INT: Did you find it easy to integrate into Scottish society, or did you feel different?
ED: Jewish society or anything?
INT: Jewish and the wider society.
ED: Well, the wider society, I went back to work when we had another…
INT2: You had a son in between all that.
ED: A son in between, I didn’t work for five years and Lil was about four, five years, and Tony was two years, two, three years, and I was working at that time. Michelle was born in Scotland. Yes, she’s a Scottish lass.
INT: Ah, that’s nice. And the people here, were they welcoming?
ED: The people here, well, the people here, the neighbours were nice, where we were in Loughborough. We didn’t know many people, but the house we rented was from a Jewish woman and we had, David had a friend who was Jewish and he was working with him in Loughborough, and his family, and they came and saw us. With two small children, there wasn’t really much chance to go and socialise or do anything, especially when we were strangers to, let’s face it, to the Jewish community as well. I don’t think they took to us very much. We were just as foreign as anyone else, you know? People from Baghdad, you know, that was a different world.
INT2: You weren’t there for that long, because you were in Sandhurst for eight or nine years.
ED: Yes, well I’m just abridging a bit. We were in Sandhurst.
INT2: But that was a big bit.
ED: That’s a big bit, yes, we went from Loughborough to Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, and Tony was born there, and then David, you know, had to move in the job. He was offered a good job in Sandhurst and we moved to Sandhurst for a few years, there, for five, six years. Tony was going to school and Lil was just going to grammar school, and David was offered a very, very promoted job, by an American firm, Honeywell, very well…you see Honeywell boxes everywhere, and he worked there and I was working as well, but I stopped when Michelle came.
And then he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t take the American way of life. It was a rat race, whatever he did wasn’t enough and it was a very worrying job, and he became really ill. So, he had to just leave. He just couldn’t take any more, he was very, very ill. So I was working and we managed, took Michelle to nursery school, while he recuperated a bit