subsequent documents he had added 6 or 7 years to that age. It seems unlikely that he would have pretended to be younger than he really was for the journey, unless there was some financial/regulatory incentive so to do. It seems more likely that he added a few years subsequently, perhaps to suggest more gravitas and/or experience than was actually the case. Either way, “naughty Grandpa, cousin Angela caught you out”.

Cousin Angela also found traces of our family’s early years in London, before my father’s arrival, via birth records, in 1919. For example, Angela found the following directory entry in a 1915 trade directory:

Just in case that isn’t good enough for you to prove that this is “our” Harris Russinov, she also found her father (Alec) and our Uncle Manny in the following School Board register:

These records (around 20 rows down), which we believe to be Pulteney Street School, show seven-year-old Uncle Alec there between April 1915 and October 1915. He was previously at Lancaster Road School, near All Saints’ Road.

In early January 1916 Uncle Manny, not yet five, is removed from Pulteney Street and switched to Marylebone. Intriguingly, that Schools Board record says that Uncle Manny had attended no previous school, but the following record suggests that Uncle Manny had a very short stay at Lancaster Road School as a four-year-old.

At the time of the Pulteney Street School Board records, our family address is stated as 13 West Street, which, as Angela’s detective work ascertained, is now Newburgh Street (near Carnaby Street). Possibly Uncle Manny’s January 1916 school switch to Marylebone coincides with the family moving to Upper Marylebone Street.

It was time for me to take a stroll.

27 All Saints’ Road is, at the time of writing, Amanda Thompson Couture, despite retaining (presumably due to planning laws) the old Treggs Grocery sign. It seems to me, if retaining old signage is the rage, that the Treggs sign itself should be excavated to see if there is a Harris Russinov The Chandler sign underneath.

It is interesting that a tailor would have a go as a chandler during the Great War. I suppose there was not much business for a tailor at that time, with the men almost all away at war.

I suspect also, with the family moving around at that time, that it was struggling somewhat to settle. Still, it was a surprise to find the family in Notting Hill so early in their time in the UK. I have always thought of Notting Hill as MY stomping ground.

Above is Uncle Alec’s (and very briefly Uncle Manny’s) Lancaster Road School – now a Virgin Active Health Club.

As for 13 West Street, aka Newburgh Street, that building remains – majorly repaired perhaps but not replaced – and looks rather splendid now:

I don’t suppose the burgeoning Harris Russinov family occupied all of this premises, but who knows? There was a war on and perhaps they were engaged temporarily to “shop sit” for someone.

Now that I have disambiguated Upper Marylebone Street and New Cavendish Street numbering, I can confirm that the Harris Russinov family then took up residence at 4 Upper Marylebone Street, which is now 162 New Cavendish Street. Another building that appears to have been majorly repaired relatively recently, leaving its Fitzrovia slum days far behind.

Our guess is that the family settled there around 1916 and for sure they were settled enough by the end of the Great War to start expanding the family again. My dad was actually born in the above building on 11 August 1919.

Having only got to know them as middle-aged folk, it’s hard to imagine the Harris brothers as babies and/or mischievous school kids.

Uncles Manny, Michael and Alec
Dad: “I took that colour photo, so there!”

A Short “Birthday Break” With John & Mandy White At Whatley Manor, 24 to 26 August 2022

Invited into the kitchen at Whatley Manor

For several months prior, we had eagerly awaited our joint birthday celebration trip. We had long since abandoned the idea of having a party for the joint 60th, deciding instead to celebrate, as we have done several times before, as a group of four.

Prequel: Dinner With John At Dai Chi, Soho, 11 August 2022

Every great epic movie or three has at least one prequel these days. In any case, John and I felt that we are so out of practice with fine dining, we simply owed it to ourselves and to the girls to have a rehearsal in London earlier in the month.

John eager for his grub at Dai Chi

Hence an evening at Dai Chi. I think John had seen this super review in the Guardian (or similar), as it was his turn to choose.

That miso aubergine and gooseberry dish was to die for…or to Dai Chi for I should say.

It was all so good

A very enjoyable evening indeed. Or, as we put it to the girls solemnly, “we had indeed done our boot camp training to prepare for the culinary trials to come later in the month”.

The First Afternoon & Evening At Whatley Manor, 24 August 2022

Whatley’s up, doc?

The girls had done a magnificent job of conspiring ahead of this trip. John and I knew that something…some things…were on their planning boards, but felt we owed it to them and to ourselves to just go with the flow.

As it turned out, the first “event” for me and John was a “surprise” visit to the spa, where we enjoyed a glass of wine in a hot tub prior to full body massages.

The hot tub had so many buttons and knobs it took us most of the half hour to work out how to operate the thing. Once we had sunk our glasses of wine and soaked in the tub for that much time, we were both a bit dazed and confused. John almost forgot his glasses and I almost forgot my flip-flops. Considering that neither of us had more than one or two incidentals about our person, that was a pretty high forgetfulness rate.

The massages were excellent (the place has a top notch spa) which got both of us into thoroughly relaxed mode.

But I was not so relaxed as simply to buy the idea that Whatley Manor is a 17th century building, as one of the receptionists had suggested. In fact the building is mostly 19th century and the “mock Tudor” extension is 20th century. Worse yet, the place was originally called Twatley Manor. Hats off to the marketing folk who thought that Whatley Manor would sell better as a name.

it’s a lovely manor, whatever it’s called and whenever it was built

John and I enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine after our massages while the girls were too polite to come and find us, but soon we were reunited and got ready for the “easy-peasy” Grey’s Brasserie meal we had arranged for the first night.

John went for steak & fat-frittes

Mandy & I both went for the pork. Mandy’s plate colour-co-ordinated with her rose wine

Janie went for the duck – it was all delicious grub, oh yes it was

In honour of my mate Philip The Bold, Duke of Burgundy, we treated ourselves to a bottle of Domaine Faiveley Mercurey La Framboisière 2019 that first night and jolly gluggable it was too.

John had begged Mandy not to arrange cake and “happy birthday singing” in a public place – thank goodness – so Mandy & Janie had conspired to arrange cake and an opportunity for “happy birthday singing” in a private place – in the living room mezzanine of John & Mandy’s suite:

Did we ask for this?

So symbolic – 60 illuminated by two candles

The cake was seriously yummy death by chocolate.

Day Two – During The Day, 25 August 2022

Blowing out my own candle

The chocolate cake desert had perhaps been overkill, as we had each been given a mini chocolate cake and candle which Janie and I enjoyed as a pre-breakfast treat the next morning.

Breakfast was of course excellent – we went full English that first morning – then we realised that the scheduled good weather for our trip was being interrupted by a couple of hours of drizzle and rain. I suggested that we defer our scheduled walk until that was over – about 12:30.

We walked from the hotel – across Easton Grey bridge (over the Avon) around to Foxley and then on to Malmesbury. I’ll let the photos tell the tale of this charming walk.

Easton Grey Bridge
Checking the cricket score from Old Trafford, not weather or directions
The local moofia came over to greet us
Then the Foxley longhorns let us know what they thought too
Foxley Church
John can see an excellent long cut back to the manor – Mandy and I talk him out of it.
A brush with an emu at a farm just outside Malmesbury
Alpaca and hen at the same farm
Outskirts of Malmesbury
The Old Bell Hotel, Malmesbury, possibly the oldest in England
Refreshments in the Old Bell

Then a wander around Malmesbury Abbey

We wandered around the town, thought about walking home, then called for a cab when we realised that we wanted to be fit and awake for our big dinner tonight.

The Big Dinner At Whatley Manor, 25 August 2022

Drinks before dinner

We won’t talk about John’s “poking himself between the eyes” incident before he came down to dinner, because that would be unkind, especially as he didn’t even need to confess to it given that his specs covered the tiny gash. I tried the concussion test on John, which he failed, but we concluded that he’d fail it under any circumstances, so that was OK.

After drinks in the lounge, head chef Ricki Weston (above) invited us into the kitchen for our first few nibbles and a chat.

Is that all?

John & I listening intently to the descriptions of the first two nibbles

Janie wandered deeper into the kitchen with her camera-phone

Then we sat down at table for the rest of the nibbles and the main dishes. At this juncture, it was out with the camera phones big time. We weren’t going to eat the hell out of this feast – oh no – we were going to photograph the hell out of it.

We also drank well. John treated himself to a glass of 2018 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru ‘Les Petits Clos’, Jean-Noel Gagnard, honouring my mate Philip The Bold to a greater extent than I might choose. Janie and I tried 2018 Rielsing Kabinett ‘Abtsberg’, Maximin Grunhaus as our white. Then the three of us who were not, like Mandy, sticking with Provencal rose, shared a bottle of Catalan wine – 2016 Priorat ‘Martinet Bru’, Mas Martinet.

We all staggered back to our rooms after a wonderful evening.

The Morning After And Home, 26 August 2022

We’d had a wonderful time. We were all suffering a little the next morning, having become unaccustomed to long evenings of eating and drinking.

We mostly went a bit lighter on breakfast, although John still went for bacon and black pudding, claiming it to be lighter than my cereal and yoghurt!

After breakfast and check out, we met up in the grounds and strolled around those before heading home.

OK, so birthdays are meaningless milestones of decay…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNVmJhsLU8

…but there’s nothing meaningless about enduring friendships. We’d had such a great time – it was so special to spend that much prime time celebrating the birthdays with close friends.

If you want to see all the pictures – trigger warning – there are more than 250 of them – the Flickr link here and below takes you to all of them:

Dim Sum At New Loon Fung In Chinatown With Rohan Candappa, 2 August 2022

Are you a fan of dim sum?

…asked Rohan, while we were messaging each other to make the arrangements for a lunchtime meet up.

Is the sky blue, is the Pope a Catholic, do bears shit in the woods and is a pig’s arse pork?

…I felt like replying, but instead I sent Rohan a link to the Ogblog piece about my first ever dim sum experience, so long ago it was before I had even met Rohan…whom I met when we started Alleyn’s School in September 1973:

From Yan Chow (Or Do I Mean Yang Chow?) In Streatham To Dim Sum In Soho, Chinese New Year, Probably February 1972

In that case, let’s meet at 12:30 in the middle of Gerrard Street.

Great, I thought, this will be my first visit to Chinatown for years and I miss the place.

My childhood memory of trying dim sum for the first time must be my favourite anecdote about dim sum in Chinatown, but I do have another treasured memory on that topic.

In the mid to late 1990s, while working with the late, great Professor Mike Smith, we found ourselves nearby and decided to continue our discussions over a dim sum lunch. Studying an extensive card, I wondered whether Mike had ever tried duck tongues – a dish I had tried before (I think in Hong Kong) and rather liked. Mike said he was up for anything and thus we ordered, amongst several other things, a portion of tongues.

Mike Smith, normally calm

On tasting the anatine delicacy, Mike freaked out.

Oh my God – they’ve got bones in their tongues! Ducks have bones in their tongues! Uggh.

Even after we agreed that the bone-like core of the duck’s tongue was probably hard cartilage rather than bone, Mike was too discombobulated by the discovery to eat any more of that dish…

…which, to anyone who knew Mike well, proves that he was seriously discombobulated. Indeed, Mike told the “dim sum discovery that ducks have bones in their tongues” story to anyone who’d listen for ages after the event.

Returning to 2022, I wondered whether Rohan had chickened out (or should I say ducked out) of picking a venue, but it turned out he had a specific venue in mind all along: New Loon Fung. As we entered, I was pretty sure this was the same venue as the Mike Smith tongue incident all those years ago. Seeing duck tongues on the menu pretty much confirmed my theory – you don’t see those on the menu in many dim sum places in London.

I told Rohan the story. Of course he agreed we needed to order some, along with the several other things we both wanted to try.

Perhaps the waiters had a sense of foreboding about non-Chinese people ordering a delicacy so quintessentially Chinese as duck tongues. The restaurant was heaving by the time we placed our order, almost exclusively with people who were visibly Chinese or at least of Chinese origin.

We asked a couple of times for the tongues, once it was clear that all our other dishes had long since been delivered. Eventually our portion came:

Duck got your tongue, Rohan? He sure doesn’t look 100% sure

We “toasted” Mike, each of us with a tongue on our chopsticks, Rohan tried that one tongue, then he deferred the rest of the plate to me, leaving me in a similar position, plate of tongues-wise, as I had been in 25 or so years ago with Mike Smith.

I’m old enough and ugly enough now that I don’t do anything I don’t want to do…

…said Rohan, when I pressed the point, just to be sure he wasn’t simply deferring my chosen delicacy out of politeness.

I guess I might be on my own in the matter of liking the duck tongues dish – I recall Janie not much liking it either.

Rohan and I chatted about many things, including how most of the eateries we knew from the old days had gone from Chinatown – New Loon Fung being a rare perennial. I think it was known as Dragon Phoenix “back in the day”, but it looks and feels like the same place of old.

After parting company with Rohan, I took a stroll around Chinatown, confirming that most of my old haunts had vanished.

Strangely and most coincidentally, I got an e-mail from Michael Mainelli about 48 hours later asking me if I could recommend a place in Chinatown for him and the family to go to after a show – all the places he remembered had closed down since his last visit.

I was able to provide some helpful advice. Really I should put the time from my afternoon off onto my timesheet as R&D for the business. Only joking, only joking.

Serious business, this dim sum eating

Fannying Around With The Castalian Quartet At The Wigmore Hall On Mum’s 100th Birthday, 1 May 2022

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

When Janie trained with and then joined The Samaritans via Zoom during lockdown, neither of us expected one of the consequences to be a real life visit to the Wigmore Hall Green Room (now known to the cognoscenti as the Jessye Norman Room).

But it turned out that one of Janie’s cohort, Sini Simonen, is not only a good Samaritan but also a virtuoso violinist. When Sini let it slip that she and her quartet, The Castalian String Quartet, were due to appear at the Wigmore Hall in a few month’s time, Janie and I agreed that, if we were available that day, we would go.

As it turned out, “that day” was a coffee morning Mendelssohn concert on a Bank Holiday Sunday – click here for the Wigmore Hall rubric on the concert.

Of course we could go…of course we would go…of course we did go.

The day was 1 May 2022, which which also happened to be the 100th anniversary of my mum’s birth.

Mum would have loved the idea of us going to a concert on her birthday to see Janie’s musician friend/colleague perform. Especially as Sini’s instrument is the violin; the primary family instrument of Mum’s very musical family, explained to some extent in this recent Ogblog piece about the family origins.

Turn It Up To Max & Spit: The Baltic Origins Of My Mother’s (Marcus) Family Revealed

The links in the above piece to the exploits of my mother’s cousin Sid, not least his virtuoso playing of both violin and hand saw, are worth the price of admission alone. OK, there is no price of admission, but the stories are priceless.

I was also reminded of the very last time I went to the concert hall with mum, which was a lunchtime concert at St John’s Smith Square in 2011 – a groupie circumstance of mum’s making, to see mum’s unlikely young friend, the pianist Karim Said:

Charlotte Bonneton & Karim Said, St John’s Smith Square, 29 September 2011

I hadn’t done “the Green Room thing” since then.

Anyway…

…the Wigmore Hall concert on 1 May 2022 was an all Mendelssohn string quartet affair, but with a twist: we first heard Fanny Mendelssohn’s sole String Quartet, followed by Felix Mendelssohn’s 6th String Quartet.

Both were a very enjoyable listen – Fanny’s piece much lighter and easier on the Sunday morning ear than Felix’s. Felix was in sombre mood when he wrote his 6th, dedicated to his recently deceased and beloved sister Fanny – possibly also anticipating his own impending doom – he died soon after completing the work.

Impending doom? Felix portrait c1846

The concert was very well patronised – if not a complete sell out then surely the place was near to full. The performances were, deservedly, extremely well received by the Sunday morning audience.

Janie and I asked the elderly gentleman sitting next to us if he had enjoyed the concert.

Yes indeed. I prefer Fanny.

On balance, so did Janie and I.

Sini had said to Janie several times that we simply must show our faces in the Green Room after the concert, so it would have been rude to partake of the traditional Wigmore Hall sherry rather than visit the artistes in that hallowed room.

There were plenty of other groupies around in The Jessye Norman Room, but Sini greeted us warmly and we chatted for a while.

Before setting off for The Wig, I had discovered that the Castalian String Quartet had released an album this week, Between Two Worlds On Delphian…

…which was already picking up rave reviews, such as this one in The Scotsman – click here.

I also couldn’t help but notice that the album includes a couple of arrangements of Renaissance pieces – one by Orlande de Lassus and one by John Dowland, as well as a Beethoven late Quartet and a modern quartet by Thomas Adès.

Sini, with characteristic modesty, mentioned in passing that she has arranged the Renaissance pieces as an experiment. She also kindly pressed a copy of the Between Two Worlds CD into my hand as we said goodbye to her.

Following an enjoyable stroll around Fitzrovia and Marylebone, Janie and I listened to the album as soon as we got home. We can both thoroughly recommend it; in particular the beautiful sound of the Renaissance piece arrangements. Choral works of that era were often arranged for consorts of viols, of course; the string quartet being the direct progeny of the viol quartet.

It was an enjoyable day and such a fitting way to remember my mum’s 100th anniversary.

But there was one more coincidence to come – as I read the programme notes to the Between two Worlds album. The viola player on the album was not Ruth Gibson (whom we saw at Wigmore Hall) but Charlotte Bonneton. Wasn’t Charlotte Bonneton the young musician mum and I saw along with Karim Said that very last time mum went to a concert?

Yes indeed – it turns out Charlotte was The Castalian String Quartet’s viola player until quite recently – for some 10 years – perhaps already with the group when we saw her perform with Karim Said in September 2011. Perhaps Sini and/or some of the other Castalians were even there to support Charlotte that day.

I know the classical music world isn’t big – but it isn’t that small either.

Here’s to the Castalian String Quartet. You can read more about them through the link here and below.

Biographies

Meet My Father – Teodoro Rossiter, The Truth Uncovered, 24 April 2022

Most people who know me and knew my parents thought that Peter Harris was my father. People who knew him better might have known that he was Peter Isidore Harris and/or that his first given name was Isidore – Peter came later. A handful of family members would be aware that the family on arrival in England were named Russinov, that my grandfather was known as Harris Russinov and that dad’s name on his 1919 birth certificate was Isidore Russinov.

Isidore, Anne & Michael Russinov, c1925

But it turns out that my father was actually some bloke named Teodoro Rossiter.

Here’s the thing:

Following the extraordinary and fascinating revelations just the other week about my mother’s cousin Sid Marcus, his saw playing and the Lithuanian origins of my mother’s family, uncovered with the help of cousin Adam and Ron Geesin…

Turn It Up To Max & Spit: The Baltic Origins Of My Mother’s (Marcus) Family Revealed

…I thought I should learn from Ron’s superb research into my mother’s family and do a similar dig into my father’s family. After all, research is a significant part of what I do for a living and Ron’s example had been very instructive as well as informative.

The central learning point from Ron’s research is that the recent on-line publication of the 1921 census opens up a new trove of information – probably the last such “big reveal” trove that will occur in my lifetime.

I thought it would be easy for me to find a family named Russinov in London in the 1921 census search engine…

…but absolutely nothing came up. I tried all the tricks I know to vary the spelling, allow the machine to approximate the spelling, look beyond London just in case they were away from London at the time…

…nothing.

I even tried Harris. Lots of other Harris families but definitely not mine.

Peter Harris in 2005. Were there secrets behind that smile?

I knew the family was in Fitzrovia (the south-eastern quarter of Marylebone) at that time and I even had a relic from the 1920s – a business certificate allowing the family to trade under the name Harris – which had at one time adorned the certificate wall of the Z/Yen office but was latterly in storage. I was pretty sure that 1920s certificate had an address on it.

Unfortunately, the certificate – which is for sure somewhere in Z/Yen’s secure storage dungeon – is being stored very securely indeed. It wasn’t where we thought it would be and 30 minutes of further searching in the dungeon convinced us that it must have been filed quite deeply – no doubt to be found when searching for something completely different.

I all but gave up on the idea of finding my paternal family in the 1921 census.

But I’m a tenacious sort of chap and was pondering the matter quite a bit. Then at the weekend a thought dawned on me. The granting of business certificates, at that time – indeed deep into the 20th century- often needed to be announced in a gazette. Such announcements naturally included the address.

So rather than search genealogy sites in vain, I searched my Newspapers.com subscription with my grandfather’s name instead. Instant pay dirt:

The Marylebone Mercury and West London Gazette on 3 Jan 1925

Interesting law, Section 7 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919, requiring migrants to seek permission (at significant expense) to use an English-sounding rather than their natural-born alien name for their business.

Interesting street, Upper Marylebone Street. It subsequently became the eastern end of New Cavendish Street and was confusingly renumbered. Before my family’s time, Thomas Paine wrote The Rights Of Man at No 7. No 7 Upper Marylebone Street was a well-known hang out for radicals, writers and radical writers.

Thomas Paine

But I digress…except that the extremely helpful article about Thomas Paine in Upper Marylebone Street…

Thomas Paine lived and wrote the Rights of Man at 148 New Cavendish Street

…locates Paine’s (now defunct) building, No 7 Upper Marylebone Street, on the site of 148 New Cavendish Street and No 4 – my Grandfather’s place – in a still-existing Georgian terraced house – now numbered 154 New Cavendish Street:

Thank you, Google Maps for this July 2021 image capture

I’d found the family house from 1925 but had I found my family there in 1921? The transcription at first glance did not look promising:

But on reflection, this was unmistakably my family. Grandpa Harris, already 39 years old. Grandma Anne (Annie) much younger, 30. Uncle Alec, 13 at census time. Uncle Manny, just 10. Uncle Michael, a new born babe. Indeed, had it not been for the industrial action that delayed the 1921 census by several months, Uncle Michael might have missed it by a few days.

And there was dad, under the name Teodoro Rossiter.

No-one had even mentioned to me the use of the name Rossiter as an early anglicisation of the family name. As for Teodoro, it is a charming name, but hardly an anglicisation or simplification of the name Isidore.

This made no sense.

I decided to invest in a scan of the original document. It set me back the princely sum of £1.75 (a half-price special offer that weekend – who could resist such a good value deal? Dad would have approved and possibly even would have bought two copies to celebrate his bargain.)

Now I’m not qualified to opine upon or judge handwriting – Ogblog readers who are crazy enough to examine my hand-written diary entries can attest – but I think the hand-writing on the original census document is mighty fine and I think my dad’s entry very clearly says Isodore (admittedly not Isidore) Russinov and all of the “Rossiter family” (as transcribed) are written extremely clearly as “Russinov”.

I award myself 9 out of 10 for detective work and I award the transcriber 1 out of 10 for the transcription of my dad’s name…awarding 1 only because I don’t do 0 out of 10.

When I talked this through with Janie, she wondered whether this might mean that I could be related to Leonard Rossiter, the wonderful (deceased) comedy actor.

Used under fair use rationale to depict Leonard Rossiter in this article. To be clear, the transcription error of the family name “Russinov” to “Rossiter” does not in any way indicate that I, or any other member of the Harris/Russinov family, is related to Leonard, or indeed any other, Rossiter. In short, I didn’t get where I am today by being related to Leonard Rossiter.

I explained to Janie that transcription errors, much like noms de plume, don’t tend to have relatives.

My dad has had an unfortunate record of transcription errors with his records. In the late 1980s, when dad was around or approaching 70, he received a letter from the NHS addressed to Isadora Harris inviting “him” to have a cervical smear test. There must have been SO much wrong with the NHS record that led to that mistake.

Indeed, dad seems so prone to nominative transcription errors, I considered titling this piece “My Trans Dad”, but decided against on balance.

More seriously, I did of course find out some interesting facts about my family history.

I had always suspected that Grandpa Harris probably hailed from Vilnius, as I was aware that he had journeyed into the Belorussian part of the Pale of Settlement where he met and initially settled with my then very young Grandma Anne. But I was also aware that Uncle Manny had been born in Vilnius and had guessed that the family had probably returned to Grandpa Harris’s home place before migrating.

Vilnius in 1915

Grandma Anne stated in the census that she (and Uncle Alec) were born in Igumen, which is a Belarussian town now known as Chervyen. Trigger warning – it was the scene of multiple atrocities during the 1940s – don’t click the preceding link if you’d rather not know the details. It is about 70 km south-east of Minsk – about an hour’s drive today.

The family came a long way in a short space of time, from shtetl life in Igumen and Vilnius, to London life in Marylebone…

…but then the name Teodoro Rossiter is a long way from Isodore Russinov or Peter Harris.

“Call me whatever you blooming well like”.

Turn It Up To Max & Spit: The Baltic Origins Of My Mother’s (Marcus) Family Revealed

My Grandpa: Lew (or Lou) Marcus, with his older brother Max

Meet my Great Uncle Max Marcus (1878-1952). He was the oldest of the multitude of Marcus siblings to venture from the old country to Blighty. My Grandpa Lew (1892-1959) was the youngest of the siblings.

But where exactly did the Marcus family venture from?

The family legend has been vague to say the least. Before the term “self-identify” had been invented, the Marcus family self-identified as “Litvak musicians”.

The word Litvak is a Yiddish term for Jews of Lithuanian (or more generically places we would now call The Baltics) origin. For families like ours, who came to Britain in the late 19th century, that meant that they would have been Russian subjects in The Pale Of Settlement before coming to Britain.

Great Uncle Max as a young man – c1900

The other matter of clarity from the family legend was that Great Uncle Max came to England with his wife, Leah, as an advance party, establishing themselves, at least to some extent, before the rest of the family followed towards the very end of the 19th century.

I did a little bit of on-line genealogy around 2011, liaising with my cousins Ted & Sue, which yielded very little about the family origins. It did encourage me at that time to interview my mother, plus cousins Jacquie Briegal and Sidney Pizan (the latter being Max’s grandson) – I have quite a few notes and yarns for future pieces, but almost nothing on the Baltic origins.

1901 census shows 9 year old Grandpa Lew with parents and some siblings in Whitechapel

I couldn’t find Max and his nascent family in the 1901 census when I looked in 2011. But I did find them in the 1911 census. In April 1911, Max and family were in Great Yarmouth. Once established as a musician in England, for much of his working life, Max split his time between London and Yarmouth. The picture below is probably Yarmouth.

Max playing double-bass with a small band, which I refer to (in PDQ Bach terms) as a schleptet.

When in London, Max played with De Groot at The Piccadilly & Regents Palace Hotels

In the 1911 census, Max claims that he and Leah come from Austria. This claim is a stretch, almost worthy of the UK Government 110 years later, in its extremely loose association with the truth.

In reality, Viennese waltz music was all the rage in those days; it was probably “professionally convenient” for Max to hold himself out as an Austrian exponent of waltz music. It is almost unthinkable that Max (or anyone else from the Marcus family) had ever so much as set foot in Austria (or any part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) before 1911.

Max, Leah & emerging brood circa 1907. Far right is my Great-Grandma Annie.

Max and Leah’s offspring and descendants turned out to be a pretty musical lot. On the far left of the above picture is my mother’s cousin Sid, who ended up as a first violin in and sometime leader of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Harry, the younger boy in the above picture was, by all accounts, an even more talented violinist but suffered from stage fright, so made his career teaching.

To the right of Harry (Harry’s left) in the above picture is Becky, who became Becky Pizan:

  • mother of Sidney Pizan (who, along with my mother, provided the family pictures you are enjoying);
  • reportedly a very gifted pianist in her own right (as was, according to my mother, my own Grandpa Lew);
  • grandmother of the artist Adam Green, whose extraordinary, almost accidental research a few weeks ago has led to a swathe of discoveries.

I thoroughly recommend that you click through to Adam’s piece about my mother’s musical cousin (Adam’s Great Uncle) Sidney Marcus and the discoveries that flowed from that- click here or the link below.

BBC RADIO 3, RON GEESIN, UNCLE SID, AND CHOPPED LIVER IN KOVNO…

For those who just want to skim the topic, Adam has helped to identify Sid Marcus as The Saw Player on several 1930s recordings, such as the following:

My mum always referred to Sid as “a multi-instrumentalist” without going into too much detail. I hadn’t previously twigged that Sid’s “fifteen minutes of fame” second instrument was the hand saw.

Adam, via Radio 3 and Ron Geesin (composer, writer and self-confirmed absurdist), established that Max and his family, in the 1921 census, stated that they came from Kovno – now known as Kaunas, the second-largest city in Lithuania.

Adam says in his piece that he was a bit surprised, as he thought that branch of his family hailed from Riga.

My take on the matter, having been bitten by Max’s 1911 claims, was that Max on census day was not a 100% reliable witness to his own origins, but that Kaunas was unlikely to be a complete lie (unlike Austria) as it was unlikely that anyone in England would give a fig about which Baltic town Max and family might hail from.

I decided to redouble my efforts and try a bit harder to find Max and his branch in the 1901 census. I had drawn a blank when I looked back in 2011 but I hadn’t looked that hard.

As it turns out, I should indeed have looked harder back in 2011, although the search engines might not have been so good back then.

The 1901 census page for Max, Leah & Simon [sic] Markus [sic]

The trick was to look for Leah and to ask the search engine to be non-exact in the matter of surname (as well as first name) spelling. Thus we find Marks (latterly known as “Max” – we have since learnt that he was previously known as “Mendel”), Leah and baby Simon (latterly known as “Sidney” or “Sid”) in Back Church Lane Whitechapel, very close to the rest of the family and very close to Tobacco Dock, from whence it seems the family was scraping a living in the tobacco business in those early days.

Let’s drill.

Where are they saying they come from?

Let’s drill some more and zoom:

Max comes from Nidy and Leah comes from Yugger?

OK, so in 1901, before they had mastered the English language and how to spin with it, Max and Leah admitted to having been born in different places. I am pretty confident that “Yugger” is the way the census dude wrote down Leah’s attempt to tell him that she was born in Riga.

What about Nidy? I’m pretty sure Max was telling the census dude about Nida, Lithuania.

created by dji camera – LinasD, CC BY-SA 4.0

Now I’m going to be honest here and admit that, until I did this research, I had never heard of Nida, nor had I even heard of the Curonian Spit, the 60+ mile long sand dune depicted below.

H Padleckas, CC BY-SA 3.0

In the late 19th century, Nida was an art colony. Confusingly, the northern part of the Curonian Spit now shown as Lithuania was, at that time, part of Greater Russia, whereas the southern part that today is part of Russia, including Kaliningrad was, at that time, Königsberg, part of Prussia. As my mum would have said, “don’t start”.

For a family of musicians, I suspect that Nida, with its relatively wealthy Prussian visitors, was a suitable place to spend the summer season and earn a decent crust, even if you retreated to Kaunas for the winter and urban gigs…

…and then it dawned on me. Great Yarmouth is also a summer season town, built on a spit, albeit a smaller spit than that massive Curonian one.

Great Yarmouth on a Spit between the River Yare and the North Sea
OpenStreetMap, CC BY-SA 3.0

When Great Uncle Max chose to divide his musical time between London and Great Yarmouth, I’ll guess he was simply continuing the family tradition from the old country, having found a coastal place that reminded him just a little of his youthful summers on the Baltic Coast.

Of course there is a fair amount of supposition in this, but it is hard to imagine why Max would invent an answer to “where were you born” by falsely giving the name of a holiday town on the Baltic Coast.

Perhaps we can find some corroborating evidence on this. I note that Max, Leah and Sid had two boarders sharing their Back Church Lane home in 1901, Michael Freedland and Marks Freedland, both of whom also claimed to have been born in Nidy (Nida). So here is a shout out to possible descendants of the Freedland Brothers – has your family history handed down stories about where your family came from and how they came to England? Because it seems likely that those young men’s fortunes were, at least to some extent, conjoined with that of the Marcus family, from the old country and for a while in Blighty.

To close, my favourite picture of Max is the one below, from 1936, with young Sidney Pizan, dressed up and out for a stroll in Westcliff-on-Sea. It seems he really loved his coastal resorts, did Great Uncle Max.

Afterword: Extracts From E-Mail Conversations With Ron Geesin Casting Doubt On My Nida Theory But Not Necessarily On My Litvak Waterside Theory

Ron to Ian 4 April 2022:

“…On your latest research, hold on a minute! On the next page of the 1901 Census, there’s a ‘Caroline Davis’ ‘Needle Worker’. This gives the enumerator’s written forming of N and W, quite different to each other. So the Marcus entry has to be ‘Widy’…”

“…and there’s a village just outside Kaunas called Vijûkai. Could this half mumbled and ‘interpreted’ by an ill-informed enumerator come out as ‘Widy’? It’s not uncommon in Censuses for people to sometimes state their real original village and then later state the nearest town.”

Ian to Ron 5 April 2022

“…I don’t find the “Vijûkai” for “Wida” idea convincing, although it is just as convincing as my own wild theories! There would have been many long-since destroyed shtetls near Kaunas of which one named Wida or similar is quite possible…”

Ian to Ron 13 April 2022

“…Apropos your thoughts on Vijûkai, which feels to me a long way from anything that might be pronounced or written as “Widy”, there is a neighbourhood near that place which feels more “Widy” to me, named Vaišvydava

Both of those neighbourhoods are on the outskirts of Kaunas and the general area had a significant Jewish population back then, so it is plausible that we have found our Widy. Not on the lagoon coast but it is on the riverside coast! The general area is named Panemune…

There is a charming book about shtetl life in that neighbourhood, My First Eighty Years by Bernard Horwich. It’s been digitised and is available on the Wayback Machine – the first 50 pages or so is an utterly charming skim or read…”

See contemporary pictures of my latest Widy proposal – Vaisydava – here.

The Postmodern Deadline: ThreadMash, Performance Piece, The Tokenhouse, 15 March 2022

Unable to muster the time or energy to write an 800-900 word piece on the topic “The Deadline” in the genre “Fiction” for our first live ThreadMash in two years, I instead submitted the following 920 word letter of apology.

Dear Kay

I regret to inform you that I shall be unable to submit a ThreadMash piece on the theme “The Deadline” in the genre “fiction” by the due date.

Normally I’m good with deadlines. I’m nothing like the writer Douglas Adams, who was so lousy at deadlines, publishers knew not to bother setting them for him. Adams famously said:

“I love deadlines; I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by”.

Although I am relatively good at meeting deadlines, naturally I tend to leave written pieces until the last minute; who doesn’t? 

At the turn of the century, having foolishly agreed to write a charity textbook, I managed to meet the deadline only by dint of arranging to have some wisdom teeth removed and thus being forced to stay home for two weeks of convalescence for which I set myself a 2,000 words per day target to get the last 20,000 words of the book done on time.

It was on that occasion I learnt, for the first but not the last time, that book publishers don’t expect the authors to meet deadlines, so I was met with five weeks of silence until the editor picked the thing up at their appointed time. The same thing happened when my co-author Michael and I submitted the first draft of “The Price of Fish” on deadline; five weeks of silence because the so-called deadline isn’t a true deadline.

You don’t want truth, do you, Kay? 

You want fiction. 

Our first book, "Clean Business Cuisine" was fiction. We wrote it without a publisher and therefore without a publisher’s deadline. Once we had a publisher and a production schedule, I arranged the first book signing with what seemed to be plenty of leeway for the production deadline. But of course we ended up with a race against time to get copies of the book to the book signing location, Halifax, ahead of the event. That “skin of teeth” deadline was met, just. I even turned up at the venue on time myself; but in my rush to change into my dinner suit that evening, I forgot to take a pen with me to the venue. That’s right, I turned up at my first ever book signing without a pen. As the venue was a youth theatre where the narrowest writing implement to hand was a permanent marker pen, this was an existential crisis for the book signing, until a customer showed up with a pen to lend me for the evening.

I could have fleshed out that deadline story, but it is a true story about fiction…not in itself fiction.

Actually I have a bit of a problem with deadline stories in fiction. They tend to follow a predictable pattern, whereby suspense is generated through the device of a deadline, often, especially in thrillers, through convoluted circumstances. 

The Perils Of Pauline is a classic example of ludicrous deadline, or cliff-hanger thrillers. For bizarre reasons, villains in this type of story seem compelled to condemn their potential victims to a death that will scare them for several minutes before killing them, allowing time for the victim to extricate themselves from danger, or for a hero to arrive and rescue the victim. Bond villains are another example of fiends with this monstrous flaw. I find these fictions implausible and not to my taste.

I did consider writing a topical pastiche of the thriller deadline story, in which the villain tries to construct the cliff-hanger scenario, having tied the potential victim to a railway track, but the locomotive-driven demise is confounded by excuses from the track and train operators apologising for delays caused by Brexit, Covid and latterly Putin. Meanwhile the hero’s efforts to rescue the potential victim are similarly impaired by Brexit, Covid and Putin excuses from would-be suppliers of motor vehicles, horses and rope cutting equipment. The risk of the victim dying of neglect becomes an interesting additional angle to this otherwise simplistic, predictable storyline. 

I should add, parenthetically, that The Perils Of Pauline never did have the heroine tied to a railway line; that specific scenario was used several times in the copycat series The Hazards Of Helen.  

Joking apart, my dear Kay, this whole business of people being unable to set a sensible deadline and then meet it is no longer funny. It is inundating me with needless tasks and starting to get me down. The worst example of this Brexit, Covid, Putin (or BROVIN syndrome, as I call it) is the “temporary” pipe which has been dangling around our Notting Hill Gate home for more than two years, while the flat above mine awaits a not especially complex plumbing solution. An elephant gestates in fewer than two years. The entirety of our street, Clanricarde Gardens, including the shops adjoining each side of the main road, was built in the 1870s in fewer than four years. I feel like going onto the Bayswater Road and protesting about it, but a large bunch of other protesters have beaten me to it and taken root there.

No, the real truth, Kay, is that BROVIN syndrome has finally got to me. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am unable to generate 800-900 words between now and the deadline.

Sorry about that.

With love and very best wishes

Ian

PS You may complain in writing to the ombudsman, ICAT (The International Court for the Arbitration of ThreadMash – Justice R Candappa presiding). But don’t expect a response from ICAT before the deadline.
“Temporary” trailing pipe since December 2019
Clanricarde Gardens – whole street constructed 1869-1873
Local protests about other matters, more pressing than trailing pipes

The Evening Itself

We had a good time at The Tokenhouse – a venue that Rohan booked in quieter times; we suspect that they will seek larger groups henceforward.

It was wonderful to see many members of the gang in person again after so long. Unfortunately several were unable to attend – Kay’s last minute Covid indisposition reminded us why we hadn’t been together in 3D for so long.

Kay did join us via Zoom, however. Her story had a dystopian past quality to it that was only tangentially about deadlines…

…contrast with Jill’s dystopian future story about existential deadlines.

Several of the stories (Jan’s, Flo’s & Adrian’s in particular) managed to weave romance into the deadline scenario; in two cases ideas around internet dating and social media flirting were front & centre.

Rohan and David can explain for themselves what their stories were about, while Adrian probably couldn’t provide a logical reason why he ended up in a pantomime lion costume at the end of his performance piece.

Jan, Julie, Flo & Jill, keen to pose rather than look natural
David posing as his natural self, half capuchin monk, half capuchin monkey
Adrian, no longer donning his lion outfit (don’t ask)

Santaphobia, Sartorialism, Keele Connections And Several Crises At Christmas, 4 January 2022

Sanity Clause, Anyone? – Christmas Eve & Boxing Day

Janie and I are not exactly model celebrants of Christmas. In recent years we have made it our habit to volunteer, primarily for Crisis at Christmas, which is a wonderful charity.

Yet Janie does have a fondness for unusual Christmas decorations, and has long-regretted not photographing the “Christmas Gnomes Tea Party” we drove past on Popes Lane two or three years ago.

But we did stop and snap the above acrobatic (or possibly desperate) Santa on Boston Manor Road, setting aside our santaphobia and praising the owner of the house for his stunning fandangle.

As if that wasn’t excitement enough before Christmas, we also did our first Crisis shift of the year on Christmas Eve:

We are Ged & Daisy for our Crisis shifts. Daisy here was sporting Christmas (and for that matter Z/Yen corporate) colours.

Daisy, for reasons known only to her, tends to pronounce the word “crisis” as “crises”, as if one massive homelessness crisis at Christmas isn’t enough.

Daisy was tempting fate this season with her plurality, in my view. Indeed, we swiftly found ourselves embroiled in a second crisis. The Duchess of Castlebar (Daisy’s mum) had yet another nasty fall on Boxing Day, not even two hours after we left her. So that’s hospital again (the third time since the start of November) and all the palaver that entails.

Keeping calm in a Crisis…or crises

All Isn’t Quiet On New Year’s Day

On New Year’s Day, we were back to Crisis. A smaller team that day with plenty to do; we ended up running the coffee stall / canteen, the clothes store and delivering food to rooms on that shift.

For those who might be blunt or snide enough to throw the “ah, but could he run a coffee/food stall?” question in my direction, the answer is, I believe, “yes” – as evidenced not only by our Crisis volunteering but also by the FoodCycle volunteering Daisy and I have been doing since the start of the pandemic.

A Multi-Shift FoodCycle Day In Marylebone, 21 April 2021

Running the clothes store was a different matter.

On Christmas Eve, there was masses of donated stock but it was difficult to find individual items of the requisite type and size for each guest, so some people were taking/writing down orders in the “clothes store”, others were fulfilling them from stock in the basement and then delivering the clothes orders to the rooms. Time consuming but basically a systematic sequence of tasks. Daisy and I worked on fulfilling and delivering clothes orders on Christmas Eve.

New Year’s Day was different. Stocks were running low, with mostly super-large and super-small sizes remaining available. Almost all of the stock had been moved upstairs to the clothes store.

After our session running the canteen, Daisy and I were allocated to the clothes store. That is when we met The Sartorialist; a guest with a particular interest…you might even describe it as an obsession…with the garb on offer.

Daisy tells me that I handled the situation with great patience, but I suspect that my face was betraying whatever my words and tone were belying – I’m not a naturally patient chap. Perhaps sensing my frustration, The Sartorialist kept apologising to me for his persistence, without ever tempering his resolve to see just one more garment, in case it turned out to be a size/colour/style/brand that suited him.

At one point he said to me:

You’re well dressed – why shouldn’t I be?

I pointed out to him my tracksuit bottoms and trainers, similar to those I had worn for tennis a few hours earlier (see below).

I was talking about your top. I don’t wear tracksuit bottoms and I would never, ever wear training shoes.

I thought about my choice of jumper for my Crisis shifts (see above). It must be more than 25 years old. Daisy and I bought it when visiting a provincial town; the weather had turned unseasonably cold on us and I wanted a cheap, comfortable, washable pullover to use as layering.

I also wondered what The Sartorialist might have made of my choice of top – in particular headgear, for tennis (see below).

Geddy In Disguise…With Glasses.

At that juncture, I thought it best to hand the customer-facing side of the Crisis clothing emporium over to Daisy.

Consummate professional salesperson that she is…

…at least in the matter of selling…by which I mean giving away by dint of talking up…charitably-donated goods…

…Daisy successfully persuaded The Sartorialist to take three items of clothing and move on, enabling us to progress with other customers, who were forming an increasing long, yet surprisingly patient, queue.

4 January – A Charitable Keele Connection On Our “End Of Term” Shift

One of the good things about Facebook is the way it informs you about connections with other people who know your friends. On Holiday Monday I joined the relevant private Facebook Group for people who were doing Crisis volunteering shifts in our slot, to spot that one of the volunteers, Amber Bauer, is a friend of Sally Hyman, whom I know from “back in the day” at Keele.

Sally runs a wonderful charity, CRIBS International. It turns out that Amber knows Sally through that charity.

I wondered whether Amber would be on our 4 January shift. I didn’t spot anyone named Amber during our pre-shift briefing, but that “end of term” briefing was…very brief.

But soon after the briefing, one of my first customers when I was staffing the canteen/coffee stall again, had the name badge Amber, so we connected in person.

A little later, Daisy and I took over from Amber on outdoor duty…

…yes it was punishingly cold doing that duty once the temperature had dropped that evening…

…enabling Daisy to take pictures of a very chilly Amber handing over to a not-yet-but-soon-to-be-chilly me:

I look comparatively cold already and I haven’t started the duty yet. Mind you, Amber seemed awfully pleased to see us when we turned up to take over.

Amber and I both reckon that the above picture and story should make Sally Hyman smile – not least because it includes a soft plug for Sally’s wonderful international homelessness charity.

You Want To Know More About The Charities Mentioned In This Piece?…Of Course You Do…Clickable Links Below:

Crisis – Together we will end homelessness
FoodCycle – To make food poverty, loneliness and food waste a thing of the past for every community
CRIBS International – Care for Refugee Interim Baby Shelter