Your loving sister
Bet
Lemmeck Alley
17 March 1931
Mr Rupert Lammeck
Sir,
I am in receipt of yours of the 13th inst. and have noted the contents carefully. I must tell you, however, that your request is not one to which we can accede. As has been explained to you on sundry earlier occasions the Settlements involving our wife’s money cannot be altered in any way except at her request and then only in certain circumstances.
Lammeck Alley
27 March 1931
Mrs Rupert Lammeck
Madam,
I am in receipt of yours of the 19th inst. and have noted the contents carefully. It is of course possible to do as you request, and arrange earlier remittance of such sums as are due to you in this calendar year, but would respectfully beg that you reconsider your request. You will recall that last year you had drawn all income due for the year before the end of April, and this caused great embarrassment to your Trustees who are loath to act in any way that will jeopardize your long term interests.
The fact that they had to draw on capital for you to maintain you for the remainder of the year caused great anxiety among the Trustees and we would sincerely trust that such a situation will not arise again.
I also trust that your husband can be helped to understand that matters to do with the Settlement are entirely a matter between you and your Trustees and it is not helpful in any way when he addresses somewhat vituperative letters to individual Trustees as he has done in the past.
22 Paultons Square
Chelsea
11 April 1931
Dear Henk
Thank you indeed for the cigars - a most welcome birthday present though I must say being twenty-three makes me feel exceedingly old. So much to do and a constant feeling of too little time in which to do it!
You asked about progress here - and I have to admit it is slow. God knows times are hard enough - people ought to be recruitable, for ever since the Wall Street debacle money has become tighter and tighter in the East End. But however much we talk to them we don’t seem to be getting through. Street meetings get only desultory attention, organized hall meetings get even less, which leaves only door to door. We aren’t helped too much by the activities of a new breakaway group from the Labour Part either. They're trying door to door recruitment, too, and seem to have a certain appeal we don’t, probably because they don’t have any connection with the old Bolshevik scandals of the past which linger on in people’s minds here and frighten them. It’s little use telling them we're different, they just don’t seem to believe us. So Mosely’s lot, that is the new group, seem to be making headway. I'll be watching their development most carefully.
I’ve heard from my stepfather through some of his connections that a cousin of his, who married into a German family (von Aachen they're called, do you know them?) has become involved with the German National Socialists, and that there is a possibility of their man Hitler getting support from the industrialists. They mentioned someone called Hugenberg. I’d be most interested to know of anything you pick up.
No, I am not returning to Yeshivah. That was, I now realize, just a stage in my political developments. I needed it, but I no longer do. My commitment now is entirely to the Party, and that being so I cannot involve myself in Talmudic studies however intellectually seductive they may be. Indeed, the more seductive they are, the more important it is that I keep well away. There is work to be done, and it must be done soon. I can’t indulge myself with religion. It’s a false comfort and saps energy from what matters. But we’ve been through all this before, Henk, my dear old friends. Please let us not be deflected by such arguments now. We're much too good friends for that, and are in step with so many other important issues. My love to Miep.
Yours ever
Charles
Hotel Magnifique
Ostend
Belgium
24 August 1933
Dear Uncle Alex
Just a line to let you know what a marvellous time we are having. We’ve taken over almost a whole floor here, as you a imagine, and with people in and out of each other’s rooms all the time we're getting known as the crazy Englesi among all these French and German and what have you! The children are having a lovely time on the beach every day and we are too and the weather though not marvellous is thank God not so bad we can’t have a good time. Charlottes Monty isn’t to well still, but then he always was a bad traveller, you'll remember the first time you sent us all on holiday it was the same. I'm sending you a card with this letter showing you our rooms in the hotel. I'v marked them all with crosses and names so you can see we're really getting value for money believe me, Uncle alex, we're all very appreciative, and please God you'll be able to come with us next year.
Much love from Charlotte and Monty and the children, Bella and harry and children, and of course from David and Lionel, as well as me,
Your loving niece,
Sonia
WESTEN UNION CABLEGRAM NEW YORK NY 65AT LIONEL LAZAR SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL LONDON ENGLAND NOVEMBER 7TH 1933 PREPAID
MAZELTOV ON YOUR BARMITZVAH STOP MAY YOUR FUTURE BE ALL YOU WISH YOURSELF STOP SORRY CANNOT BE WITH YOU STOP MUCH VOVE UNCLES SOLLY STOP JAKE
GPO GREETINGS TELEGRAM DIDSBURY MANCHESTER NOVEMBER 7TH 1933 LAZAR SHOREDITH TOWN HALL
MAZELTOV AND LOVE TO YOU DAVID AND SONIA ON THIS EPCIAL DAY STOP MAY YOUR LIONEL BE ALL A SON SHOULD BE STOP REGRET CANNT BE WITH YOU ON YOUR SIMCA STOP URGENT BUSINESS IMPOSSIBLE STOP CHEQUE FOLLOWS STOP LOVE UNCLE ALEX
News Chronicle Gossip Column, 1 January 1935
The New Years Honour List published today includes the name of Marcus Lammeck, Managing Director and senior partner of the noted city firm Lammeck and Sons. His knighthood is regarded as long overdue by many of his City colleagues who know him to be a man of great integrity and dedication. Sources close to the new Sir Marcus whisper that it is his friendship with the Prince of Wales that has made him unwilling to accept this long overdue mark of appreciation for his services to business for fear he would be marked down as a mere courtier. However the Prince prevailed upon him we are told as did many of his friends, pointing out that no one who knows Sir Marcus can be in any doubt of his fitness for such an honour. Lady Lammeck, who is the noted couturiere Mary Bee, is said to be pleased for her husband but will not be using her title in her own business. The family is not new to titles, of course, for that vivacious and well-known lady-about-town, Countess of Markmanor, whose husband the Earl is currently wintering in Italy, is Sir Marcus' sister. Last night interviewed at the Kitcat Club Lady Daphne, was in the company of Beverley La Cere who is dazzling West End audiences with his neat footwork in the chorus of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes' at the Palace Theatre…
22 Paultons Square
Chelsea
17 October 1936
Dear Edie,
Well, I am sorry not to have answered you sooner, but you didn’t have to write so sharply to me just because I had missed one letter. When you don’t know what is happening then you can’t really say can you and you made me very upset the way you wrote and I had to stop Florrie writing to you very sharp indeed she was that upset at the way you made me cry but never mind I am used to being misunderstood by you Eddie and really it’s time you stopped to think before sounding off like that. I will tell you what has been happening and then perhaps you will understand why I have had no time or heart for letter writing of my own though if you read the papers properly you would have seen something about it I am sure and would understand and not write nasty to me. Anyway it started when our Mr Charles got very upset about this here Spanish War and was all set to go and fight though as I said to Florrie what business it is of his I really don’t know but Madam was upset and asked him please not to it was bad enough his Dad was killed in the Great War and to please her would he keep out of it and he said he would but it was clear as a window he was very upset and was going to go anyway soon
er or later and as I said to Florrie better sooner I'm sure because I remember last time that those who went early and got small wounds didn’t die the way the young ones as went later did as well I remember because Sam Chambers as I was going out with in 1915 as you’d remember if you had any heart instead of twitting me about having old maid ideas. Anyway, that is neither here nor there because as I say Mr Charles stayed here at home but was fretting dreadful you couldn’t help but see it though he was going out every night as usual to all his meetings in the East End though why he didn’t find a nice girl and settle down I can’t say. Then there was this dreadful march in the East End all those blackshirts and we was all that upset well you can imagine. I know you say some nasty things about Jews but I say speak as you find and my Madam had always been as kind and thoughtful as anyone could be as I say to Florrie’s many’s the time she’s the most Christian lady I ever had to do with, speaking of kindness and good manners and that, anyway I was very upset because even those cousins of Madam that come here and aren’t all you might expect such a lady her to have always been good to me and I live and let live I say, and why have marchers in the Mile End Road got to go making trouble like that? It was big trouble too because the young Jews took it bad as is natural and turned out and fought them and of course our Mr Charles was there and it was just like last time only worse, you'll remember all those years ago I told you what happened in the General Strike he got so hit about and got his nose broken which quite spoiled his face he used to be such a beautiful baby. This time he got hit even harder and his wrist got broken and the trouble was it was policemen he got fighting with because he said they was making it easy for them blackshirts instead of understanding that peaceable Jews got a right to live in their homes like any other Englishmen and Englishmen they are I don’t care what you say. So of course there was big trouble and he was arrested and come to court and you must have seen it in the papers they was full of it with the Daily Mail being very nasty on account he’s got such rich relations and the News Chronicle taking his side, it was all very upsetting one way and another because we had all those reporters coming here like anything. And then when he got home from the hospital Miss Marie was here with her husband who I can’t like, it’s no good he really puts my back up but she loves him I suppose so what can you say, well, they was here because Miss Marie had had a fight with him, Rupert I mean, and come home to her mum as she always does when it happens and it happens a bit too often that I can tell you, but she always goes back to him more fool her. And he’s come here to get her because they’d made it up. Anyway home comes our Mr Charles and I made a lovely dinner to celebrate, a really beautiful rib roast with a Yorkshire pudding it really was one of my best as light as you can imagine and there they are as happy as can be I thought and all of a sudden there’s such a noise from the dining room and me and Florrie goes rushing up and there they are fighting on the floor, Rupert and Charles and it was dreadful with Marie crying and Sir Marcus as white as I’ve ever seen him he was that angry and to cut a long story sideways young Mr Charles is going to Spain after all and Marie and Rupert is going to live in America because he says there’s going to be big wars again in Europe and he wants to get away while he can and why don’t we get out he says so you can seen what a nasty object he is. I'm glad to see the back of him, though Madam is very upset an account of losing her Marie as she sees it, but I said to her, it’s not the end of the world exactly, and she'll come home and don’t our Mr Jake and Mr Solly keep coming and going between here and America but she’s still that upset …
35 East Thirty-Fifth Street
New York, USA
1 November 1936
Dear Hannah
Hope this find you as it leaves me, in the pink. Don’t worry about our Charles. He'll come out on top, he always has, hasn’t he? I hope we can visit come the New Year. Jake thinks it’s possible business here is beginning to pick up with bigger takes though the real money’s gone out of boxing, as I was telling Uncle Alex when he was last here. It was good to see him, he’s looking very well, I thought. I enclose a cutting from a newspaper here, very interesting isn’t it? Do tell me what Marcus says, seeing he’s a friends of his and all. People here keep asking me because I'm English, but I say to them from where should I know? Still it would be nice to have a bit of news so do ask Marcus. I'll look forward to hearing from you.
Your loving brother,
Solly
New York Post Gossip Column, 20 October 1936
Royal circles in Britain are still in a great turmoil, a little bird tells me, over our Mrs Wallis Simpson and the Prince of Wales. Will she be Queen Wallis, everyone is asking themselves, though not of course the ordinary British people who are being kept totally in the dark …
Hotel Bristol
Nice
12 December 1936
Darling,
I'll be leaving here tonight, train to Paris, to sort out some financial matters for David, and then should be home by the weekend. I miss you - he’s coping well enough, and she seems to be calmer now. It’s been a horrible business and I’d rather have had no part of it, but he asked me, and I'm sorry for the poor devil. If someone had tried to stop me from marrying you, I’d have done the same, of course, so who am I to judge him? But all the same I'm sick about it. Still, we managed go get him away well enough from Fort Belvedere and he was grateful. I got some news out of Spain, so this expedition was as good for me as it was for David, since I discovered that Charles is fine. He’s been given a staff job because his wrist is still weak and that’s something to be grateful for. He was in Madrid when the attack came - Moroccans and Foreign Legionaires mostly I gather - but they evacuated the rebel staff and he went with them so he’s safe and looks to stay so. Try not to fret, my darling. I'll be home as soon as I can.
The Times, 27 February 1939
Today both Britain and France formally recognized General Franco’s government in Madrid.
News Chronicle, 7 March 1939
British members of the International Brigade are seen in this picture returning from Madrid. Inset - wounded men accompanied by British VADs
28A South Bridge East
Tiburon,
San Francisco, Calif.
3 January 1940
Darling Ma,
Yes I know. I should have written sooner but really, life is too too hectic. We spend so much time driving up to Hollywood, and it takes all day and then some, but such fun, we see a fair bit of all sorts of interesting people. Met Cary Grant last week, too divine. I think you’d adore him, I know I do, and then there was a party with Claudette Colbert, lots of lovely gossip, which I'll write to you as soon as I have the time. Rupert’s behaving rather well at the moment, because he really feels this is where we belong, you know, so much our sort of world and people are saying he could actually get some sort of work in films! He’d like that and I’d be green with envy, but there it is. Who wants a swollen pregnant female on their screens? Never mind, as soon as the baby’s born I'll see what I can do - and do stop fussing, Ma! Of course I'll be all right. People have had babies before, though I can’t imagine why they bother, it’s so boring, isn’t it? Hope you keep well and there’s no bad war news. Rupert was right, wasn’t he? We got out just in time.
62
‘It feels so ridiculous,’ Hannah said, staring down at the cable in her hand. ‘I mean, I'm actually a grandmother! Knowing it was going to happen didn’t mean much, but now it has I feel so odd.’
‘Why should you be any different?’ Cissie said comfortably? ‘I got three o' the little mumserim, God bless ‘em. Such lobbuses! My Lenny told me, last week, Stanley got sent home from school for selling aeroplanes.’
‘Aeroplanes?’ Hannah was diverted momentarily.
‘Sure. Paper ones his sister made him. Sold ‘em for tuppence each to the other kids and told ‘em they’d protect ‘em from the raids when they came. Right little villain he is.’
‘He'll go far,’ Hannah said absently and
stared again at the cable. ‘She doesn’t say anything, just that it’s a girl! No birth weight, no name, nothing.’
‘Oh, Hannah, when'll you learn?’ Cissie said. ‘That Marie of yours, she’s a naughty girl! Not a letter have you had from her for months and months, she just don’t care. No good fretting over it. That’s the way she is.’
‘Yes,’ Hannah said and tucked the cable in her pocket, smoothing it carefully first. ‘I suppose so. Still, she let me know about the baby. That’s something.’
The Running Years Page 62
