Grandpa's Second Book

By Frank Beck

Biography. This book is the sequel to Grandpa's Book, and describes a married life in England, Switzerland, the USA and France, based on the application of the new technology to the service of Physics. It describes the life of a family accompanying a father working in nhe new science.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781326069308

Frank Beck

FRANK BECK is a New York City-based writer and translator. He has written about new poetry for The Manhattan Review for more than 30 years.

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Grandpa's Second Book

Grandpa’s  Second Book

Introduction

This book describes my married life with Louise, and some of our main movements and adventures during those 45 years.

It follows on from Grandpa’s book, which was a description of my life up to the point when I met and married your Grandma.

I originally intended to write in Louise’s voice, and the first chapter is an attempt at this.  I actually read it to her, and she was surprised at how much I had learned about her during our lives together.  It is for this reason that I have left the chapter in place, although the rest of the book is written in my own voice and from my own point of view, now that Louise is no longer there.

Getting together as a couple and having and raising children is what life is all about.    It requires a source of income and an environment in which the family is comfortable and happy.  This book shows how one couple in the later part of the twentieth century managed to do this, using the opportunities available at that time.  In each generation a couple has to seek its own mode of survival using whatever facilities are at its disposal.  We were lucky in that there were opportunities and that we were able to use them.

If I am asked for advice by the younger generation, I will answer that conditions change and you have to solve your own problems as they occur.  But you can precede every decision with a thorough discussion.  Discussion and agreement is all.  Two people are less likely to make a bad decision than one alone.

Grandma continues the tale

I said I’d consider marrying him.  Notwithstanding the fact that I found him attractive and was willing to share a life with him, my feelings were mixed ones.  Curiously, considering our own origins, my parents were not that well disposed to continental Jews.  They would have preferred me to choose someone from among the offspring of the group of South London Irish families, mainly doctors, who comprised their circle of friends.  But then on the other hand they already knew me as a potential rebel, and might accept Frank as the lesser of a number of less desirable mates for me.  He was poor, and I was reconciled to a lower standard of living than I had been used to, indeed I found the idea of love in a garret quite attractive: material things were not high in my order of priorities.

Then there was his mother.  Clearly in those circumstances his mother had to be taken into consideration.  She was a widow, and if we all behaved responsibly we would have some obligations toward her.  We discussed the matter.  Financially there was no problem, since her rent was low, and Frank’s contribution to the household was little more than the amount she would save when he moved out.  The social problem was another one.  I realised I would have to tread lightly if I wanted to take an only son away from his widowed mother.  I would be taking on a man with some emotional baggage, and my ability to deal with that was untried.  Still, I was young, in love, and I had already had a few tentative relationships from which I had learnt that you don’t just marry a man, you take on a whole package for better or for worse, the package consisting of the man, his background, his temperament and his family.

I didn’t have these thoughts explicitly.  You don’t, for if you did, you would never get married at all.  Rather they were shadows over the bliss of having found what I thought was the right man and of escaping from my family in a socially acceptable way.  I liked his looks, I enjoyed his company, and at least he had a university education and a respectable, if badly paid job.  I don’t know whether he thought about it as much as I did, but I at least felt I could make it work, and that if there were problems we could work through them together, if he was as much in love with me as he claimed.  He had lots of funny foreign friends, and although he himself spoke with an accent similar to my own, many of them had Germanic accents. However, they welcomed his girl-friend with open arms, and made me feel important.   He seemed popular, and in fact appeared to do rather well socially with those of my family and friends I introduced him to.

He gave me an engagement ring.  His mother had smuggled some jewellery out of Vienna all those years before, and had long ago promised him a diamond ear stud for this purpose against the day when he would choose a bride.  She was as good as her word, and the ring, containing a fairly sizeable stone which I still own, was soon made up for me by a friendly jeweller someone recommended.  I would have preferred something he bought himself, but the practical side of me admitted that I would have to accept what was possible.  It was a nice ring, and I carried it proudly.

The relationship was soon under test.  Our first hurdle was to find a home.  This was where our savings were to take on great importance.  Many young people borrowed to set up a home, but a short discussion disabused us of that.  To borrow you had to pay interest, and then your limited income had to be used to pay interest, as well to repay the capital, before anything was available for your day to day needs.  I had always been good at saving, but unfortunately I had recently been on a trip to Israel and spent much of the money I had put away.  Frank had a little money put away too, some of it in cash and a little invested in two industrial shares which had increased since he bought them.  However, a visit to the Ideal Home Exhibition at Earls’ Court soon convinced us that we had just enough money for a three-piece suite, or a table and chairs, or a double bed and a wardrobe.  And where was the deposit on a house to come from, if we spent all our money on things to put in it?  The problem seemed insoluble. 

We looked at houses.  An estate agent traipsed with us around Wembley, where Frank worked, showing us lots of identical three-bedroomed houses.  We had chosen Wembley because we would not have enough money to own a car, and we could walk and use the Underground if we lived there.  All the houses were shabby, and we assumed that painting would improve them, being blissfully oblivious of the amount of work involved, or even of the cost of the raw materials.  The floors of these houses were covered in grubby planking at worst and shabby linoleum at best.  Carpet was a luxury product in those days; should we budget for carpet and dispense with furniture?  It was clear that we were on to a loser.  We didn’t have enough money to start a home.  We would have to get money from somewhere else.

It was clear that my parents could afford to help us.  My mother was already planning an expensive wedding for all the Eppel and Clein family members to celebrate a marriage in the family.  If only we could lay our hands on a small fraction of what they were spending!  We discussed it, and agreed there was one other solution.  Frank agreed to stick out his neck by asking my parents, who hardly knew him yet, to help us.  On one of his Friday evening visits, which were in any case becoming a regular feature now that we were officially engaged, a family conference was convened in the dining room.

I had in fact explained the whole thing to my parents previously, so that they reacted with sympathy.  My father pointed out that the money spent on a lavish wedding reception was not entirely wasted, as we would be receiving many wedding presents from guests, and those from close family might well be in cash.  In addition, they themselves would start us off with one thousand pounds as a wedding present, and we could rely on that in our planning.

This meant that we could start house hunting again.  We had a rather precise idea by now of what kind of house we could afford, and we sought it within walking distance of one of a couple of Underground stations near North Wembley.  The houses were all rather similar and dull, but quite adequate for us to start married life in.

It wasn’t all as serious as that.  We both had full-time jobs, but our limited spare time together was used to the full.  He would fetch me from my work in the East End, and then we would go into town together.  Those were the days, not so long after the war, when Continental influence was beginning to be felt in England.  Instead of dull cafés and greasy spoon restaurants, cafés were beginning to open which had attractive decor and which served cappuccino coffee from imported machines.  True, the coffee cost ten pence instead of two, but you could sit in warm surroundings and chat.  It was a place for young couples just like us, and we took advantage of the development.  At week ends we were invited out to parties and dinner parties. 

Everyone in my large extended family asked me up with my new fiancé, and I was content to satisfy their curiosity.  I was pleased that Frank enjoyed meeting people and socialising with them; one of the drawbacks of my previous boyfriend was that he was often sullen and hated company.  There were lots of young people’s parties that winter and spring, too.  It was pleasant to have a steady partner to go with, instead of wondering each time whether one would meet someone worthwhile that evening.  I liked being engaged, and the problem of finding a home was only a slight shadow on what would otherwise have been a season of unalloyed joy.

The wedding day approached.  We actually found a house; semi-detached and in a close not far from Preston Road Underground station.  It was in a circular cul-de-sac, on a wedge-shaped plot, and without a garage, which of course didn’t matter as we wouldn’t be running a car anyway.  We started to negotiate the