Part 182: Monday, 3rd January 1966, 9.45p.m.

Of the agenda listed on p.96 I have done 2) (and taken tape recorder to Wyndsor Recording Co.), 3), 5), and got book-keeping up to date, though a good deal has to be done to get the 64/65 accounts ready for audit. More time-consuming than any of these has been a translation of an article by Aharoni, which he casually asked me if I’d mind doing. Bon prince, I said it would be quite alright, but although it has been interesting it has also been a nuisance. Including the typing, it must have taken me at least fifteen hours, most of the time against a background of yelling, jumping, fighting, whining from the trio and their sorely tried Mum.

Took Susannah to Sam & Lily yesterday morning…. Sam showed me draft of Mum’s new will, and her securities. I asked Sam how Mum lived – he said she had £100 in the house, and for the rest managed on her national assistance (about £4 a week, I think) and the rent she gets from the Blatts (about £2-10-0 a week – which just covers the rates).

Under her new will she settles her half share in 58 Moresby Road on the kids when they reach the age of 21. Sam says he too wants to settle his half share in 58 Moresby Road on the kids. Under Mum’s old will, she divided everything between Sam & me; so that I would have got a quarter share of the house. Not really very important.

I told Sam perhaps one ought not to let them have it when they were twenty-one, just like that; they might blow it all – not on riotous living but, I fear, as Sam and I did, through unfortunate marriages. They may not be as unlucky as we were in this respect; on the other hand they may be.

As I told Sam, it wouldn’t worry me if they had to get a divorce – they could be divorced and happily re-married happily by the time they were thirty (not forty-five) as with me – but it would krank [Yinglish, from Yiddish קראַנקהייַט: a sickness] me if their unsuccessful marriage cost them, as it did me, £1500.

Part 178: Wednesday, 1st December 1965, 9.15p.m.

Wednesday being a non-Evening Class, non-rehearsal day, should be able to get a lot done. In fact, no book-keeping, no reviewing, no schoolwork. Max chesy again, Dr Smith (Dr Covington’s woman assistant) came round three times to see him, says he can go back to school on Monday. …

We had arranged to go round to Sam & Lily’s on the Sunday afternoon. E. says Lily’s invitation was lukewarm & on the Sunday morning Sam told us not to come., the atmosphere was tense. I wrote two letters, one addressed to them both, the other to Lily…

Monday night Sam said they’d had a chat and there was a bit of light. He had said he was going to chuck up the business & rely solely on the County Hall & Lily “would have to get a job”. But I don’t see how she can.

Mum carries on, I hardly spare her a civil word now. If we could put her up here (we could, I suppose, with tremendous goodwill on E’s part, over and above the line of duty), if she would stay with us, then the business OR County Hall plus income from Moresby Road would enable Sam to get by…

But, as E. pointed out, a disadvantage attached to Sam’s staying at home all day would be that he & Lily would be in each other’s hair for fifty hours a week more than if Sam were out at County Hall…

Part 173: Sunday, 3rd October 1965, 4.45 p.m.

Sam had a “slight heart attack” over Rosh Hashana and is now in hospital. He has to rest four weeks in hospital and three weeks at home. He is taking it well and Lily is holding the S.W.H.L. [ Sam Witriol (Handbags) Limited]. fort. He agrees he will now have to turn in the County Hall job.

I have been reading the Riot Act to Mum, saying I didn’t want to have to say Kaddish for Sam before I had to say it for her, and that Sam would not be able to manage unless she could give him £5 a week from the rooms she now occupies at Moresby Road  [Upper Clapton], she to live with us. I know of course that this is impossible as a permanent arrangement, but I hope the message has got home – that Sam will need financial assistance….

The short point is that at 59 Sam will have to depend on what he can make out of the business, and he will have to allocate £6- £8 per week for someone – if he can be got – to tie up parcels, haul them up and downstairs etc. One can only hope, in order of importance I suppose 1) that Sam will be able to do “light” work – invoicing, phoning, the “brainwork” of the business 2) he will be spared – for how long? One can only hope- I wish one could really pray.

Part 116: Sunday April 21st 1963 – 9.10 p.m.

I’m 57 to-day, I’ve got the key of the door, also a cold which I will try to crush with a whisky and Aspros. Incidentally, I forgot to go to shool as a “Minyan Maker” this evening. Bad, bad. I have a chap come to me for English lessons –  a Persian who has been in Belgium for ten years – and I forgot, too, that I was due to give him a lesson last Thursday morning. Fortunately E. reminded me in time.

Life pretty exhausting even though I’m “on holiday”. It’s no exaggeration to say that E. is on the go from 7.30 in the morning till 10 or later most days, including Saturdays and Sundays. I have been getting up in the night to feed and change Susannah, and so I don’t get up till 8.30 -9.30 a.m., though last night E. got up in the night and I fed and changed Susannah at 7.30 a.m. and went back to bed at 8.30  getting up 9.30.

Pesach has gone. Sam & Lily [brother and sister-in-law] went round to Mum both Seder nights, Boobbe Esther [mother-in-law] and the family went round for tea on the second day Yom Tov.I can’t see any solution to the Boobbe Yetta [mother] problem. It seems terribly callous to leave her to struggle on her own, and I think E., now, would accept her here, though if she did stay here I do not conceal from myself the fact that there would inevitably be friction. But Mum would not come here unless either a) she had to be carried in on a stretcher, or b) E. was and succeeded in convincing Mum that she was, genuinely anxious for her to live with us. I pray a) will never occur and I can’t see b) occurring ever. Impasse.

The kids imbeshreer [Yiddish – avert the evil eye] are in floribus.They’re a couple of terrible twins, they have to be dressed alike now. They rampage through every room in the house, leaving it like a battlefield until slowly driven to bed and, an hour later, sleep. Maxie has taken to dumb insolence. When reprimanded, he stops in his tracks, his lip quavers and – if he doesn’t let out a howl – he mutters: I won’t come to your party (or is it “you won’t come to my party” ?). I wish I had a tape recorder to record the shrieks, the yells, the chorused nursery rhymes (with Philip’s agonised “He’s saying it all wrong“), the “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” (I started that only yesterday, and it’s caught on).

Have gone to the library in the mornings to do a specimen translation from Le Sang du Ciel by Piotr Rawicz, the only way I can get quiet even though the t.t’s are at their nursery school in the mornings. More about Le Sang du Ciel if I succeed in placing it, though I think it will deserve comment if I don’t.

While I remember, Mum tells me that the other night Mr S. (a septuagenarian +, I should think) rang persistently while Mum was in bed in the evening. Eventually she opened for him in her dressing gown, and then took him into her bedroom. I told her to be careful she doesn’t get herself into the News of the World. She said the News of the World harrt mekh nisht, abee his wife doesn’t get to know. Mum says her men friends stick to her; in fact one Mr Low (e?) came round while Sam [brother] and I and Philip were at Moresby Road this evening.

As E. says, there we are, Darby & Joan – my Darby in slacks, smoking, listening to The Hundred best Tunes. The feeds have been made. With luck, a clear two hours break for her. I ought to be in bed by 10.30pm.