Interview with Ruth Hill

An oral history interview conducted by Judith Emanuel speaking to her aunt, Ruth Hill (born 1935) about Ruth's childhood experiences as an evacuee from Stamford Hill, staying firstly in Devon, and then at St Annes House for Waifs and Strays, Leamington Spa, and the difficulties she encountered as the only Jewish child there.

Recollections of family background in London, born 5/1935; her parents Mark Chamberlist and Rosa Chamberlist (Breverman), and sister Margaret born 9/1939; father was a master tailor; mother worked in a shop, 'Jack’s', which was started by Jewish entrepreneurs; her Uncle Jack, the youngest brother of her mother, went to live in California, he married someone who came on the Kindertransport who came over at the beginning of the war and who had trouble settling; being born in Durley Road, Stamford Hill, N16; living in an ordinary two bed house with an inside toilet; having a shelter in the back garden; attending a non-Jewish school in Stamford Hill; her maternal Grandfather was Polish and her Buba (Grandmother) was Russian, who lived in the same road as her; her paternal Grandparents they did not see as much as they lived in the East End, they spoke little English and were always shouting and arguing, their family came to England in the 1880’s; one brother of her father emigrated to the US; her mother worked full time so she would visit her maternal grandparents; memories of her grandmother's chickens in the garden, and cutting the lawn with scissors, always having pickled cucumbers, vegetables and wine in the cellar; newspaper used as toilet paper; her parents bought a newsagent, tobacconist and confectionist shop in Riversdale Road, Highbury, N5(?); her father, like many tailoring men at the time would go down to the market and queue up for jobs; Her mother looked after the shop and Ruth as the oldest daughter had to serve in the shop; her sister didn’t have to serve, she had an awful stammer; her parents worked very hard but she never got pocket money to instil a work ethic in her; she made pocket money by trying out knitting patterns for Paton and Baldwins; at Christmas she would make earrings out of buttons and sell them in the shop; her maternal grandmother made honey cake and measured things in her hand 'a bissel of this and a bissel of that', her grandmother spoke Yiddish but she didn't because she was evacuated so young; her paternal grandmother scared her by shouting in a strange language; remembering her grandfather dying and his body lying in the house with the lid off the coffin; her Mother kept kosher, although she wasn’t a good cook because she worked in the shop; the family going to an orthodox synagogue on the high holy days, sitting upstairs behind a screen; going to cheder but not wanting to; after evacuation being more familiar with going to church and Sunday school so not wanting to learn Hebrew; no memories of going on holidays, mother went with her sister after the war and left her serving in the shop; never had days out as they worked all the time; delivering the papers if the paper boys didn’t turn up, but hitting a car with her bike; being four years old when she was evacuated (9/1939); being told that something was happening; went on her own in a coach as her mother was too busy and being pregnant with her sister Margaret; memories of going to Hemel Hempstead to a big house with her mother and surprisingly Margaret was wrapped in a shawl in a drawer about a week old; being evacuated to Devon first with the Symonds family; daughter of the family was called Joyce; realising that things weren’t right; being in a procession to a church; the family being high CoE and ready to convert her; memories of the procession and church service; her mother finding out she was in a church procession throwing rose petals and asking for her to come back to London; being reminded of this procession when visiting Sacre Coeur in Paris in ?1956 when she was pregnant with her son Vincent, with descriptions of Corpus Christi service; returning to London and finding some information from the Children’s Society; thinking that her sister's stammer had been caused by living through bombing in London; trying to find out what life was like living through the Blitz; looking through archived articles in the Jewish Chronicle and in Wiener Library, and finding articles where Chief Rabbi Hertz was pleading for families to take Jewish children who were going to be evacuated; the focus was the Kindertransport and children like Ruth were unimportant; the only place that offered to take her was at St Anne's Home for Waifs and Strays, Leamington Spa; hard finding spaces as she had been evacuated but had returned home so didn't have the official help or organisation of schools; she was evacuated when her Father was away in the Royal Air Force by this time as a tailor adjusting uniforms and her mother was working with a small baby; moving to St Anne’s at Warwick New Road, Leamington Spa; St Anne's being girls only, and she was the youngest; she reads a piece she wrote for JACS (Jewish Association of Cultural Services), Muswell Hill branch; "Childhood reminiscences of an evacuee" mentions stay in Devon, description of stay in St Anne's Home for Waifs and Strays, Leamington Spa, a lot on religious details, St Mark's Church and Sunday School, ending with memories of stockings and pillowcases for every child except her, because she didn't get a Christmas present as a Jewish girl; feeling like the odd one out, a different one; recollections of school, writing, wartime posters and maps, wartime news in assembly, memory of 'chad' cartoon paintings, games she liked, school reports, enduring being treated differently and being expected to do the same as everyone else on Sundays, being close to Coventry, seeing a pantomime 'Goody two-shoes' being given a carrot instead of an ice-cream; knew she was different but did not know why, no concept of being Jewish; meeting her father in uniform, with her mother, in Coventry, staying in St Anne's until the end of the war; thinks there were about 50 of them at St Anne’s; Mother had moved her from Devon as concerned that she would be converted but not worried about the same happening at St Anne's because of her new baby; going to visit St Anne's in 2017, seeing the height of St Mark's spire; memories of Christmas service; liking school, being active, putting pins in the map to show where army and navy were, learning to knit; reads about 'pound days' from a website about Leamington Waifs and Strays Society; on her 2017 visit she wanted to see the home, church and school, after she had breast cancer; the home and school gardens had been sold off for development; older girls would put her in the plum tree where she could not get down knowing she was allergic to plums; describes visit to the church and the school, and finding out that the children were doing projects on the Coventry bombing, talking to the children; not remembering having particular friends in St Anne's; golden syrup in the drinking chocolate; lots of the girls being much older, she was five and St Anne's had children aged three to 16, not understanding about periods; not understanding why she was being teased and treated differently; memories of walking in a crocodile, two by two; finding out from Children's Society records in 2017 that her sister Margaret had been evacuated, aged under two which was too young really, but mother couldn't cope with looking after them when grandmother had a breakdown, which she reads from the files; Ruth thought that her sister had a stammer because of the bombing, but she had been evacuated; thinking she was the only evacuee at St Anne's; she found out that her sister Margaret was in the Gables from 1941, which she thinks was a nursery run by the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS) during the war; it was also in Leamington Spa but they never met each other or knew they were in the same place; they went on the same train home at the end of the war and their mother met them at the other end; Margaret had a stammer all her life; Margaret married Ian, who died two years ago, in an arranged marriage; Ruth was nine when she returned to London and went to a Primary School in Blackstock Road; her parents bought the shop at the end of the war so they could both work in it; Ruth's father was always 'doing a runner', disappearing as he could not cope with life, and on one occasion he went to New York and worked in the Docks, coming back with an enormous brown paper bag with peanuts in it; the shop was in Riversdale Road, near Clissold Park (N5), an umbrella shop, on one level; they lived behind and above the shop, sharing a bedroom with her sister; Ruth not being able to cook when she got married as her mother never taught her; the shop wasn’t in a Jewish area, but there was a Kosher butcher about 10 minutes away; Mother trying to take her to Hebrew classes at the synagogue but she did not want to go; her primary school was alright, as one of the male teachers was Jewish and she became friendly with his daughter, who lived in Edgware; she thinks they were the only Jewish children in the school; her Auntie Esther having a confectionary shop in Balls Pond Road; there being a film studio there near a canal and Ruth having an autograph book and collecting autographs; Esther was her mother’s sister, she had two sons Colin and Michael, Colin went off to Canada, and she saw Michael near where she lives now (Edmonton) but did not maintain contact; her Aunt moving to Queens Avenue, which was not far from Southgate; Colin married a non-Jewish girl which upset them; Ruth sat for the scholarship for Camden (High School for Girls) (first year of scholarships) which at the time would only accept 5% Jewish girls; when she was there it never had 5%; she was quite often the only one in her class who was Jewish, and Shirley Melnick later on; her parents were proud that she won a place as it was hard to get a place, especially if you were Jewish or admitted you were Jewish; Margaret sat for the scholarship but did not get it, but her mother insisted that she went there too, which made her stammer even worse as she could not cope; though free it was three buses from her home; she was the only one who went from her primary school; Margaret found it difficult as she wasn't at the same level as her sister.

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