A potted history

The photograph above is of my grandfather and his daughter, my mum, taken circa 1970 when my grandpa would have been 52. They are on holiday somewhere, maybe Elba or the South of France where they would go on family trips every year.

My grandpa is an endlessly fascinating man. An Oxford educated, Russian Jew whose parents fled Russia for London in the early 1900's and divorced soon after. As is traditional in Jewish families my grandpa and his brother Lenny stayed with his father, Seoul, and his sister Leia moved to France with his mother, Clara.

I sit for hours when I visit my grandpa, as I did yesterday, listening to his stories of the fascinating lives of my ancestors. The part they played in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the persecution they endured, stories of escapes and rescues that sound too much to be true.

Doubtless the powerful nature of my Jewish lineage has had an impact on who I am (despite the fact that my granny wasn't Jewish, so according to Orthodox Jews I am not Jewish at all - see here). Take, for example, the endless references to my mothers Jewish guilt and propensity to worry about everything, lullabies replaced by odd Yiddish rhymes, a lifelong need to fight for the underdog and my very real awareness that life will not always be easy that has been present since I could think.

I make endless notes tracing his family history, and that of my beloved granny, wanting to find out everything I can about these ancestors of mine and the vastly different world they inhabited. I have never been to Russia, or Pinsk in Belarus where my grandpa's family can be traced to. I have never been to Canada, where he studied, or most of America and particularly California where my great grandfather, Seoul, moved to after his divorce.

I would love to travel to these places, and find out more about these people, and in fact one promise to myself is that this year I will try and travel to Russia and do and take an in depth look at my family tree.

My granny and grandpa were married for around 70 years. He cries every time he talks about her now, and speaks with heartbreaking adoration of granny and her family. It was, like many other relationships, hard and testing and yet a happy and loving union which produced 3 children and 7 grandchildren. They travelled all over the world, enjoyed some of the most wonderful food and, for the most part, a very good life.

I am hugely proud of my family history on both my mother and fathers side. It makes me feel oddly exotic that I am 1/8th Russian with a pinch of French thrown in. It also makes me feel a need to live up to the interesting history that has gone before me, and have a life that fascinates my great grand children a century from now. I'm just not quite sure where to begin....

May we all be together next year

I am a strong believer that Christmas is a time to gather with family and friends to take stock of the year gone by, and the one ahead.

A time for amazing meals gathered around an enormous table where everyone has to loosen belts and undo buttons to make room for the excess of food. With lots of good wine and fantastic cheese and no holding back. Where families and friends can debate and laugh and unwind together, often gathering all in one place for the first time in a year.

I am well aware how truly lucky I am that I enjoy a Christmas like this. A celebration without family feuds, toasting good health and happiness - I count my lucky stars every day. Last year was not like this; my darling, wonderful Granny had died less than a fortnight before.

We gathered in grief and sorrow, not that my family would every really call it this. There was no funeral, or memorial, at my grandpa's insistence. Instead my mother, auntie, uncle along with their partners and children (myself included) stood in a sad looking crematorium on a bleak day in Newton Abbot, cried a few awkward tears, sung a strange sounding children's nursery song that had been a favourite of hers and left.

Our grandparents (we only ever knew our maternal granny and granpda, my dad's parents died before I was born) typically didn't join us for Christmas, preferring their own company and the home comforts of their little cottage in Sussex. So last Christmas was no different, in theory.

We laughed and ate and drunk too much - like any other year - but there was a deep, lingering feeling that this was not how it should be.

Throughout her life, whenever my granny was asked to make a wish she would always quietly say "may we all be together, safe and sound, next year", and this time we were not. We went through the motions but there were no gifts, no Christmas tree and every time we lifted our glasses to toast one another we only thought of her.

This is the first time I have written about her, and it won't be the last. Having had no funeral I never got to talk about how incredible she was to anyone but my friends. It just isn't really the done thing with my family, we prefer to quip and argue and tease and outwit each other- and I like it that way.

Needless to say this Christmas will, I hope, be different to the last. Gathering all together for the first time this year we will indulge and celebrate and toast each other...and crack open the most expensive and delicious bottle of bubbly of all in celebration of my darling, darling granny Katy.

He aint heavy...

This is my brother, William, one of my best friends and the person I am most proud to know. 

My beloved boy always liked to embarrass me by reminding me that on our first date, 5 years ago, I announced loudly and obnoxiously to him (and, I imagine, the majority of diners at the restaurant) "My brother knows far more than you do about politics and probably everything else".

I stand by this comment, although I admit to being blinded by sisterly love. My brother really is one of the most intelligent people I know, always anxious to listen to people's stories, give advice,  learn more about everything he stumbles across and constantly hunting out new and interesting things..be that music, art, comedy or writing. 

I am embarrassed to admit that growing up I was not quite so enamoured.  I was a girl who liked things my own way, and am still the same today. Two year's into my peaceful life of parks and parties and play dates and parents who showered me with their love exclusively I was less than pleased to be joined by a wailing, screaming, permanently awake baby who - for some reason incomprehensible to me - my parents seemed to love just as much. 

Our childish squabbling and mutual dissaproval of each other progressed to physical fights and the type of nasty that only teenage siblings can be. My dad found the capacity William and I had to be truly cruel to each other most upsetting, and I hope our close friendship in adulthood goes some way to making up for the pain it caused.  

Now we find ourselves as grownups, something that becomes most comical when we enter our parents home and revert to 15 year olds...sitting on the sofa demanding cups of tea with Aga fried pitta bread and hummus. The only difference being this time our arguments revolve around which Arrested Development character is our favourite..and there's far less kicking.

William has travelled the world, lived last Summer in Berlin, is in a fantastic band, has made wonderful short films, won an award for his comedy writing, hitchhiked to Morocco for charity and can currently be seen (for one second, taking a photo and wearing a hat) in the latest Sainsburys advert. He strives to live his life doing something he enjoys, and I respect him so much for that. 

Sometimes it can be very, very hard but I know he is going to be a huge success. And I will always be his loudest, proudest supporter.