This Much Is True

It was an orthodox Jewish upbringing. Philip and Rebecca were ‘frummers’^[1] — pious and observant people. Philip was in thrall to the seriousness of his nature. He was deeply earnest, the kind of man who would never have dreamed of being unfaithful — that would have been unthinkable. (It was my maternal grandfather who was the bounder and fucked about, but more on that later.) The Margolyeses kept all the most rigorous strictures of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish faith. It was a kosher home life — Shabbos began at sundown on a Friday evening and ended only on the appearance of three stars in the sky on the following night. During this time, no work, including no cooking nor reading of any text other than the Jewish scriptures was permitted, nor, later, when the family finally had electricity, could anyone so much as switch on a light.

Daddy told me that as a young man in Glasgow, one Friday night he arrived home and discovered that he’d left his front door key behind. He couldn’t press the electric doorbell, which would have infringed the Sabbath rule of not creating a spark, and so he had stood outside in the cold for half the night, and nearly caught his death with a very bad chill as a result. I hope he knocked on the door, but these were big houses and no one can have heard him, so he just stood there, shivering in the sub-zero Glasgow night. Of course, to me that is extraordinary, but that’s what he and his family were like.

He might have told me this story to try to explain the culture clash between his family and ours. It would be a source of profound sadness to him to know that I no longer believe in the Jewish faith, although so powerful are the traditions I was taught that I still fast on Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement, observe the rules of Passover and keep the dietary laws. I have never eaten bacon, although I am told I would love it. I will live and die a Jew, with my culture intact but minus the religion that is at the heart of it.

Daddy’s parents spoke and read Hebrew, but they were not formally educated. They were poor but determined that their children would enjoy every benefit of a Scottish education. Daddy was especially bright; as a schoolboy, he won a scholarship to attend Hutchesons’ Grammar School in Govanhill. He did so well that he became ‘Dux of Hutchie’ (dux is Latin for ‘leader’) — a title given to the highest-ranking student in academic, arts or sporting achievement. He always intended to go to university; he was a serious little chap, as you can see from his photo.

By the time Daddy’s secondary education came to an end, Grandpa Margolyes’s jewellery shop was clearly successful, and the family had moved out of the tenement building on Allison Street to Aytoun Road, in the comparatively upmarket suburb of Pollokshields. The family were still tenants, not well enough off to own their own home, but clearly Grandpa’s determination to better the family’s prospects and hard work had paid off, and his business was thriving, if not booming. Some years later, Grandpa Margolyes did buy a wonderful house just a short walk further up Aytoun Road. They named it ‘Pearl House’ (Margolyes means ‘pearl’), and had the words engraved on the gate-posts. My grandparents lived out the rest of their lives and died at home in Pearl House. I went there for my holidays as a child and it’s always been one of my favourite places in the world.

As the eldest son, my father — Joseph — might comfortably have stepped into his father’s shoes at James McMenamin. Daddy, however, had never wanted to go into the family business; he wanted to become a doctor. He had always known that this was his vocation and in 1917, he took the entrance exam at Glasgow University. So it was my father’s younger brother, Uncle Jack, who went to work in the shop. Eventually, in 1937, when my grandfather died, Jack inherited the business and he did very well. In fact, Uncle Jack ended up dying an actual millionaire.

One morning in 1917, when Daddy was eighteen, he received his call-up papers. It was three years since the beginning of the First World War, and not one of the young men the family knew who had gone off to fight had come back. My grandfather was all too aware that the life expectancy of young officers in the trenches was about six weeks. He was desperate to keep Joseph at home. He telephoned to make an appointment with the commander of the 4th Glasgow Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry, and went to see him that afternoon.

Imagine this little man, a small Jew in his best suit, foreign-looking with a darkish complexion, knocking on the door of the commander’s office.

‘Come in.’

Philip entered and in front of him, behind a desk, sat a very upright, Scots officer, in full uniform.

The officer said, ‘Sit down. What can I do for you?’