Evelyn describes how her family set up a furrier’s business in Glasgow
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INT: And after the war ended you would still have been at school.
E.S: Yes.
INT: What happened then?
E.S: After the war I, my father had a factory.
INT: He was a furrier did you say?
E.S: Yes, yes. But I went to the Art School, I went to a dress making school but my father said ‘Come to the factory, what are you wasting your time for? ‘What you doing?’
So I went to the factory and what a mess! Sorted all the furs out and then the pelts and everything, made patterns for the linings and it was good. And then I got married in ’53 and my father died in ’54. He was only 49.
INT: Oh dear.
E.S: And we had to keep the factory going. The workers were very helpful and we just kept going because we had to keep my mother, my young brother and we kept the factory going. But then I took ill and I had to leave and my brother carried on the factory and did well because everybody was helpful.
INT: That was your older brother then?
E.S: Younger.
INT: Oh the younger one?
E.S: He was barely, he would have been 19 in October, my father died in September.
INT: I see. Impressive. So you spent the rest of your life working in the factory?
E.S: Well I had to leave because I became ill.
INT: Right, right. And after that were you involved in voluntary work or were you a housewife?
E.S: Well I kept on working after… I had a child and I did help out in the factory for quite a while. When the kids were a little bit older I went back to the factory but that was because my father had died. I had to go to the factory.
INT: How did you meet your husband?
E.S: Well I went to Maccabi and that was where we met.
INT: And he wasn’t a refugee? He was a local Glasgow boy?
E.S: No he wasn’t. He was born in London (this is my first husband), born in London but he was evacuated during the war and his father came to Glasgow and they lived here. He worked in his father’s factory.
E.S: Now Benno Schotz wanted somebody to model and he did a head of my father and I filmed him working. But my brother has got all these things and I would think by now it will have all rotted.
INT: Really?
E.S: The films rot.
INT: It depends where you keep them. That’s amazing.
E.S: My brother has got the bust.
INT: Ah that’s fantastic.
INT: Fantastic.
INT: And he is in Glasgow your brother?
INT: I was just admiring the lace tablecloth as well because my grandmother used to make these beautiful tablecloths and it’s an art I think that we’ve lost.
E.S: Yes
INT: Among other arts.
INT: Among many other arts yes.