Читать книгу Cracked Eggs and Chicken Soup - A Memoir of Growing Up Between The Wars - Norman Jacobs - Страница 8

CHAPTER ONE

JACK THE RIPPER AND JACK JACOBS, 1888–1915

Pulling her black shawl tight around her slender shoulders, Carrie hurried out of the front door of the buildings into the damp, dark East End air. The time was just coming up to midnight on a foggy November night. The mist was swirling around the gas lamp and she could just make out the deadened sound of a horse-drawn hackney carriage clip-clopping along a nearby street. Suddenly out of this eerie atmosphere a tall man, immaculately dressed in morning coat and top hat, appeared as if from nowhere.

‘What’s a young girl like you doing out on a night like this?’ he demanded.

‘My mama’s in labour. I’ve got to fetch the midwife.’

‘How old are you?’

Carrie puffed herself up and replied, ‘Seventeen,’ although she was, in fact, just twelve years old.

‘I’ll walk with you to the midwife,’ said the man. ‘It’s not safe for a young girl to be out alone at night in Whitechapel with Jack the Ripper still at large.’

Carrie shivered. Although she was trying to be brave, she was grateful to the man, and just nodded.

The walk took them along deserted streets through some of the worst, most poorly lit slums in London. Carrie was used to the mud and filth on the ground but several times was startled by strange sounds that in the still of the night conjured up all sorts of terrors for her but which mostly turned out to be stray cats. Suddenly, she heard a rustling just by her foot. As she looked down she saw something move in the dark and realised it was a large black rat which jumped out of a puddle of water and scurried off down the road. Carrie let out a loud scream and turned, throwing her arms round the man for protection. He took her hand and she gripped it tight for the rest of the journey. Somehow Carrie felt completely safe with this man by her side and together they continued their journey with no more incidents. At last they reached the midwife’s house. ‘We’re here,’ said Carrie.

‘All right,’ said the man. ‘You’ll be safe now.’ Carrie let go of his hand and said, ‘Thank you.’ The man tipped his hat and nodded. Then he said something that made Carrie’s blood run cold, ‘You be sure to tell your mama when you get back home tonight that Jack the Ripper looked after you and walked you to the midwife.’ With that, the man disappeared back into the mist and was gone. Carrie’s heart was pounding as she knocked on the door. Was he really Jack the Ripper? He must have been or why would he have said he was? Had she been that close to a gruesome death? But no, the man had been so kind to her and had protected her. It was very confusing.

Her thoughts trailed away as Hetty Solomons, the midwife, opened the door and ushered her in. ‘Come in, come in, bubbeleh, is it time already?’ she said. ‘I thought your mama would be ready to drop soon. Just let me get my things together.’ Carrie wondered whether she should tell her about the strange man who had escorted her tonight, but decided not to. Very soon they were on their way back.

Several hours later, the midwife delivered Carrie’s mother another baby girl, the tenth child born to Isaac and Clara Levy. The date was 23 November 1888 and that baby was my mother, Rebecca Levy.

She was born in what were called the Model Dwellings on the corner of Wentworth Street and Goulston Street. The same block of flats where, less than two months earlier, the legend, ‘The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing’ was scribbled in white chalk on the stairwell above a dirty, bloodstained piece of apron. Where had this bit of cloth come from and what had happened to provoke this rough graffiti? The blood-soaked piece of cloth was proved beyond any doubt to belong to Catherine Eddowes, who just an hour before it was discovered had been the fourth victim of Britain’s most notorious serial killer. Apart from anything else, it was proof that Jack the Ripper knew Wentworth Dwellings well. Had my Aunt Carrie really met the man who had carried out this horrible and shocking deed? And was she lucky to have escaped with her life? Everything that happened in this part of London at the time was overshadowed by the spectral phantom popularly known as Jack the Ripper but somehow our family always felt it had a close connection to this ‘apparition from Hell’.

And as if that wasn’t enough there was one further connection to Jack the Ripper as my great-uncle, Jacob Levy, my grandpa’s brother, has been mentioned in some books as a possible Ripper suspect, even the prime suspect by some authors! It was thought that the description of a man seen talking to Catherine Eddowes just before her murder, fitted Jacob perfectly and, given his previous history and his intimate knowledge of Wentworth Dwellings, there seemed every likelihood that it could be him. This previous history was that he was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment back in 1886, but was declared insane and instead sent to the Essex County Asylum. He was later released, but in 1890 was again committed to an asylum, this time the Asylum for General Paralysis of the Insane at Stone in Kent. Observations during his term there included testimony from his wife, who complained that he almost ruined their butcher’s business: ‘He also feels,’ she added, ‘that if he is not restrained he will do some violence to someone; he complains about hearing strange noises; cries for no reason; feels compelled to do acts that his conscience cannot stand; and has a conscience of a feeling of exaltation.’ His wife also revealed that he had formerly been a shrewd businessman and that ‘he does not sleep at nights and wanders around aimlessly for hours’.

At 7.52 p.m. on the evening of the 29 July 1891 Jacob finally died at the asylum from ‘Paralysis brought on by the serious sexually transmitted disease syphilis’, indicating the possibility of liaisons with the Aldgate/Whitechapel prostitutes. Nothing was ever proved of course, but our family was certainly interwoven closely with the whole Jack the Ripper saga.

Mum grew up in the Dwellings with an ever-expanding number of siblings – there were still two more to come – until, when she was twelve, she lost her father, my grandfather, to bronchitis, pulmonary tuberculosis and exhaustion – at least that’s what the death certificate said. Shortly after this, at the age of just thirteen, she left school and went to work in Toff Levy’s cigar factory. Like many other cigar and cigarette firms of that time it was situated in the Aldgate area. The work itself was all done by hand and was therefore very labour intensive and teenage girls were a cheap source for this labour.

The work involved was not physically demanding but it did take skill and experience to do it properly. Mum was one of dozens of girls all sitting at benches along the length of the factory floor. The tobacco was delivered to the benches in boxes and sorted into two types, shredded to use for the filling and whole leaves to be used as the wrapping. A specially designed knife was used to cut the leaf to shape and then this would be filled with the shredded tobacco, not too much, not too little, and rolled to make the cigar. Experienced cigar makers, as Mum became, could produce hundreds and hundreds of identical cigars every day.

As she grew through her teens and into her early twenties, Mum turned into a graceful, good-looking young woman with jet-black hair, deep brown eyes and of medium height and slender build. Unlike the stereotype, which it was always our fate to suffer, she did not have a particularly large nose nor did she have a very swarthy complexion, having instead a rather delicate skin tone, probably owing to the fact that her ancestors had lived in this country for something like two hundred years. When out in the street, there is no doubt that she turned the heads of many boys as she made her way to and from work.

A few days after her twenty-first birthday she was promoted at work and put in charge of about half a dozen other girls. There was no extra pay for this increased responsibility but she didn’t mind as, although her basic job was still rolling cigars, she did have to take some time off this intensive and repetitive work to help the others and deal with any problems that might arise. One of the girls she was told to look after was a new girl and it was Mum’s job to teach her the ropes. This new girl’s name was Sarah Jacobs. As they got to know each other better they began to get on very well at work and, when they got the chance, they would laugh and joke together, with their main topic of conversation being boys. They even went out a few times in the evening after work. One day as they were leaving the factory, Mum casually asked Sarah who that handsome young man was that sometimes met her at the gate.

Sarah spluttered. ‘Handsome!’ she choked. ‘That’s my brother Jack. Don’t tell him he’s handsome, his head is big enough as it is.’

Mum’s eyes lit up as she pulled a cigarette packet out of her pocket, took one and offered them to Sarah. ‘Your brother? How about you should introduce us then?’

Sarah smiled. ‘So suddenly I’m a shadkhen already?’

Mum blushed, ‘Don’t talk such narrishkeit. I’m not interested in that way.’

‘Then why you should want an introduction, Becky?’

Mum smiled and shook her head as if to say this conversation is over.

Two days later, Jack was at the gate to meet Sarah. Mum took her opportunity and skipped over to speak to him. ‘Jack,’ she said before her friend could say anything, ‘how nice to meet you. Sarah has told me so much about you.’

And those were the first words spoken between the two people destined to become my parents. Jack, or John as he was known formally, was actually a couple of years younger than Mum and was born in Bell Lane, just a stone’s throw from the Dwellings. He had gone to the Jews’ Free School also in Bell Lane, and, like everyone else in his class, left school at the age of thirteen. As the East End was the centre of the furniture trade at the time many boys found themselves going on to work in one capacity or the other in it. In consultation with his father, my grandfather David, Dad chose to be apprenticed to a French-polisher.

Mum and Dad got married on St Valentine’s Day, 1914, and moved into my Aunt Betsy’s house, renting a couple of rooms from Mum’s sister. Just over two months later, on 30 April, their first child, my sister Julie, was born.

When war broke out, on 4 August that year, Dad had no desire to join up before he was made to. But, although he preferred not to rush into war, he did decide to do his bit in another way, as, on 21 December 1915, the shortest and darkest day of the year, when the lamps all over Europe were well and truly out, I was born. Dad used to joke afterwards that I was his real contribution to the war effort.

Eventually, in 1916, he received his call-up papers and he went along for his medical at the Poplar Army Recruitment Office, where he was found to be suffering from flat feet and unsuitable for front-line duties. Because of this, although he was recruited into the army, he was never sent to the trenches and spent the war on the home front, being placed in the Military Police. A lucky escape, many would say. He was assigned to the London Docks, quite close to his home, where his job mostly consisted of patrolling the area and looking out for anyone stealing from the goods landed on the dockside and watching out for deserters who might have stowed away trying to get home. Considering he was exempted from the front line because he had flat feet, it always seemed a bit curious to me that his wartime job entailed spending most of the day walking!

Although working close to home, he was not allowed to live at home, being stationed in nearby barracks instead. Because he wasn’t around to protect his family, he thought it best if Mum, Julie and I went to stay with his parents in Gateshead Place in Mile End for the duration. It was here, early in 1918, that my brother Davy was born. As you can see, being in barracks didn’t stop Dad getting home on the odd occasion.

In 1918, Dad’s flat feet became even more of an issue and he was invalided out of the army altogether. Perhaps it was all that walking round the docks that had exacerbated his condition. Once discharged, he gathered up his little family and set off for pastures new to a house in Palmer Street.