Joseph Witriol’s Journal – Part 3: A diet of young chicks and Janáček

My father, Joseph Witriol (1912-2002,), began his hand-written Journal in 1957.

Thursday 9th May 1957 – 5.20 p.m.

Hungry – on 4th day of self-imposed diet (started at 8.30 a.m. on Monday 6th). Rambled with a small group of Senior Ramblers [Jewish Senior Ramblers Club]: Woking – Chobham – Sunningdale. Very capably led by one Minnie R. Company homely, alas. Usual disclaimer: I am not a snob, but one likes a touch of unsnobbish class in one’s company. However, I ought, I think, to refrain entirely from adversely commenting on people’s innate qualities, for which they are not responsible.

I believe I have not mentioned the fact so far that I am by occupation (notice the carefully chosen term) a primary schoolteacher. There may be something significant in this. I can’t pretend that I am unhappy in my work (I meant to write “happy”); I haven’t the aptitudes nor have I had the specialised training a p.s.t. needs. I have managed to fit my square peg into its round hole, but it is impossible for me to avoid seeing how much better at the job young women in their early twenties are than I am. Strangely enough, some of these y.w. say they hate the job – this is not merely a pose, I don’t think* – because of the “old teachers who are inefficient” (who are they to judge of other teachers’ efficiency, anyway) and/or because of the low status of primary schoolteachers. I suspect that this last is something of a pose. I still maintain that as far as women are concerned, primary schoolteachers rank reasonably high.For men, of course, no. Even so, I for my part in my own eyes have a higher status as a P.S.T. than I would have had as a successful grocer, say, or draper.

*I meant “I think” – JW 2/1/59 Cicerol, 7th & 8th May 57 – 7 hrs. [Red text at the end of entries indicates time spent on writing/translating].

Monday 13th May 1957 – 5.30 p.m.

The weather – at the moment – is fine; I’m not so fine, though I have long since reached the stage when a condition of non-fineness no worse than this can be easily tolerated – s’long’s-it’s-no-worse. One can enumerate the causes of one’s far from divine discontent:-

1) effect of diet; for me the consolation of eating is real.

2) linked with 1) – to-day’s weighing revealed I have lost only 2-3lb. A disappointing result after a week’s strenuous dieting. (wt. 14st. 3lb. – dress as for 3/5/57 except beige sports-shirt instead of Rael Brook shirt and Terylene vest instead of Aertex-type vest).

3) Sense of inadequacy at job. Humiliation at having to ask R.H.H. (R.H. Heppell, my headmaster) how to play stoolball, further humiliation at his suggesting I ask Miss O., just out of college, how it was played. Further humiliation when, having proceeded from stoolball to rounders, of which too I had become ignorant (not having played it for over 30 years) R.H.H. asked Miss J. to bring her booklets on the game, which she had, and one of which she lent me.

4) Notice in toilet re co-operation on use of toilet etc; no tea-leaves in pan (not guilty), no saturation of floor (possibly guilty through peeing in dark at night – I suffer from nervous frequency), immediate flushing (I do, except again, at night, in order to avoid noise).

5) Idea occurred to me to write article “Votes For Women” for J.C. to cash in on Roger Fulford’s book of that title, but too lazy to carry out idea. To do it successfully I would need to have the book to hand and the article completed within a fortnight. Even by then I doubt whether the article would be topical any longer. – if the J.C. get anything  in within three weeks of submission I have found – it’s quite exceptional.

I am useless. I clutter up the earth. Along with some two-and-a-half-thousand million others I intend to continue cluttering to the last possible moment. Or, as the Psalmist puts it, lo amut ki echyah. [ I shall not die but live Psalms 118:17] And bollocks to you hypocrite lecteur.

Friday 17th May 1957 – 7.15 p.m.

My memory is really appalling. Recently a representative of the Red Cross called to see me regarding an offer of voluntary service I had goaded myself into making. He talked solidly in this room for an hour. It is not so often I have anyone in here, apart from Merton [Sandler] and Richard [Stern], that I ought not to be able to remember when this particular chap called. He was so tremendously keen that I found myself unable to avoid the unworthy suspicion that he might be a full-time or part-time paid official. I had offered, following on receipt in the hall of a batch of printed leaflets detailing the work of the Red Cross and asking for voluntary workers, to give 2 hrs. (or did I write 1-2 hrs.?) weekly. I learnt from my caller, with a sinking of the heart, that he envisaged me, on qualifying in first aid, doing a duty periodically at the local swimming baths in uniform. Non possumus. A mass of screaming kids, of flapping bosoms – no. I also committed myself to an evening’s door-knocking and leaflet distribution. How many days since I had this call. Perhaps my caller has forgotten me. Halvai. [Hebrew - if only]. I have a pathological desire to be of use, but there are certain prices I can’t pay. Was it last Monday night he called? I can’t remember. If not, what did I do on Monday night? I can’t remember – ah yes, I wrote to Jethro Bithell, my old Birkbeck tutor, now getting on for eighty. He had written to me that it ought to go down as a “scrumptious detail” that Frau Isi (the Jewish wife of Richard Dehmel) preferred non-Jews because they were uncircumcised. Tuesday night I went round to Mum’s and wrote two letters in Hebrew to Uncle Mendel and Esther ben-Aharon (a distant relative – I have never been able to work out the exact relationship) respectively. A task I dislike – I do not write Hebrew easily – I seem to remember Aubrey Eban writing the same thing to me when he was at Cambridge, or thereabouts (in time thereabouts, I mean) although he was a Hebrew child-prodigy. On Wednesday night I went to see a very competent Home Office Dramatic society production of a play, Small Hotel, by one Rex Thomas, I think [Rex Frost] – an honest workmanlike comedy which impressed me far more than the vastly overrated Look Back in Anger. Thursday night to Mum’s to find she had had bronchial cough. Fortunately Lily [sister-in-law] was round, has been round to-day, is a tower of strength. Mum, bless her, resilient. As regards work (by which I always mean translating or other scribbling) a blank week.

Sunday 19th May, 1957 – 10.45 p.m.

To Mum yesterday, instead of usual visit to Sam [brother]. Left Mum later than usual to-day. Her cough on the mend, I hope. Started on Brod’s Janáček [his translation was completed but not published] yesterday – tough going at first but I think I shall be able to manage to get through it all right. Janáček, 18 & 19th May, 4.5hrs

Janáček draft translation

Monday 20th May 1957 – 9.10 p.m.

Weighed myself; just, but quite definitely beat 14 stone. Same attire as 3/5/57, except that to-day I was wearing a shirt and collar slightly heavier, if anything, than the collar-attached shirt I was wearing then. My self-imposed diet started on 6/5/57 and has been very slightly relaxed in the last few days. It is clear I have lost 6lb in the last fortnight. (A weighty entry, forsooth!) Janáček, 20 -22 May, 4hrs

Wednesday 29th May 1957 – 5.20 p.m.

Weak – the diet is in renewed force, after its suspension on Sunday 26th, when I went with Mum to Frances Kopkin’s house-warming (I agree with Mum, chuncas habayis [literally "dedication of the house"; my father's Hebrew and Yiddish transliterations are often different to conventional usage] is shenner [ more beautiful] than house-warming). The house cost 5, I understand. It’s in a rather brash locale, but undoubtedly classy inside. Last night lectured in similar house to some 40-50 youngsters on Jewish Wit and Humour (“The Arcadians” [I do not know what this is]). Performance passable, but not what it ought to be – the one-hour’s flat unhesitating exposition. As usual, I took a lot of trouble – in getting Koestler’s Insight and Outlook from library, from [sic?] example, and starting to study it – some of the ideas in it are illuminating - from which I failed to derive any benefit in the event. I was picked up, by admirable staff-work, by a youngster at 8.15, as arranged, who drove with superb (but quite unostentatious) nonchalance to the meeting-house, and driven back with equal efficiency almost to the doorstep. Discussion was not forthcoming, but on my saying I was looking for stories to add to my repertoire, someone told this one, very well:

Greenberg was crossing the road when he was knocked down by a Rolls Royce. He was not seriously hurt, but was momentarily stunned. Through a haze of semi-consciousness he heard the passenger in the car say he was a director of ICI (thus the raconteur – probably best to avoid pin-pointing any actual Jewish millionaire – but are there any Jewish directors, now, of ICI? Anyway, there is no need for the director to be Jewish). This gave Greenberg an idea – he would exploit the accident for all he could get. He shammed unconsciousness and sued for £30,000. The judge said this was not enough; Greenberg was crippled from the waist down, would be in constant pain and never be able to lead a normal life again – the judge awarded £50,000. After the case, the ICI director walked over to Greenberg and said to him: “Don’t think you’re going to get away with this, Greenberg. I’m going to have you watched night and day, and the minute you slip up, God help you.” “Don’t you worry,” said Greenberg, “First I’m going with my wife and daughter for a holiday at the Green Park, then we’re having a week in Paris, then we’re going to spend a fortnight in Nice, a week in Monte-Carlo and then we’re going to Lourdes. And when we get to Lourdes, oi, will I work a miracle!”

Friday 31st May 1957 – 9 p.m.

Too tired this evening to do any translating. Too tired for any entry other than –  29th May – 3hrs Janáček

CUMULATIVE TRANSLATION TIME: April-May 1957 45.25 hrs, of which Janáček 11.5hrs 

Saturday 8th June 1957.

Brevissimo entry before leaving for Janet Linton’s party (she a Scottish lass who did supply teaching at Hargrave [Islington primary school] and has secured her coveted “Auntie Jan” job with P & O Castle Line). Have laid on party myself for Whit Monday – have feeling it will flop. About £6 expended on drinks, concomitants and cigarettes. 2.5hrs Janáček 6/6/57 3.5 hrs Jan. 10/6/57

Joseph Witriol’s Journal – Part 2: Forty-five – still alive

My father, Joseph Witriol (1912-2002), kept a Journal from 1957 for forty years. There is the trivia of daily life (sometimes in extraordinary detail). But there are also philosophical, religious, political, cultural, and linguistic insights and musings.

The overarching theme is his feeling of being a failure. Among the many things this ‘failure’ did was to write his  memoirs, Also Lived – An Autobiography of a Failure, chronicling his life up to the time the Journal begins.

I do not always explain words and expressions merely because they are foreign, dated or obscure. However, it should be noted that my father’s Hebrew and Yiddish transliterations are often different to conventional usage.  His red text at the end of entries indicates the time he spent on writing/translating work.

21st April 1957 2.20 p.m.

Forty-five – still alive (after all, a number of those contemporary with me aren’t). I suppose one ought to stock-take, dedicate the remainder of one’s life, etc. Non possumus, tout court. A fairly hard morning this morning, even though up at 10 a.m. Lawn mowed, box of grape fruit from Esther ben Aharon [his cousin] in Haifa opened – in garden, necessitating fetching of tools from cellar; opened box placed here in drawing-room, privet hedge clipped, clippings swept, candlesticks polished, shoes polished. Want to get two hours in at Avenue Road if possible to revise typescript of “Part II” of Cicero and collect Sunday Times. Then write out one or two cheques for Mum, shool, [synagogue] supper – by which time I shall probably be too tired to read the S.T.

Last night spoke to about 30 adolescents of “Phoenix” – the youth club of the New Liberal Jewish Congregation, where I teach Sunday mornings – on “Theodore Herzl.” I probably found it more of a strain than Aubrey Eban did to address the American Jewish Committee mammoth gathering, bringing, I read, the huge audience to their feet by an”outburst of characteristic eloquence.”  Strange to think – I’m sure my memory is not playing me false – that Aubrey once warned a meeting of ‘He-Atid,’ the Young Zionist Society I ran circa 1933, to “be beware of my eloquence.” [But Also Lived has a very different version]. Sic has transited my gloria, sic Aubrey has itur‘d ad astra ( Israel delegate to U.N. and Ambassador to U.S.). More of this, no doubt, anon en passant.

To revert to my Phoenix talk. I spent 2-3 days reading Bein’s biography – excellent and, I agree with Edwin Samuel, admirably translated by Maurice Samuel. In the event I spoke for an hour without reference to the notes I had prepared. I can’t pretend I had the kids enthralled, though Herzl’s story is enthralling enough, but still, I am not too displeased at having held this difficult type of audience (gangly, giggling, spotty).

The tragedy is that if I give another lecture on Herzl I shall feel impelled to read Bein all over again. I have the memory described in the Perek [Chapters of the Fathers] as being that of “He who learns quickly and forgets quickly – his gain disappears in his loss.” The examination memory in short.

Friday, 26th April 1957 – 7.15 p.m. Lunched in B.B.C. canteen on Wednesday with Julius Gellner. He’s a friend of Brod, whom he esteems highly as a man – he says rightly that Brod is now a Grand Old Man. He thought possibly the B.B.C. might be able to use Cicero. I doubt it, but it was pleasant enough to be in the B.B.C. European Services Canteen. The atmosphere reminiscent of the P.W.B. canteen in Bari, [see Also Lived for more about his time in the Psychological Warfare Branch] suggestion of suppressed excitement, “glamour,” a break from “dinner” in the School dining-hall. The previous week I had gone with Mum, Sam and Lily to see Sholem Aleichem’s Tevie Milchiger done by the Polish State Jewish Theatre. Leslie Curzon told me in shool on Pesach that Menachem Mendel in the play had made a moitsee [blessing] over bread – this was during Chol Ha-moed Pesach. Neither Mum nor I had noticed – Mum incensed.

Hagba how-to

At shool given Hagba. [raising the Torah scroll] It’s not a mitsva I like; I always dread dropping the Sefer. The shamass [beadle] briefed me exhaustively enough: pull the sefer towards you the full extent of the handles, then press the sefer down against the reading-desk so that the sefer is absolutely vertical; don’t try any kuntsen – wandering about the belemmer (but surely the essence of Hagbaha is that the Sefer be exhibited in all directions?). There was no catastrophe, but my performance was weak, in contrast to that of the chap who hagba’d the second Sefer – he did it with the right bravura.

On Wednesday from B.B.C. (Bush House) to Watford to visit Wal & Bev. Wal, an optician, a friend from my schooldays (Eheu!).He has a house which perhaps qualifies for nothing much more by way of epithet than “nice,” but the garden has a fine uninterrupted view of trees. He has bought a second car. He, Bev & Jennifer (young daughter) off to Bermuda on a cruise for their holiday. Beverley’s V. crass talk I found a little much: Have you a cigarette darling? (to Jeremy, who will soon be 21) – Jeremy: You’re always pinching mine, Mummy. Beverley has to get her maids from Germany, davvke. Merton Sandler (lecturer in pathology at Royal Free Hospital Medical School, occupies flat below mine) revolted by my description of Beverley mores – “I can’t imagine my mother smoking a cigarette” – which is, of course, a rather strangely illiberal Nazi outlook. A propos, Merton says he detests Jewish girl equestriennes – though here again, Jennifer is quite genuinely equinophile.* Merton says it’s time he married (he’s 31) – a young pretty girl with money. If there are any young pretty Jewish girls, he’s certainly able to have first pick; with his yeekhess, [background, advantage] which, after all, is substantial (he’s not stam a doctor, waiting to have a house, sc. practice bought for him), his good Jewish family (both parents “English”) and his general presentability and commendable Jewishness. Na ja!  3hrs. Cicero B 25/5/57

* O.K., H.L., [my father went on to regularly deploy this acronym for Baudelaire's hypocrite lecteur,] ”hippophile” [JW 29/12/58] [his square brackets were used to date later notes/corrections]

Wednesday, 1st May 1957 – 3.30 p.m.

I find the low standard of the entries in this journal depressing, but am not prepared to devote the time necessary to improving them. The ambition cherished that these journals would rival those of the Goncourts (never read ‘em) or of Pepys’s or Evelyn’s diary is abandoned. After all, it can only be unique conceit (my conceit is enormous, like Cyrano’s nose) for me to be wished to be judged by high standards. Who am I, what am I?

A Kratzer – or a Master Hairdresser?

The son of a barber (Kratzer he called himself; I have an idea I described my “father’s occupation” as “Master Hairdresser” on an Officer Selection form once; visions of Barber-Surgeons) who died when I was 12, leaving just enough for my mother and brother – Sam, aged 18 at the time – to set up a fancy-goods cum confectionery shop, over which we lived (no bathroom) and in which I spent many hours weekly serving, helping Sam to dress windows, etc. By the law of averages with such a background I ought not to expect to be much more than a fairly successful shopkeeper, instead of an unsuccessful Primary School teacher and a moderately successful (speaking chiefly proleptically) literary translator. Samuel Smiles? I defecate on him.

My father, oollevashoollem, [may peace be upon him] was a Hebrew teacher in the heym, so I’m told. So was his father who, I gathered from one Witryol who wrote to me from the States – he had read an article of mine and was intrigued by the similarities of the name – had fled from Russia to Poland and been adopted by one Witriol. My mother, yibbadel le-chayim arukkim, [lit. may she be separated, i.e. in contrast to his father, for a long life] was the daughter of Yosef Balin, an egg factor,  I know nothing whatever of any great-grandparents. Without of course subscribing to Nazi bunk, I would have liked to be able to trace my descent back five or six generations. Mela. [perhaps short for meno male, a favourite Italian expression of his, meaning, in this context, "it could have been worse"]

On Monday evening saw The Mikado performed by the Wimbledon Amateur Operatic society. Gilbert and Sullivan, village (NOT County or Test) cricket – the English at their best. Last night popped in to Merton; he an Angry Young Man – 1100 a year,* car falling to bits, has to dress like a shlokh (etymology?), could I get him a leather brief case fiddling the P.T.? To bed at 1 a.m., up at 11; bad, bad night (verb. sap.); to-day so far frittered away, still feeling tired. Approx. 9 hrs Cicero B 29,30/4/57

Addendum. Wanted to ramble with Fabian’s last Sunday, 28th. Missed them through my own shlemozzle. Went off on my own following Fieldfare. [ pen-name for an Evening News columnist who wrote guides to walks in rural areas of the Home Counties]. Managed first half of ramble, but the second part, the “scramble down to Holmwood” didn’t come off, and I found myself, as on the previous occasions when I’ve tried to do this ramble, debouching into the main Dorking road – roaring motor-bikes, etc.

Total for April 1957: A 5¾ hrs. B 15 hrs.

* Now a consultant. £2,000 a year plus [JW 29/12/58]

3rd May 1957 – 12.20 p.m. Camille at Classic Cinema last night. Annoyed at having to queue, stand for about one hour. Apart from this would have found the film pleasant entertainment – sic, despite harrowing death of Marguerite. To-day’s weight (best sports jacket, cavalry slacks, brogue shoes, green pullover, light-weight socks, Terylene trunks, Aertex vest, tie) 14st. 6lb. How much will I weigh on 13th, when my diet will have been on for a week? Names in Israel, 1,2/5/57 – 6hrs. A.

Joseph Witriol’s Journal – Part 1: Culture, schmulture

Wherever possible, Joseph Witriol’s Journal entries are transcribed exactly as written. Some background about both his Journal and my editing of it is in the introduction to the Hasmonean school entries already posted at Melchett Mike.  See also the note on Also Lived – The Autobiography of a Failure.

JOURNAL  VOLUME 1

1 APRIL 1957 TO 30 DECEMBER 1959

Journalist’s cover story

1st April 1957.

April Fool’s day not the best day on which to start a journal, perhaps. But perhaps appropriate perhaps perhaps (if I were James Joyce this would be hailed as revolutionary prose style, gangs of Ph. D. researchers would be unearthing the private allusions – there ain’t none) in a baal journal (that’ll stump ‘em, but I’ll make it easy for them - baal = Heb. “master,” of course, so baal journal = the bloke who keeps a journal. Journalist?) who starts his journal a few days before his forty-fifth birthday.

Not wholly dissatisfied with this start, considering: a) ( Ph.D. researcher of 2157 please note, as representative of my daily routine) up at 7.45 a.m., bed made, shaved, dressed (presentably by a fluke – new suit left hanging over chair at night – no time to put in wardrobe and change for sports jacket – pullover – whipcord slacks), breakfasted (breakfast prepared overnight), usual Monday routine at school, sponged and pressed slacks collected, slacks for sponging and pressing handed in, heeled-shoes collected, ¼ lb. toffee (all eaten this evening), 1lb apples bought, Mum phoned too (Mum querulous, but I suppose at 75,* immersed in Pesach cleaning, a widow for over 30 years, both her sons divorced (but my brother Sam happily re-married, but no children unfortunately) understandable), supper made (admittedly facilitated by boiled fish collected from Mum last Friday and – 3 pages of Brod’s Cicero translated. Now 10.30 p.m. Basta. (The “x hrs” whenever it occurs indicates the number of hours spent on translation. To-night’s figure approximate; must try to time more accurately in future.) 2¾ hrs. Cicero 1/4/57. A

* 31/12/67. Actually – according to her Austrian birth certificate – 78.

Friday, 5th April 1957. 9.15 p.m.

Time only for a short entry before taking Friday night routine bath (“Routine! Sacred goddess” – opening for an ode – why can’t I, don’t I write it?). Another week over, another something-or-other. 1 hr 5/4/57 Cicero A

Sunday, 7th April 1957. 10.45 p.m.

Cicero finished - Schluss mit Jubel, as Joseph Sperling, my old Polish-Jewish (was he Jewish, I don’t remember his ever saying so, perhaps he wasn’t after all) boss used to say.　With Sam [his brother] and Lily [Sam's wife] to see Look Back in Anger at Golders Green Hippodrome last night. Seems extraordinary it should have had the success it has. I’ve no objection to its sordid naturalism, but its naturalistic dialogue struck me as being jejune. Presumably many people talk wittily or finely even in natural life, and I see no reason why such talk should not be given us on the stage, rather than the – sorry to repeat the word – jejune dialogue of Look Back in Anger. This is not criticism, too tired to give a critique, anyway what do I get out of it if I do get up a critique anyway anyway? (The repetitions in Witriol have a deep inner significance – I’m trying to be sarcastic and failing. Why can’t I bloody well do anything?) Last word on Look Back in Anger – Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea gripped me more. I see in today’s Sunday Times that phrases like Je te quitte (in Beckett’s Fin de Partie) are much more significant than they seem. Christ! (no anti-Christian bias intended). Liked the bit in the Sunday Times in a review of Robertson Hare’s biography of how R.H. said to the Censor: Can I say “You may smack my bottom?” Censor: Yes, I pass bottom, I was the first to pass bottom.  2hrs. Cicero 7/4/57 A

Sunday 14th April 1957. 9 p.m.

Chez maman at 58 Moresby Road, for Pesach.  A strain on the nerves, but que faire. The little adopted girl of the Blatts (Mum’s tenants) creating – actually “singing” above, Sam had to sacrifice a precious Sunday to “knock in a few nails” (i.e. do about 4 hrs’ handyman’s work) for Mum, had to keep tight hold on self to avoid tension exploding. Must be thankful Mum is mobile. I just don’t know what will happen if she becomes chair or bed-bound. Saw Mirele Efros last Monday, 8th, done by Polish Jewish State Theatre. Homely, unpretentious drama played with elegance (settings) and Kooltoor (no spitting, etc. as in the old-style Yiddish plays at the Pavilion pre-war). Tuesday stewarded at Islington Schools’ music festival at Northern Polytechnic Theatre, taken to his home by Mat (Rosen). Mat jawed as usual – he took me home at midnight. Can’t remember what I did Wednesday. Purpose of this journal is to remedy defects of memory, but not much point if entries infrequent, but just haven’t the energy to write-up daily or at least other-daily. Think I did couple hours translating – no, couldn’t have done, as I see “Cicero finished” under 7th April 1957. I think I just spent the evening putting together figures of my “literary” earnings, ready for H.M. Inspector of Taxes. Thursday to Mum, Friday nil, Saturday letter from Commentary with their edited typescript of my translation of Brod’s Das Unheimliche. Their editing discreet enough not to offend my amour propre, but I noticed no credit given me as translator on the typescript. Wrote saying I was keeping their cheque (36 dollars – my 3/8 share, as agreed between Brod and myself – 2,500 words) until I had their confirmation they would print my name. Revised my Brod MS before sending it off to Mrs Dorothy Shirley. This, with letter to Brod, preparing letter packet for, and writing letter to Mrs Shirley, took, say, 3 hrs. Am entering “actual translation,” i.e. writing translation out in rough as “A”; all other work involved in translation, e.g. revising MS, writing to authors, typists, agents, publishers, revising TS as “B.” So –   3 hrs. Cicero B 14/4/57

Lear mit a shmeer: Mirele Efros

Addendum. I ought to have mentioned that Richard [Gabriel Richard Stern, a good friend who helped with Polish and Russian words in Mumme Loohshen] had arranged for him and me to see the M. of V. at the Old Vic with Frieda Shafir (?), who played the part of Mirele’s faithful old womanservant. Frieda smart, 40-ish (?), extremely intelligent – I didn’t mean to be offensively patronising – a pleasure to listen to good Yiddish. She annoyed by Robert Helpman’s mauscheln – “Vell,” etc. But as she says, perhaps she is hipperemfindlikh. I enjoyed the decor and the excellent 10/6 stalls seats, recollecting the hard wooden benches of the gallery I had sat on as a kid nearly 40 ! years ago.

Lowering your BMI the BMI way

After working for more than three years as an administrator with district nurses (they visit housebound patients), I’m familiar with their dedication, conscientiousness, professionalism, stoicism, good-humouredness, empathy – and their enthusiasm for food.

Catering for a team building event

Side orders

There are various reasons why this team, perhaps nurses generally, are at least as  prone to carb (and fat) loading as the wider population: the stress and pressure of the job, no staff cafe, sometimes eating on the go or only in truncated breaks, patients giving gifts of chocolates etc, cultural norms (the Nigerian and Ghanaian ladies I work with certainly seem to value fuller figures), a fatalism from seeing disease affect the young and fit as well as the old and fat. And of course a self-reinforcing peer pressure where anyone slim is seen as, and is, the odd one out.

Tottenham truth on a truck

Regularly, I am amused by remarks that reflect the centrality of food to my colleagues. Perhaps the most hilarious was the day after the London riots (the health centre is in Tottenham):

[African nurse of mature years, choking with anger]: The fucking bastards even burnt down Dunkin’ Donuts…

Given my own gluttony and laziness, this particular nursing attribute was one I enthusiastically absorbed. Ignoring my better half’s admonitions to diet, my girth grew, my face fattened and my pectorals plumped up. My wake-up call only came when I had blood tests and my cholesterol levels were “that-is-high”-high. My GP nonchalantly said it was up to me whether to go on to statins right away or try a low-fat diet for six months.

The securest filing cabinet

I chose the latter and tightly embraced my own regimen – loosely described as Beer, Melon and Indolence (see what I’ve done there?). No reduction, if anything an increase in my daily beer intake (average of 2.5 pints, zero fat, 500 calories roughly), plenty of fruit, cottage cheese, yoghurt, oily fish, porridge, chicken slices and not much else. So – cutting out fatty foods and non-beer carbs. Making sure we had little or no “bad” foods in the flat and not eating during and after pub visits were other key changes. I also started cycling to work most days but reckoned that this used up few extra calories –  I certainly did no vigorous exercise.

On several occasions, a Health Care Professional (HCP) would ask me how I had managed to lose so much weight. I said I had given up various foods. This is a not untypical dialogue that ensued:

HCP: Like what?

ME: Have a guess.

HCP: (after a pensive pause): porridge? 

ME: No, think fatty foods.

HCP: Like what? I don’t eat fatty foods…

ME: (each item met by a head-shaking denial that it was partaken of): chocolate…cake…nuts…crisps… ice cream… fried chicken and chips…

HCP: (swivelling on her heels and walking away): Oh no, I can’t give that up…

Result: after six months I had lost about 30 pounds and taken at least two inches off my waistline. It had a limited effect on my cholesterol readings, just as the HCPs I spoke to had told me. Even this gung-ho article states “…you may be able to lower your reading by up to 20 per cent in three months…” [my emphasis].

So, I plumped for the statins and am now back to a more normal, balanced way of eating and drinking. But I have still cut down on my real ale and try to avoid bringing sinful food home – unless it’s been reduced by 90% at our local Tesco Express.

Witriol Unpublished

Joseph Witriol kept his articles, both published and unpublished. In some cases, I have to admit, it’s understandable that his submissions were rejected. Let’s Dabber Ivrit, from 1983, being a case in point.

Like the wonderful Julie Burchill, who was on Desert island Discs today, sharing with the audience her enthusiasm for Hebrew (this choice refers), my father was a lover of, and indeed an expert in, the language. But his opportunities to talk or listen to normal, conversational Modern Hebrew were very limited. I seem to remember one of his Israeli cousins described his spoken Hebrew as Ivrit shel Shabbat, presumably suggesting a punctilious formality and grammatical precision.

Acknowledging in its subtitle, Miles Kingston’s Let’s Parler Franglais, the article was rejected by the Jewish Chronicle’s features editor:

 …I personally was greatly amused by it but I fear that it will be lost on the bulk of our readers…

My cynical interpretation of this being

I personally was able to understand the Hebrew, unlike the bulk of our readers…

The piece is a conversation, almost exclusively in Hebrew (albeit with “Heblish/Engrew(?) elements) between two fathers, one of whom is ruefully talking about his children. This character is clearly based on my dad. There is the odd line or two that can raise a chuckle, assuming you know Hebrew, but it lacks the wit and sparkle that much of his writing had.

But then, I struggle to see the humour of the Franglais pieces dans le premier place; C’est a un-truc poney, ÀMHA.