June 16, 1993 interview with Jules Ben-Nathan (Hebrew name: Joshua de Avraham) by his son Edward Ben-Nathan
(with some questions and comments by Edward’s wife Ruth Ben-Nathan)
recorded at Edward Ben-Nathan’s house at 6 Farm Avenue, London NW2
Transcribed by Aviva Ben-Ur on May 4-5, 2019 (with edits by Edward Ben-Nathan)
Jules Ben-Nathan: I was born in Bournemouth on the 9th of June nineteen hundred and five, the eldest son of three children born to Victoria and Albert Ben-Nathan, immigrants to this country who arrived here in nineteen hundred and four.
Edward Ben-Nathan: (laughter) So how old was your dad when he came?
Jules Ben-Nathan: My father when he arrived in this country was about 31 and my mother was about 20.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And why did they come here?
Jules Ben-Nathan: My father came here to seek a better life. He was not happy with the prospects in Turkey.
Edward Ben-Nathan: What did he know about this country?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I’m not sure what attracted him, but there is no doubt that the fame of the British Empire must have reached the Middle East.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And that probably may have influenced him.
Edward Ben-Nathan: But he had relatives here, didn’t he?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Of course. The fact that he had a brother living in Bournemouth and another two relatives living in London must have influenced him.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. When did he first come to this country?
Jules Ben-Nathan: He first came on his own in nineteen hundred and two. He went to straight to his brother Moses who lived in Bournemouth. And Moses gave him one or two ideas. And as Moses was a dealer in Oriental laces and fancy goods, my father decided to adopt a similar trade.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And he went to the villages, to remote villages to try and sell them door to door. In this manner, he was able to save a few pounds, enough to make a trip back to Istanbul with the purpose of seeking a wife.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: He had already made an arrangement with one family and then on visiting my mother’s family, he thought he would prefer her.
Edward Ben-Nathan: (Laughter)
Jules Ben-Nathan: And a marriage was arranged and they immediately set sail through the Mediterranean for England.
Edward Ben-Nathan: What, through Marseilles?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Naturally they called it Marseilles, which was a common port for the French boats that did this trip.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So they got here in 1904.
Jules Ben-Nathan: In nineteen hundred and four, after working for a few months, my father was able to find a shop in Commercial Road situated near the Triangle and above there were six rooms.
Edward Ben-Nathan: This is in Bournemouth.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Ample for a nice flat. My mother assisted in the shop occasionally, but after a few weeks, they were able to afford, to engage a country girl from I believe he told me from Lymington.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Good heavens. What was…could they speak English then?
Jules Ben-Nathan: They must have been able to improve their knowledge of the English language because my mother did pretty well as far as I remember or at least as far as I’ve been told, did well in the shop as a saleslady.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: But, the country girl assisted in looking after the children. I remember very happy occasions when I used to go down to the Valley Gardens, which led to the beach.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And on the other side of the square, this brook seemed to continue right up the commercial road and I had just had some wonderful times jumping over this brook.
5:10
Edward Ben-Nathan: How old were you then, do you think?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I think I must have been about six or seven years of age.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. 1910, 1912.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So, do you remember going to school in Bournemouth?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, I do remember going to school. Up by the Triangle, only about two or three hundred yards away, there was a little school which I attended. But I don’t have a clear recollection of what I was taught. But I must have learned something.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Do you remember any of the teachers or anything else?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I cannot remember any of the teachers. I also remember going down to the Chines, as they were called, which were portions of the cliff and I remember playing with friends, but who they were now I cannot remember.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. So what was the next big thing that happened then?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, it soon came to 1914, when the first World War commenced.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And as my parents were both of Turkish nationality, and Turkey was fighting with the Germans, and against us.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So that was in the…I think Turkey joined the enemy powers at the end of 1914, so they didn’t join immediately.
Jules Ben-Nathan: No, they didn’t join immediately. But…
Edward Ben-Nathan: It was at the end of ’fourteen, I think.
Jules Ben-Nathan: It was soon afterwards. And as my parents were of Turkish nationality and all enemy aliens, and they were of course enemy aliens, were ordered out of coastal towns within forty-eight hours. You could imagine how distracted both my parents were.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Did they know where to go?
Jules Ben-Nathan: They decided that they would go to London because my father had two other brothers there.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Living there.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And where were they living?
Jules Ben-Nathan: One was living, in fact both were living in Shepherds Bush. And one was living in Uxbridge Road, I remember the house, 45 Uxbridge Road.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yes.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And the other one was living in Adelaide Road, a turning off the Uxbridge Road, in Shepherd’s Bush.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: However, going back to the disruption caused by their being ordered out of Bournemouth, my father packed all his goods from the shop in sacks and sent them up to London by rail.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yes.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And my mother arranged for the quick disposal of the household furniture. They told me all that all effects was twelve pounds.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. And how much was that?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Even in those days, I believe, was not sufficient.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. Do you remember the journey?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I cannot remember the journey, no. But I do remember being presented to the eldest brother.
Edward Ben-Nathan: What was he called?
Jules Ben-Nathan: He was called “Behorachi.” [Note: Jules does not trill the “r.”]
Edward Ben-Nathan: [mutual laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: Behorachi. In his Spanish, behor [Jules does trill the “r” here] means the eldest, or it may be a Hebrew word, I’m not sure. However, I remember myself, and my brother, and my young sister, being presented, and in course all he wanted to know was who is the behor [Jules does trill the “r” here]. So I was presented, and of course he hugged me very, very affectionately.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And what was the other brother called?
10:00
Jules Ben-Nathan: The other brother was called Joseph.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Right. Did either of these brothers have any children?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Oh, yes. Joseph had eight children.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Good God.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes. I don’t want to go into their names right now; it might take too long.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Behor [Jules does trill the “r” here], Behorachi [Jules does not trill the “r” here], as they called him, had I believe four. There was Morris, David, and two girls, Victoria; I can’t remember the other one.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: However, when they arrived in London, for about two years, they were only able to eke out a living by selling, bit by bit, some of my father’s stock.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So they were your brothers, your father’s brothers, you know, your parents. You’re talking about your parents now.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, I’m talking about my parents, including the three children, one of which is myself.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: But after two years, in fact in 1916, my father found a shop with a very, well, how can I put it, a very dilapidated flat above, at a nominal rent of 2 pounds, 10 shillings.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Where was that?
Jules Ben-Nathan: In Goodge Street, off Tottenham Court Road.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And as a lot of the Sephardish [sic] of London were selling Oriental rugs and carpets, my father decided to go to the auctions and watch what they were buying and gradually learned a little about the Persian carpet business and he started to fill the shop with a few Persian rugs, a little bric-a-brac, one or two pieces of furniture. And for a while, for many months, he managed to make a fair living. One of his customers was an Italian lady, a lady called Madame Meschini. [Note from Aviva Ben-Ur: This is probably a nickname, since “Meschini” in Italian means petty. Her real family name may have been Messini.]
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And she used to be a very amusing type of lady; liked to bargain, but liked chatting as well. And she often purchased some little item, but always bargained ferociously.
Edward Ben-Nathan: I mean, is this from your own personal memory, or from what you dad told you?
Jules Ben-Nathan: No, that’s what my father used to tell me.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Did you ever work in the shop? Or did you ever…did you? You must have gone to the shop.
Jules Ben-Nathan: No, I don’t remember, no, I don’t remember helping in the shop, no. But at the same period, I was sent and my brother and sister to a Jewish school, off Tottenham Court Road, in Hanway Place. It was a Jewish school. The school was called Westminster Jewish preschool. Of course they taught Hebrew and all the common subjects that are normally taught in other schools.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Can you remember any of the teachers there or any of the other kids?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I do remember clearly when we were playing in the playground, and I also remember that it was a stone playground. It had parallel bars, and I was able to learn a few Yiddish words, because most of the boys at the school were the Ashkenazi sect. And I know quite a few Yiddish words, such as “I will punch you in the katckes.”
Edward Ben-Nathan: [mutual laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: Etcetera. We often talked about the war. And when I was discussing the war with some of the boys, innocently, I used to say, “Oh, I prefer Austria.” The chief protagonists in this war, who commenced it, were Austria versus Serbia, but that Austria sounded like Australia to me.
Edward Ben-Nathan: [laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: I thought it would be preferable. One of the subjects taught in this school was violin lessons. And I inquired about them and I was told that if my father purchased a violin for me and paid [word indistinct] lessons, I’m talking three d’s, they’re not three p’s, I could have some lessons also. And my parents were very, very willing and encouraged me. Soon afterwards, as I progressed pretty well, they engaged a private violin teacher to come home.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And you were how old then? This is 1916, is it?
Edward Ben-Nathan: It was about 1917. I was about 12 then.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Right.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And as I said, I practiced very well and my teacher told me that very shortly afterwards, he would recommend me to take lessons at the Trinity College of Music in Mandeville Place.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And did he do that?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I did that later, but in the meantime, I was also interested in my father’s customers.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Really?
Jules Ben-Nathan: And I often went down to the shop and watched things. And I may have picked up a few experiences in his trade. And I noticed that this Madame Meschini came very often. And one day she said to my father, I own a shop in Great Portland Street, on the corner, and it’s next to a famous restaurant called Paganis, an Italian restaurant where many pretty well-to-do people came for their lunches and dinners. And this shop was to be let at four pounds a week. So my father consulted some friends. They thought it would be a very good idea. And it looked like a very good position. So my father decided to take it. And when he took this shop, we had to move out of the flat of course in Goodge Street.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And we went to live in Upper Addison Gardens, West Kensington.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So what year was that? Was that in ’17?
Jules Ben-Nathan: No, that was in 1919. In January.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Right.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And when we moved into this house, we found that the lighting was still gas lighting, so we arranged for the electricity company to fit us with electric lights.
Edward Ben-Nathan: I remember you telling me that you were in the choir at Lauderdale Road synagogue. When did you start going to that synagogue? And when did you start in that choir?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, I omitted to tell you before that I joined the Maida Vale choir in 1916 when I was about 11.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. Was it a big choir?
Jules Ben-Nathan: There were about seven or eight trebles, two base singers, an alto, and a tenor.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Oh.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And I found that going to the synagogue to participate in this choir was a very good experience for me.
Edward Ben-Nathan: You enjoyed it.
Jules Ben-Nathan: I enjoyed it very much. And also, I managed to acquire a knowledge of the service and in fact at the time I could remember that I knew quite a lot of the service by heart.
20:00
Jules Ben-Nathan: My brother Victor was also in the choir and he had a good voice too. And I had two or three cousins. There was Joshua, there was Morris, and there was Jack, also. We had some fun in the choir. There was a particular congregant who when he was praying, used to move sideways all the time, and we used to call him “Ticky Watch.”
Edward and Jules Ben-Nathan: [mutual laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: And we had some very amusing times.
My cousins and myself often used to walk from Shepherds Bush to the synagogue in order to get there in time for the choir. And we seemed to think nothing of it.
Edward Ben-Nathan: I mean how far was it nearly?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, I should think it must have been at least…
Edward Ben-Nathan: A mile? Three miles?
Jules Ben-Nathan: At least three miles.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And how long did it take you?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, I don’t remember exactly, but I know we were always there in time. My cousin Jack used to call at Upper Addison Gardens and knocked me up.
Edward and Jules Ben-Nathan: [mutual laughter]
Edward Ben-Nathan: You can’t remember the time of day?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Oh, early in the morning.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Early in the morning. Very, very early, probably about seven o’clock.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Oh, good heavens.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes. It was later on, in the year I think about 1919 or ’20, that I was able to join the Trinity College of Music. But I had a different master there. A music master called Kompinsky. And I think as far as I remember I did pretty well under him also. I remember he gave a recital at the Wigmore Hall and I was invited to retain there and I enjoyed listening to his playing very much.
Ruth Ben-Nathan: How hard did you have to practice in those days?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I practiced very well. I practiced very hard.
Ruth Ben-Nathan: How many hours?
Jules Ben-Nathan: My average was three or four hours every day, partly in the morning, and partly in the evening.
Ruth Ben-Nathan: And were there other courses to take part in, such as composition or oral, or sight singing or choir, orchestra?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, I remember on one occasion, I don’t remember the particular year, but the college gave a concert at the Queens Hall. And I don’t remember the program entirely, but one of the pieces was a Czechoslovack piece. There was a soloist and of course we were accompanied. But I was very thrilled with the performance and I enjoyed it very, very much. I think we did not badly.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So when you moved to Upper Addison Gardens, you changed school, didn’t you?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, yes I did. We had to go to a school that was near to where we lived. So my mother went down to West Kensington Central School, to inquire if they could accommodate myself, my brother Victor, and my sister Naomi.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And where was this school?
Jules Ben-Nathan: This school was in Williams Street, opposite Olympia, and I should say it was about a mile, almost a mile away from our home.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And how did you get on there?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I think we all made pretty good progress. I’m not sure about Naomi, as a matter of fact, but I know Victor and I did. I do remember that one or two of the masters wanted to take my sister out.
Edward Ben-Nathan: [laughter] Really? But how old was she then?
Jules Ben-Nathan: How old was she then? Well, this must have been near the end of our education.
Edward Ben-Nathan: She couldn’t have been more than 13 or something.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Let me see now, nineteen…
Edward Ben-Nathan: In 1921 you were 16.
Jules Ben-Nathan: 1921, 16…
Edward Ben-Nathan: Naomi’s what, 3 or 4 years younger than you, isn’t she?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, I suppose, she was about 12 or 13.
Ruth Ben-Nathan: Well, maybe cause when she was, you’d left school, and she was still at school, cause she must have been at school for a few years after you left.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Ah, yes, yes, that is possible.
Edward Ben-Nathan: It’s possibly after you’d left school.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Ah, yes, it’s possible after I’d left school.
Ruth Ben-Nathan: She must have been in school for a few years after you left.
Edward Ben-Nathan: That makes much more sense. We’ll have to ask Naomi about that.
Jules Ben-Nathan: During this period, my parents bought me a bicycle and in my later years, I cycled to school. And some days I used to come home for lunch. It used to take me, oh, I should think about 10 minutes to cycle home, and a short period to take my lunch, and back outside.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Is this because you did not like the lunches at school?
Jules Ben-Nathan: ProbabIy, probably.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: I preferred hot meals.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And how did you get on with the fact that this was not a Jewish school? I mean, how did the, how did they relate to Jewish kids?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Oh, it didn’t worry me at all. We were ordered to leave the class when they were taking Scripture.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Really?
Jules Ben-Nathan: And the class master, Mr. Lord, was very, very, well I should say even rude, because he used to say, before the class commenced, he used to say, “Jew boys out.”
Edward Ben-Nathan: [laughter] Yes.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And at the time, it didn’t affect me because I didn’t realize the sort of manners that this teacher was exhibiting.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah…yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: But I got on very well and I know that in my last few months, I became very popular with the headmaster.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Oh, yeah? Why was that?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I don’t know. Maybe, I really don’t know. But he was…he often used to call me into his study. He said that he was very interested to see that I got a good job.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Really?
Jules Ben-Nathan: A good position.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And did he help you to get a job?
Jules Ben-Nathan: He tried very, very hard. I told him at the time that I wanted to be in the antique business.
Edward and Jules Ben-Nathan: [mutual laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: And I know that he wrote to Ackermans of Bond Street. They sell oil paintings.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And other firms. But he wasn’t successful in finding me anything. However, he did give me as a departing gift, a dictionary.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yes?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I’m not sure if it was a parting gift or whether it was as a prize, but I think I still possess it somewhere.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So what happened when you left school, which was in 1921, wasn’t it?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, in 1921, when I left school, the first thing I did was to go to work for my father. And by that time, he had changed his shop in Great Portland Street further up the road, about almost four or five hundred yards away from this restaurant, away from Oxford Circus, which wasn’t such a good position. He could have stayed in his other shop, but because he was afraid of the lease that was prepared, where he would be responsible for all the repairs if any pipes broke down….
[30:00 minutes]
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yes.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …or anything like that. He didn’t have good advice from his solicitor. And he decided not to take it, not to renew the lease.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: I think the rents by that time had been increased to 8 pounds a week.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So he found this other shop, at number 70 Great Portland Street, at the same rent, at eight pounds a week. But the position was nothing like the previous shop. He did pretty well for one year. But then in 1921 came the slump, when the whole of Europe, had a trade slump. And everything depreciated by 50% and my father’s stock was worth half by then of what it was. I was serving in the shop during this year and I was so fed up with waiting sometimes for weeks without a single customer.
Edward Ben-Nathan: [laughter] Oh, God. It must have been very depressing.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Very depressing indeed.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So at the end of 1921, I decided to try to try and get a clerical position as I had a knowledge of bookkeeping and had a commercial class taken of an evening.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: I sat down and wrote about six or seven letters every day, answering advertisements from the Daily Telegraph.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Mmm hmm.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Eventually, I did get a reply and was asked to go up for an interview. And I saw the secretary of the company, a Mr. Clarkson, his name was. And he rather liked my style, or the way I spoke probably. Of course, I was only 17 at the time.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And he engaged me. Then he went into the inner sanctum to see the boss, a Mr. Sydney Reeve Harriman.
Edward Ben-Nathan: [laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: A thickset fellow.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yes. [laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: And Mr. Harriman said to Mr. Clarkson, when he heard what my name was. I didn’t say my name was “Ben-Nathan,” I thought it was too foreign. I said, “my name is Nathan.” So he said to Mr. Clarkson, “He’s a Jew, isn’t he?” So, Mr. Clarkson took the liberty of telling him that I wasn’t a Jew. So he came back and told me. So I accepted the situation. And I enjoyed my stay there. I’d been employed there for two years.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And what were you getting paid?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I was paid one pound, ten shillings a week.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And I mean, how much did you think that was? What was that worth in those days?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, I thought it was about the average wage for a young boy of my age.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah?
Jules Ben-Nathan: There was another gentleman in the office, so I think he was about 27 years of age. The firm was a printing firm and they did work for the government, for all the government departments. And unfortunately, they were doing this work at a loss. They took it on in order to keep the machines going, whilst they had other profitable work.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Now this gentleman, for some reason or other, we didn’t get on very well. And occasionally, he liked ordering me about.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And sending me on errands that I didn’t approve of. And I didn’t like him. Several months later, this gentleman got the sack. I don’t know why, I don’t know why, but he got the sack. And I was called into the inner sanctum again, and Mr. Harriman said, would I like to take on this work. I said, well, I don’t mind having a try, but I would like to tell you that I don’t know anything about it. However, I would have a go at it. So he allowed me to take on this work and he raised my salary to two pounds a week. I managed it successfully. After a few days studying. And I carried on very well and I was very keen to have the acquaintance of Mr. Clarkson and his brother, who was called Mr. Langley.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …so as to distinguish themselves with the other staff. And they were fond of going to the operas.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And as they found out that I was musical, they asked me if I would like to go along with them, which I did. And during this period, I managed to acquire a knowledge of the Ring Operas [Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner: Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold); Die Walküre (The Valkyrie); Siegfried; Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)].
Edward Ben-Nathan: You saw all of them, did you?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I can’t remember if I saw all of them, but I did see one or two of them, I do remember.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Did you enjoy it?
Jules Ben-Nathan: I enjoyed it very much. I particularly liked the [probably: Götterdämmerung], I particularly liked [probably: The Valkyrie], the Ride of the Valkyrisch,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …etcetera, etcetera. I liked the introduction to the third act, you know, in particular.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Mmmm.
Jules Ben-Nathan: We also went to the Queens Hall, where of course we listened to Sir Henry J. Wood.[1] And I was sorry that the firm had to close down, because they went bankrupt.
Ruth Ben-Nathan: All the money they spent at the opera, Jules.
Jules Ben-Nathan: No, it wasn’t that. It was the fact that they were losing money on this government work. And they seemed to have more work from the government than other profitable work.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And this was in when?
Jules Ben-Nathan: That was in the period 1922 to 1924.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Right.
Jules Ben-Nathan: They were also advertising agents. And I remember the GEC people, General Electric Company, took a full-page advert in the Daily Mail. At that time, the Daily Mail had adverts on the front page, which of course they don’t do now. And it cost 1,000 pounds for the full page at that time. And I was asked to take a cheque, I think it was either from the Daily Mail to [word indistinct]. But it was, one way or the other. And then I thought, what a lot of money, a thousand pounds. And to me it was a marvel. A thousand pounds.
However, they closed down eventually and then I decided that I had to do something. So my cousin Morris, who was one of the sons of Joseph Ben-Nathan, had a shop in Shepherds Bush. And he was manufacturing jazz sets, drums. And also, he was an importer of mouth organs and kazoos and things like that for the jazz band.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Oh, this is the father of David and Jack now, isn’t it?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, this is the father of David and Jack now. Yeah.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So he asked me if I would like to be a traveler, to call on the shops, to sell some of these outfits and mouth organs. And I remember going down various districts of London, principally the poorer districts. I remember going down the back of a Lancaster Road and Norland Market, and also down into Wimbledon and Wandsworth and various districts. And by the way, I forgot to mention,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …he also was a wholesaler of tennis rackets.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And I remember going to Wimbledon to a small shop there and having no difficulty in selling some rackets there. And also [the tape skips a bit.]
[40:06 minutes]
Edward Ben-Nathan: So now we come to 1926, which quite a lot happened in that year, isn’t it?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, early in 1926, I went back to work with my father at his shop.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …at 70 Great Portland Street. And, although it was a quiet period, occasionally, we did have one or two customers. And one of them was a certain Italian lady called Madam Secchisana. And one day she told my dad that her son was a professional violinist. Of course, dad very proudly said, oh, my son also plays the violin. So she said, well, ask him to come up next week and I will introduce him to my son. Ask him to bring his violin with him.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So I went up and I was introduced and he put up a piece of music on a music stand. I remember distinctly it was called “Thaïs.”
Edward Ben-Nathan: “Meditation.”
Jules Ben-Nathan: Pardon?
Edward Ben-Nathan: Meditation of Thaïs.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yeah, “Meditation” by…called Thaïs, yes, by Massenet.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Massenet, yes.
Jules Ben-Nathan: We played it together and apparently he must have been satisfied, because soon after, he said to me, I work for Frederick Hotels, Limited, who own the Russet Hotel and other hotels in London, and also they own the Hotel Majestic in Harrogate. He said, “Would you like to come up for the season, the whole summer season to Harrogate, and be the second violinist?” “Oh,” I said, “I would be delighted.” So, early in April, I went up to Harrogate with my violin and started a very interesting time which I enjoyed very, very much. It was just a small orchestra or band perhaps you could call it. There were the two violins, a cello, a double bass, and a pianist.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. And when did you play? What…
Jules Ben-Nathan: We played a few hours a day, principally during the meal times. Lunch, teatime, and dinnertime. It was quite an easy job and I enjoyed it immensely.
Edward Ben-Nathan: What did you get paid? Can you remember?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Oh, I was paid about 2 pounds 10 shillings a week. I had to pay for my lodgings outside the hotel, which was 12 shillings a week.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: I made great friends of the cellist. And we often used to go out together, walking on the moors
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah…
Jules Ben-Nathan: …on our day off. We visited Goldsborough Hall and the village of Knaresborough. And we also made the acquaintance of a retired doctor who used to come with us occasionally. At the end of the season, I was speaking to the double bass player and the cellist and they told me that I could possibly get a job on the boats going to South America.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So in 1927, I went to the union, the musician’s union near Leicester Square, oh I guess it was Archer Street. And I told them that I would like a job on the boats.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So they sent me down to the Royal Mail Lines. When I got there, I found that there were about six or seven other violinists and there were music stands. And the man in charge put up a piece of music on each stand and we were all told to play. I played this piece, apparently I had no difficulty with it. And they asked me if I’d like to take a position on one of their boats sailing from Liverpool…
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …called the Demerara. It appears that all the D boats sailed from Liverpool, such as the Desiato, the Desna, and the A Boats, which were larger, like the Alman Zora, the Alcantara, sailed from Southampton. The D boat was 12,000-tonne boat. It left Liverpool, sailed down the Irish Sea, turned down the English Channel. Then called at Cherbourg to pick up passenger and freight. Then it sailed round the coast into the Bay of Biscay. And we called it Veigo or Vigo, perhaps. Then we went along and called it Lisbon…
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …or Lisboa, as the Portuguese called it. Then we crossed the Atlantic. Now this took 14 days without seeing land.
Edward Ben-Nathan: And you were playing as you were at the Hotel Majestic, at mealtimes.
Jules Ben-Nathan: On the boat, yes, it was a very easy job. We just played for the meal times. During the weekend, we played dance tunes, whilst they danced.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Did you make any friends on the boat?
Jules Ben-Nathan: No, no I didn’t make any friends on the boat. But I got very friendly with the cellist. And he used to tell me about an expensive 21st birthday party that his father made for him, which he said cost about 500 pounds.
Edward Ben-Nathan: That’s a lot of money in those days.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Which in those days, of course, was a lot of money.
Edward Ben-Nathan: A fortune. Incredible.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And he told me that they were wholesale builders merchants. Anyhow, we touched northern Brazil, called Baya Blanca, after 14 days, and then we sailed down the Brazilian coast and we called at Rio. Now Rio is a beautiful Harbor. It has a mountain on one side, a high-peak with a holy person holding a cross. And the bay is semi-circular.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: A very beautiful port. I got leave to land and the main avenue is called Avenida de Branco. And the whole of the pavement is in mosaic, colored mosaic, very beautifully designed. I went to see some friends of a friend of mine in London and they made a great fuss of me and entertained me to dinner. Anyhow, after a beautiful time, a very pleasant two days, we sailed on and called at Uruguay.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Montevideo.
Jules Ben-Nathan: At Montevideo. By the way, I omitted to tell you that from Rio, from Brazil, we picked up a lot of bananas, and delivered freight, of course, manufactured goods from Britain and France. We picked up at Uruguay, we picked up a lot of lamb and also delivered manufactured goods there. Then we sailed on to Buenos Aires or BA as some people call it. We had altogether ten days leave there, quite a holiday, of which five days was spent in Buenos Aires, and five days we went right up the river, the River Plate,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
[50 minutes]
Jules Ben-Nathan: or as the Spanish call it, the Río de la Plata [Jules does not trill the “r”]. We went up the river to the Frigoríficos,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: as the Spanish call them, where they keep all the…
Edward Ben-Nathan: meat.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …beef.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And we loaded up a lot of beef and also delivered manufactured goods. And we spent the rest of the time in the port of B.A. My parents had some relatives there and I knew they were in the silk business. I didn’t know the address. But making inquiries of various shops, I soon found where they were.
Edward Ben-Nathan: What were they called?
Jules Ben-Nathan: The name was Alianak.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Oh yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And I visited their shop and of course I saw Mr. Alianak and he was delighted to see me. I must have looked very impressive because I was dressed all in white with a pink cap and probably some insignias on it denoting Royal Mail lines. And he rang his wife and I was invited on the following day to dinner. I went the following day and I was introduced to the family. There was a son who was studying to be a doctor and a younger daughter. We made great friends and I had a lovely time and they also made a great fuss of me. I left Buenos Aires with pleasant memories and we set sail and on the return journey, it was the same routine,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …playing just three or four hours a day. In our spare time, we played cards or talked about what we were going to do, after we left that sort of work.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Do you remember what you were paid?
Jules Ben-Nathan: On the boat, I was paid 12 pounds, 15 shillings a month.
Edward Ben-Nathan: A month!
Jules Ben-Nathan: Wait a minute.
Edward Ben-Nathan: It’s not that bad, because it’s presuming you got all your board and lodging thrown in.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Oh yes, a month. But as I didn’t drink and I didn’t smoke, and I was given all my food, I saved the money.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: We arrived at Liverpool in due course and I sent my parents from the train, coming down from Liverpool, I believe I got out at Rugby, and I sent them a telegram,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: …it was perhaps silly of me; I put “arrive Addison…”
Edward Ben-Nathan: What?
Jules Ben-Nathan: “Arrive Addison,” because we lived at Upper Addison Gardens, you see.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Oh, Addison Gardens. Upper Addison Gardens, yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: “Arrive Addison,” such-and-such a time. They, unfortunately thought I meant arrived at Addison station,
Edward Ben-Nathan: [mutual laughter]
Jules Ben-Nathan: …because there was an Addison Station about a mile away from our house.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Really?
Jules Ben-Nathan: And of course when I arrived home,
Edward Ben-Nathan: There was nobody there.
Jules Ben-Nathan: There was no one there. Of course, I had the keys of the house. But, they were disappointed when they arrived at Addison Station, and there was no such train carrying their loving son.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah. So, did you get into any business with respect to your father and carpets when you were up north?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, it so happens that once I was in Harrogate, I used to occasionally go around the marketplace out of interest. I can’t remember if I was particularly looking for any Persian rugs. But it so happened that I saw a very fine Shervin rug which comes from the Caucasus, amount for thirty shillings.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So, I told them that I would like to have it. So I said, “would you kindly wrap it up in a parcel for me?,” which they did. And I posted it to my father’s shop. Of course, they were delighted with it.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Was it a lot that he could have sold if for?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, it was a type of rug that my father would have paid as much as eight pounds at auction for it, and he could have sold it quite easily for fifteen pounds.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Naturally, they wrote me and said, could you kindly see if you could find some more? Something like that.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, I went around the marketplace a few times and of course no such luck occurred again. However I went to one or two auctioneers, and asked them if they would kindly send me any catalogues where they had Persian rugs on sale in Yorkshire or somewhere within reach. And a week or two later, I did receive the catalog of Persian rugs being sold in a private house.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So I decided to go about an hour before the sale started, so that I could view them.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And I put figures in my head up to which I could bid. And I bought four; I think there were five there. I bought four of them. And I had them packed and they were sent by rail. And I sent them onto my father and I think he was also very, very pleased with them. They were quite a good buy. But of course, not such a bargain as that little rug was.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yes.
[some footage cut]
Edward Ben-Nathan: So in 1926-27 you were about 21, 22…
Jules Ben-Nathan: Yes, yes, yes.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So, what was your social life like?
Jules Ben-Nathan: Well, I used to associate quite a lot with my cousin Joshua who lived in Shepherd’s Bush, which is not far from Upper Addison Gardens,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: where we lived. And we used to go to the social club at the synagogue.
Edward Ben-Nathan: This is at Maida Vale.
Jules Ben-Nathan: No, at…ah, no,that was later. No, no, that was later. We used to go to dancing, really, to [words indistinct.]
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: And of course there we made friends with young ladies occasionally and we used to take them out to the cinema,
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: and to sometimes for, you know, for a meal. But we never made any long term friends.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: We used to go to the cinema together, my cousin and I, and I can’t think of anything else, anything striking.
Edward Ben-Nathan: So 1927, what happens then?
Jules Ben-Nathan: In 1927, my father hired a car. He decided that business was so bad at the shop at 70 Great Portland Street, that we should go out into the country and fill the car up with Persian rugs and Persian design rugs, reproductions. And we called on the antique shops we called on furniture stores, we went up as far as Chester, Scotland, Leeds, Birmingham, Harrogate, Bath, Ramsgate, Margate, and we succeeded in paying our way. Occasionally we would come across a furniture store that had an antique carpet for sale. For example, we were in Bath and the store there had an Aubusson carpet, which is French made, made in Beauvais, a sort of a tapestry carpet, with beautiful pastel colors.[2]
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: They wanted twenty pounds for it. Well, we speedily bought it, ’cause we knew that we could put it in an auction and sell it for sixty pounds.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Good heavens, yeah.
[1 hour]
Jules Ben-Nathan: But of course trying to sell rugs to antique shops and Dutch stores was a very difficult matter. My father, of course, was very persistent. He would keep talking and he used to tell me, when you sit in the car, always look at me, always look at me. If not, point a finger at me, like that [gestures with his finger], that means to say, bring a sample out quickly, because I happen to be talking to them to say that it’s no trouble, just to show you one, and they never want to see one.
Edward Ben-Nathan: Yeah.
Jules Ben-Nathan: So you have to be quick. He used to say to me occasionally where we were starting in the morning, let’s get our guns out and start shooting. It was a very, very trying job, but we managed to pay our way.
[End: 1:01:08]
[1] From Wikipedia: Sir Henry Joseph Wood CH (3 March 1869 – 19 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London’s annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences. After his death, the concerts were officially renamed in his honour as the “Henry Wood Promenade Concerts”, although they continued to be generally referred to as “the Proms”.
[2] From Encyclopaeida Britannica: “Aubusson carpet, floor covering, usually of considerable size, handwoven at the villages of Aubusson and Felletin, in the département of Creuse in central France. Workshops were established in 1743 to manufacture pile carpets primarily for the nobility, to whom the Savonnerie court production was not available. Aubusson carpets were, however, also made for the royal residences. Soon after the production of carpets began at Aubusson, the pileless tapestry technique previously in use in this district was adopted for so many of the carpets that the word Aubusson has become synonymous with a flat-woven French carpet, and it is not generally realized that piled rugs in numbers have been made there. Many of the early Aubussons were made in modified Oriental designs, some resembling Ushak medallion carpets. Taste soon changed to a range of Renaissance floral and architectural patterns similar to those in use at the Savonnerie and continued to reflect court and republican fashions up to the modernistic painterly concepts of the 20th century.”