Snapshot: My father’s ‘refugee family’ in Snowdonia

I don’t know who took this photograph and I only know three of the people in it. My father, Kurt, in the centre at the front, my grandmother, who I always knew as Oma, front and second left, and Opa, far right and leaning on the bonnet of the Austin car.

The blacked-out car headlamp gives a clue to the year it was taken – 1941. My father was 10. He tells me that he knows the names of three of the other people in the photo. Gladys Vickerman is next to my father, laughing and holding on to her daughter, Joan, who has the flowers. My father thinks the flowers signified something about her forthcoming wedding. He also recognises Dora Schmidt, who was a friend of his parents, back left.

The group are at Lledr Hall near Betws-y-Coed and are a group of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. They had been evacuated from their Quaker-run refugee hostel in Paddington, central London, to Buckinghamshire, and then moved again to Snowdonia. Lledr Hall had been run by the Cooperative Holiday Association but it had been converted into a refugee hostel, and Vickerman was the warden.

My father had arrived in London on a Kindertransport train from Prague in the spring of 1939. He does not regard himself as being a genuine kinder because his mother, my oma, was on the train with him. No one seems to know how this happened, but we assume that she was smuggled aboard with fake papers and disguised as an adult escort for the unaccompanied children. Opa was already in England, mysteriously released from Dachau with the help of Kathleen Hertzberg-Brookhouse in March 1939. She was a Quaker caseworker dispatched to Germany to help people whose details were known to the Quakers to escape. She was just 22 and has just celebrated her 101st birthday.

The fact that my father’s family’s details were known to UK Quakers was a matter of pure chance. While still in Germany, Opa had looked for a good school in England for my uncle Helmut, and had found one he supposed must have been good because it was listed as an “approved school”. As luck would have it, when Helmut arrived at the school, a school governor, who was a Quaker, realised he was not a suitable pupil and arranged for him to move to a Quaker school, Sidcot in Somerset. The Quakers took an active interest in the family’s situation from then on.

I love this photograph. Everyone looks happy, sharing in the joy of the moment. They all surround my father and seem to embrace him in their warmth and support. He was one of only two children at Lledr Hall among about 50 adult refugees. Much of his actual family had been dispersed or killed but he has been taken in by another big, happy family.

Kurt was only at Lledr Hall for a few months before moving to join his big brother at Sidcot. Pete Strauss

Playlist: A wartime welcome from James Cagney

(I’m a) Yankee Doodle Dandy

“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy / A Yankee Doodle, do or die / A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam / Born on the Fourth of July”

In 1942, Jack, my husband-to-be, was conscripted aged 18 from Bradford art school into the navy and later went to New York aboard the Queen Mary, which had been fitted out to be a troopship. He was part of a crew being sent to America to man a newly built ship, the Bullen, part of lend-lease: a destroyer escort ship built by the US navy for the British navy. Next, in Boston, he was in Fargo Barracks.

Jack found the Americans very hospitable and had a Buddies’ Club in Boston for visiting sailors and servicemen. One evening, Jack went with shipmate Jim Walker and they were thrilled to learn that James Cagney would be entertaining that night. He was, of course, famous for his screen-gangster roles, but earlier had been a “song and dance man” starring in a film, Yankee Doodle Dandy, about the showman George M Cohan. It was a small dance floor in the middle of the room, and in came Cagney, not tall but very handsome, with wavy, strawberry blond hair. He tapdanced and sang (I’m a) Yankee Doodle Dandy from the film. Jack was entranced and later described it in detail, and told me what a wonderful and versatile actor he was – also in the film A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Later, aboard the HMS Bullen, Jack sailed to Britain and escorted convoys in the Atlantic and to Iceland. Jack said Captain Parrish was a good and kindly man. While the crew were going about their duties at sea, he played music for them on the PA, including the Ink Spots’ Paper Doll, Jack’s favourite. It was a happy ship. Then, on 6 December, in the north Atlantic, HMS Bullen was torpedoed. Capt Parish died saving men, and 11 men including Jack’s dear friend Jim Walker, were lost. Jack and 96 others survived – Jack by swimming two miles to a rescue ship. Kate Meynell

We love to eat: My mother’s galantine

250-300g of cold cooked meat: ham, chicken, tongue or beef (shredded or minced)
50-100g of white breadcrumbs
2 eggs beaten
Leftover gravy (the jellied sort is best)
Chopped parsley, thyme and marjoram
Finely grated rind of one lemon

Combine all the ingredients, and pile into two small (600ml) or one large Dundee marmalade jar lined with greaseproof paper. Fold the excess paper over the top of the meat mixture and cover with clingfilm (my mother used a cloth tied with string). Steam for 30 minutes, cool and then turn out.

Why does a Google search for galantine only reveal exotic rolled and stuffed meats, with fancy chutney and sauces to partner? My childhood memory is a roll of shredded or minced meat and breadcrumbs steamed in a Dundee marmalade jar. It didn’t look good but marked the end to high days or holidays and the cold meat following.

I loved the delicate taste of my mother’s galantine: fragrant with lemon peel and thyme and flecked with parsley. I searched for its recipe in her and my grandmother’s recipe books, the latter started while a student at the Practical Training School [est 1890] in George Street, Edinburgh. But despite their contents, the historical newspaper cuttings spanning two world wars, and handwritten simple Scottish staples, I found nothing. So after Christmas I tried myself: it worked! My family galantine is easily prepared and, contrary to memory, pretty to look at, too.

In the 50s and 60s we ate it with salad, boiled potatoes and salad cream, but it’s as good with sweet chutney and a simple dressed salad. Measurements are approximate: that’s the whole point of a leftover. Lindsay Cuddy

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