Hugo Marom - February 8, 2008
Life in Bedford III
These were church services.
Oh yes, yes, we would go...I, I can sing every well known hymn that exists in the Church of England whether it's "Onward Christian Soldiers..." Like Nicholas Winton?
Yes, yes...no, well Nicholas Winton was born, was born into a converted Jewish family. No, because we participated in the life of these billets that we lived with. The question started...if you remember you asked why did not Jewish families take us in or anybody. There were no Jewish families except the Roses and the Roses had two children and I think that generally speaking in England, I would say that, that even the very better off, the better off English families did not take children in. And there may be two reasons for it: number one, uh, there was a great gap between the well to do English families in Bedford, the retired offices and so forth and the lower class. There was practically no middle class...perhaps the teaching staff and so forth. It's a city of retired colonels above and so forth and a lower class which worked in the factories and the ??? Works, which was the largest marine propeller manufacturing plant. It had carving from which, which built the R101 Zeppelin, you know, it had a military camp nearby. It had many air force bases, U.S. Air Force bases in the area and which a lot of the people work. In one of the houses I lived at Mr. and Mrs. Gra...at Mrs. Grahams place, the daughter worked and sewed anti-air craft balloons in Cardington. Uh, I would say that, that...yes the Jewish, the Jewish community considered themselves about the lower class. Now, during this entire period I worked both um, mainly paper routes which I started very early...I think from the age of eleven already I was...you know what a paper route was, yes?
No.
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