Page 12 - My Story

But the girls from Bermondsey had cockney accents, whereas Jackie and I were always being urged by my
mother to “speak nicely”.

I can remember, aged 10, explaining to a girl called Margaret as we walked to school that we were
Jewish and maybe that was why we sounded different. She stared at me and said, “I’ve never seen a Jew
before. I didn’t think they would look like you.” However, we were accepted, and I was very happy. Poor
Jackie had enjoyed her other school and really wanted to be with the friends she had made there. They
were all evacuated to Bishop’s Stortford in Buckinghamshire which was a long way from us in
Hertfordshire.

My mother found us another place to live. We were lodged with a friend of my uncle, one Mr.
Stein and his two sons, one of whom was called Alan and Alan was not the favourite. The younger boy,
John, was the favourite and we thought he was a creep. Mr. Stein, named Stinky Stein by Jackie and me
was a greasy, repulsive man whose one aim appeared to be to get into our mother’s bedroom. We two
girls would get up at the weekends and take Mummy a “wake-up” cup of tea in bed and Stinky Stein would
try every means possible, short of brute force, to wrest that tea out of our hands and take it in himself. I
am proud to say that he never succeeded! I had then no idea what it was all about but my mother (then
aged about 35 and very pretty) had told us that she did not want him anywhere near her, to not let him
bring in her morning tea and that was good enough for us!

Stinky Stein’s house was dirty and smelly, and the boys had lice in their hair. Of course, we caught
the lice, but we also moved to a nice lady called Mrs. Bentley, who seemed to be the local midwife and
th
who lived in another part of town and we were living there when, on May 8 , 1945 the war in Europe
ended.

My mother: Mary Rubenstein, about 1928, aged 20

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