Page 9 - My Story

My father’s family were strange. My grandparents had had eleven children of whom two girls
died in infancy. My father was the fifth child, first son and after him was another girl and three boys.
These three boys were the only children to go to secondary school and one of them, Nat, went on to the
London School of Economics and earned a bachelors’ degree. But the family was well spoken and well-
read and all loved the theatre. Only one of the sisters kept a husband, the parents of my cousin Stanley.
Two were divorced and two never married.

Soldier Nat with Jackie and Ruth circa 1941

The Whine family were pretty good at educating us culturally. When Yehudi Menuhin was playing
at Harringay Arena they organised tickets and Auntie Deb, my father’s oldest sister took me to see my first
ballet at Covent Garden. The bachelor aunts and uncles would gather all the cousins together at Christmas
time and take us to a circus or pantomime or play, followed by tea at Lyon’s Corner House where we ate
tiny sandwiches and delicious pastries – all fighting for the single éclair. In those days there were not so
many of us – four more cousins came along after the war. Lyon’s was a chain of small, inexpensive
cafeterias. They were everywhere in England and a good cheap place for a sandwich or light meal and a
good cup of tea. But their Corner Houses in the West End were splendid affairs where you could get a
fancy tea or dinner with WINE.

So, we lived in Mrs. Bennett’s house in Clapton and played with Sheila, until one night an
ambulance came and took Sheila into hospital – she had scarlet fever. There was talk of Jackie and me
going into quarantine because we had played with her, but I believe that idea was eventually discarded,
and life went on as usual. Scarlet Fever is/was a streptococcal infection and I can imagine the fuss that
would be made today and the antibiotics that would be taken by all who had been in contact. I can also
remember considerable disturbance in the house with visits from police and military police when Mr.
Bennett deserted the army. My mother warned us not to say a word to anyone about anything, but I
don’t think anyone was ever concerned with us.

Things were happening in the family. My mother’s younger brother, Albert and younger sister,
Anne lived with Auntie Fanny and offered constant entertainment with their dating exploits. Anne was
very beautiful with large brown eyes and dark brown hair. If a man called her on the phone, she would
powder her nose and adjust her lipstick before taking the call. But here she was, aged almost thirty and
not married. Something had to be done! The family set about finding Anne a husband and came up with
Ernie Morris, a forty-five-year-old bachelor, someone’s friend, from an impeccable family – his older sister,
Miriam, was a magistrate. Jackie and I found Ernie very entertaining. He was always making jokes,
pretending to fall up the curb and so on. I think as a husband he was less entertaining. They lived in a flat
in Elgin Avenue in Maida Vale. Ernie was frequently sick and never seemed to have much money. They
had a son, Mark John, within the first year they were married and when Mark was six, which must have
been around 1950, it was decided by Ernie’s family that they should go and live in Sydney, Australia where
Ernie could open a branch of the family business (I have no idea what that was) and the climate would be
better for his health

Meanwhile Jackie, aged 11 went off to Laura Place, later the John Howard grammar school (why
were we named after a prison reformer?) – grammar school in the UK was a higher secondary school to
which you were accepted, or not, after taking “the scholarship”, later named “the 11 plus”. Jackie was

8