FAMILY TIES

According to my birth certificate, I was born at the address of  Winterton Street, in the district of Whitechapel, in the east end of London, although this was only the first of many homes I have occupied throughout my life, of which the first six were before I had reached the age of ten.

Winterton Street has no memory for me.  One of my earliest pictures, taken during my first year, has me being held by my maternal great grandfather outside the home of my mother's parents.  We are seated outside their Bromehead Street home where for several years I can recall our sharing the Sabbath evening meal of the traditional Cholent with my parents and grandparents, but I suspect that great-grandfather had departed very soon after the photograph was taken.

An early immigrant - my great grandfather and me, 1930

 

My father, whose story appears elsewhere in this chronicle, had arrived from eastern Europe in his late teens, where employment had been found for him by his mother who had immigrated some years earlier, leaving her son to be raised by his uncle.  Hence his name had changed from Kirsch (his patronymic) to Zweben (his uncle's - and logically his mother's maiden - name) whereas his siblings had the name Kirsch. 

His employment was initially as a milk delivery man with my mother's father who provided an independent milk service from the premises at Bromehead Street.  Later he and my mother married, and they moved to Winterton Street and then to the more elegant Albert Square where my mother's brother Harold had a tailoring business.  My father started working for him as a tailor's presser: an occupation he retained for the rest of his life. (See pictures here.)