Languages

Of course I grew up speaking and understanding Manchester English, with its strong past tenses like lit and learnt instead of lighted and learned, and its many minor dialect words. I'm especially fond of mi for my and cling to it, and thi for 'the' before a vowel. We heard very plummy queen's English on my grandparents' television, as when we saw Muffin the Mule on a weekend evening, and understood that too, stilted though it seemed. Both these programmes appeared when I was very young, before 1955, along with Andy Pandy and Bill and Ben. My grandparents owned a television, and I often stayed with them at weekends. My grandfather was Manchester born, whilst my grandmother was a country girl from north Cheshire.
I was also aware of Italian, as that was the language that my mother spoke with her Italian friends, Franca, Anna, Maria and Pierina and several others, who had come to England as brides of British servicemen. She didn't speak it to us, but she sometimes used interesting vocabulary, anglicised Italian terms such as bifurcation for a road junction, and using 'nervous' in its Italian sense of ratty or worried, not quite the same as in English usage, all of which helped me to develop my sense of language and my love of words and etymology.
A new language came into my experience when I was ten and heard and saw Latin in church services. This fascinated me. as did foreign alphabets and foreign handwriting.
When I was a sixth-former at St Bede's one of our duties was to take turns in reading from the bible each day to all the fellow students before dinner from a pulpit set high up in the wall above them in the refectory—pronounced distinctively with the stress on the first syllable, a Roman Catholic public school tradition we were told. It was in this role that I began to clean up my accent, attempting to emulate standard Southern English. I remember Father Jackson, the bursar, complimenting me on my efforts, but pointing out sensitively that 'put' was definitely not pronounced like 'pat'.
At school I studied Latin and French. I still have my stolen copy of Flecker and Macnutt's 'Concise Latin Grammar', which was the main tool of teaching, and which we spent many hours memorising. There was a monthly test, followed by a 'walk past' of all the boys in the year in the Great Hall, and boys who failed this test had to remain standing in a straight line on the stage in front of the school's rector, Monsignor Duggan. I don't know if there was a punishment for failing, as for once I didn't fail any of these monthly tests, but I should imagine that in accordance with the spirit and traditions of the school boys who failed received six lashes on their palms from the priestly Prefect of Discipline on his daily rounds. I never really got to internalise the language and enjoy it, and struggled when we had to study the first book of Virgil's Aeneid for GCE O-levels, but the language did come into its own with me when I started to study Italian independently when I was about fourteen, taking my O-level in my first year in the Sixth Form.
French was also pretty badly taught, and I didn't get a feel for the language in the first year, when the master was a dour Irish priest who obviously did not enjoy his task. The priest in the second year was more enthusiastic, but the turning point came when I received a fluke high score in a test, when one of the questions was something like being asked to list first conjugation verbs, and I listed quite a few. This gave me confidence, and I thereafter was 'good' at French.
When I went into the Sixth Form I was interviewed about my choice by the rector, the same Monsignor Duggan. I had an unusual and unique request: I wanted to study French and Latin, as I wanted to follow a career in modern languages. "Languages?", was his astonished retort, "There's no future in modern languages." So I was refused the Latin, which was suitable only for those studying Greek as well, and had to study History, which I had just failed at O-level—History was another subject that was extremely badly taught, although the teacher was a personable chap when persuaded to stray from the subject. I didn't do too well at A-level History, taught by Father, soon after Bishop, Burke, but I did well at university and received my postgraduate degree in it. I can claim the credit for that, but it did teach me that I didn't always need a teacher, and I could be my own best teacher in many subjects. My knowledge of Latin also came in useful when I mastered the skill of reading and understanding medieval documents.
My knowledge of Italian improved tremendously thanks to weekly visits to Manchester Central Library in the evening to use their Linguaphone Italian course on their reel-to-reel machines, followed by a long visit to Monza in 1966 when I spent much time with my very young half aunt and half uncle, as well as a seaside holiday with other cousins, both Italian and French. I spent over a week travelling back alone through France, a brave venture, but it forced me to communicate as best as I could. I was only just sixteen. Two years later I passed my O-level, and sustained my interest. I began to read Italian books, struggling at first, but I had crossed the first barriers, and didn't look back, maintaining my contact with Italian, speaking it with relations, reading newspapers and books, especially the books of Primo Levi that I bought on holiday there.
French was one of the six subjects that I studied for my first degree at Exeter university. Here we studied French literature, which helped me to develop my vocabulary as well as my understanding, but at the end of the second year I opted to spend the summer vacation training and working as an animateur in a colonie de vacances. The training was wonderful, with students from all over the world, and I celebrated my twenty-first birthday with them. Working with young boys in the Jura, in the foothills of the Alps, improved my fluency in spoken French enormously. Afterwards I hitched to my grandfather's home at Peschiera and improved my Italian, then left for Lyon for a course at the university, but was stricken with appendicitis and had to fly back suddenly to England the day after I arrived.
Hebrew gradually entered my repertoire over the years. I had started studying it on my own early in 1960 when only ten years old, when I bought 'Teach Yourself Hebrew' with Christmas money from my Italian grandparents. I dabbled in classical Hebrew on and off over the next dozen years, then when at the university of Leicester or Southampton I started to study modern Hebrew with the help of their language laboratory which was free to use. When eventually in 1979 I went to Israel, I opted early in 1980 to study modern Hebrew in an intensive course on a kibbutz where we worked half the day and studied the other half. The teacher, Uzi, was superb: intense, focussed, persistent and a good follower of the direct method—he taught totally in Hebrew, which made good sense as between us in the class we spoke English, Russian, French and other languages. We learnt our grammar, our vocabulary, our reading and writing skills, including handwriting.  When after almost six months we moved to the northern town of Ma'alot we spoke modern Hebrew as our daily means of communication. I was fortunate that after working for a while as borough engineer with Mark, a South African, he left and I worked alone, with staff whose only other language was French, as they were mostly of Moroccan origin. At the same time I became involved with a synagogue where I went most Saturdays, and became familiar with the language of prayer, which is the Hebrew of a later period than the bible, and whose grammar reflects. I also began to become acquainted with the Hebrew of the bible, and over the years I have become confident and proficient in reading and understanding this, a rare and precious skill of which I am proud. Over the past thirty years I have chanted frequently from Torah scrolls, but the turning point was in 1980 whilst in Israel, when I worked my way through the entire book of Ruth—and understood it. In Devon I used to study each week's Torah reading with my friend, the scholar Harry Freedman. I also learnt how to chant services using the traditional tunes, whether for the sabbath, the festivals, or the high holydays, all of which helped me to internalise and understand the language.
I love language, I love being able to express myself in different languages. It made a huge difference during the ten years we owned a cottage in France that I could communicate freely and fully in French. It was similar in Italy, and the pleasure was very much in being able to participate fully in the life of those places, to deal with problems and make friendships. Languages can have a magical power of transformation: I remember sitting round the table with French and Italian cousins where we all passed between all three languages fluently, and one cousin remarked to me—I forget in which language—"You know Frank, when you switch language your personality subtly changes too." I noticed it too when I attended that original training course in France in 1970, when speaking French constantly became a liberation for me, when my personality was able to bloom, explode even, through this new and exciting medium.

Death

I was born just over nine months after the death of my baby sister, and I was aware from an early age that I owed my life to her. That wasn't a problem, but it gave me a loyalty to her and her memory. There was a Tunbridge ware casket that lived on the tallboy in my parents' bedroom that contained her personal items, such as her nappy and little knitted jacket. It was locked and I think I only saw the contents once when I was very young. There were the stories of her illness and death, attending the Duchess of York Children's hospital in Manchester where, my parents believed, she caught the chill that led to the pneumonia that killed her, aged ten months, in 1948. I knew that my father had sung 'Silent Night' to her to try and calm and comfort her. I knew that Mr Berry next door had come round to take her photograph as she was dying. I heard how she had been nursed by my father but he had been unable to stop her crying, so that he handed her to my mother and she then died in her arms. I knew that my parents had carried her small coffin on their knees in the hearse on the journey to the cemetery at Weaste. They had little money, and her death was unrecorded on the tombstone until I paid for the inscription to be added when I was a student in about 1970.

I was excluded from my great grandmother's death and funeral in November, 1960, though I did not know why. I was very aware of my maternal grandmother's death six months earlier, though that happened far away in Italy. I do not recall the first funeral that I attended, though it may have been the Muslim burial of the father of my parents' friend Hosney. I had often visited churches and churchyards though, visiting family graves, usually as a consequence of my growing fascination with the history of my father's family. When thirteen or fourteen I cycled to Leek, Meerbrook, Astbury and Knutsford where many of my ancestors were buried. I was aware of the death of Mary Sarah, my great grandfather's older sister who died aged 16 in Knutsford, and who was still talked about.

All this must have contributed to a growing interest in death in all its aspects. I visited graveyards in France and Europe with my camera whilst a student. In 1970 or thereabouts I went for the day to Trieste and explored and photographed the graveyards of all the different faith communities. 
I visited my grandfather in Devon when he was dying in 1972, and sat next to his bed and listened as he revisited his childhood and told me about his mother, their servant Prissie who was a Warburton cousin, and his running late to Princess Road School in Moss Side, Manchester, as his mother usually overslept. I attended his funeral, and saw my grandmother's grief when his coffin was lowered into his grave.
Some months later I returned to Devon to visit my grandmother and listened to her for over an hour as she talked about my grandfather, and at the end she thanked me for listening, saying that she had wanted so much to talk about him, but that people always stopped her as they thought talking about him would upset her. I had discovered quite by accident that the bereaved need to talk about their loss.
A couple of years later I became a lecturer at Hertfordshire College of Building, and part of my work was to design and teach General Studies modules to students from all branches of the construction industry. One of these modules was entitled 'Death and Dying', and it proved surprisingly popular, and I did my research for this, and approached the topic sensitively. These may have been tough lads, but many had experienced death, including the students who died in motorbike accidents that they knew. This had led to me offering a module in 'Motorcycle Safety' which also proved popular.

It was at this time that I bought my first home, a ground floor maisonette in Vernon Close, St Albans. I held a housewarming party, but was distressed afterwards to learn that my immediate ground floor neighbour was a lady who was terminally ill. Another neighbour was Miss Alice Brockbank, in the first maisonette in the immediately adjacent block, and after a tricky start we became good friends. She gave me my copy of Manzoni's 'The Betrothed' which I have still, and which I have just taken off my shelf to examine.

Miss Brockbank was in her 80s, and increasingly frail, so that I did little jobs to help her, even making her comfortable in bed by adjusting her pillows. Eventually she went into hospital, and requested no visitors. I think that this happened while I was away, but upon my return to Vernon Close I went to the hospital and asked if she would see me. She agreed, and I spent a little time talking with her, and eventually when I rose to leave I kissed her on the cheek. She thanked me, and said she hadn't ever been kissed before.

I was away again for a week or so, but upon my return to St Albans I returned to the hospital, and the matron took me aside and said that Miss Brockbank had died. I was saddened by the news, and wept quietly, but glad that I had reached out to her and given her some comfort in her lonely old age. I recently found the kind letter that her niece wrote to me thanking me.

In 1979 I left the college and went to Israel. For a while I lived at Kibbutz Ein Hashofet whilst studying Modern Hebrew, but also worked on the carpenters' workshop – with local Arab craftsmen - where I repaired damaged dining room chairs, but also when required I built a simple, wooden coffin when a member of the kibbutz died. The tradition for all Jews is to have a simple, unpretentious burial. Coffins, if used, and they often aren't in Israel, are very plain and unornamented.

It was in 1981 that I went to live in Bideford, and also became involved with the Exeter synagogue. At first I just supported Harry Freedman in promoting the Sabbath services, producing a regular newsletter, but I also started organising and leading the annual Passover seder, and parties for the community to mark the festivals. Then when Derrick Boam stood down as president, he and his wife asked me to succeed him.
We became friends with Gilad and Nancy, and when Gilad lost his kidneys I visited him almost daily in hospital. When a transplant failed I was there too, holding him down when powerful drugs were used to try and prevent his body rejecting the transplant. When Nancy had a breakdown Gilad came to live with us when he came out of hospital, and it fell to me to nurse him. He was often close to death, not least when a second transplant failed. I got to know other patients who were going through the same challenges. Once I called in to see a patient I knew who had had a transplant, but that too had failed. he was alone in his room, sinking rapidly, but full of morphine. I shall never forget the terrible fear in his eyes as he struggled, alone in his room. I stayed with him and held his hand till his young wife arrived. I felt then that people should not be alone when they are dying, and that morphine isn't always for the benefit of the patient, but often used because others cannot cope with the reality of death and its emotional pain.

It would be in about 1986 that I received a phone call from the Rowcroft Hospice in Torquay, and I visited Jock who was dying of a brain tumour, leaving a wife and two young sons, and it fell to me to officiate at his funeral after his death. Over the past thirty years I must have officiated at scores of Jewish funerals, both burials and cremations. Cremations are not part of traditional Judaism, but I used to justify the practice with the comment that we were a very long way from London. I travelled to crematoria in Taunton, Exeter, Barnstaple, Plymouth and Truro, and to burials throughout the South West. I officiated at a few funerals for non-Jewish people at families' requests. I was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Cremation Society when it met in Torquay.

Gradually I improved what I was able to offer, and eventually re-established after a gap of decades the chevra kadisha, the burial societies for men and for women, who voluntarily wash bodies and prepare them for burial in the traditional ritual manner. I learnt how to do this, and passed on the skills to other men in the congregation. I also visited many dying people after Jock, being with them when they died, and allowing people to make their peace and die. This was not easy, as many of these people were already known to me, some were my friends, and all had a story that was touching. I sat with Ralph Collett in the hospital when he was dying, and when he stopped breathing I recited the shemà and waited quietly with him for a little while.
It was about this time that I lost two personal friends. With David Hill I had set up the Exeter branch of the Council of Christians and Jews, but increasing pain in his hip led to the discovery that he had cancer. I visited him in hospital that day, and that was the first and only time that I referred to cancer as a fight, and always regretted it and have never made that mistake again. I think I learnt that from John Diamond writing about his cancer in The Times in the late 1990s. I knew I had made a mistake saying it to David, but we remained friends, and I was able to spend time with him in hospital just chatting and sharing. When people are approaching death the barriers come down, especially between men. We were able to confide in each other and share. I spent a night with David at the very end of his life, when the cancer had reached his brain and he was no longer able to see or speak, but he could communicate by writing on scraps of paper. That was a difficult night but a precious one. David's Roman Catholic funeral took place in the large Anglican parish church, concelebrated by several priests – David, who was born Jewish but later raised a Catholic, was in minor orders – and I was honoured to be asked to deliver the eulogy.
Not long afterwards I lost another good friend, and neighbour, David Wagg. I visited him in hospital when he was diagnosed with liver cancer, and we stayed friends when he and his family moved home in preparation for the future. We called round and were unafraid to keep in contact. When I was asked to deliver the eulogy at his funeral in the same parish church, because of my persistent friendship and support, it came as a shock. I had not realised that many people stay away from the dying.

As part of my commitment to the Jewish community I took responsibility for the repair and maintenance of the historic cemetery at Bull Meadow in Exeter, having gates made, the walls rebuilt, the mortuary chapel reconstructed after its destruction. I made provision for the interment of ashes in a corner of the cemetery. I negotiated the acquisition of a new cemetery for Jewish burials at Exwick. I learnt to chant the traditional prayers, especially the 'El Male Rachamim' prayer. I leaned to be flexible and creative, as when I arrived at Barnstaple to take a funeral and discovered the very elderly person who died had been learning disabled, as were most of the mourners. The service included singing 'All things bright and beautiful' and at the committal everybody waved goodbye.
A few months ago I was able to be with my own mother as she was dying. I had only just left hospital myself after four months there, and my immune system was very weak still after the intensive chemotherapy, but I sensed that it was my last chance and so it proved. I told my family to tell her I was coming, to raise her spirits, which it did. The journey by train was awful: the main line from Birmingham was closed, and I had to travel on terribly overcrowded small, country trains, via Weston-super-Mare, Newport, Abergavenny, Shrewsbury and Crewe. I was glad I had booked assistance, and for my travelling companions: three of us with disabilities travelled together in a corner of the train next to the guard van, and even had to leave the train through his door at Newport because of the overcrowding. The journey took a difficult six hours.
I went straight to my mother in hospital in my brother's car to spend the afternoon with her. I went back in the evening, and was joined by my son when he arrived from London, staying late together with her. Early the next morning we were both with her at the hospital till he left to return to London. I stayed till other family arrived, ten of them, to be with her through the day. I returned alone for the evening, and that Saturday was to be her last evening, and the last time I saw her alive. She was distraught with thirst when I arrived, her tongue dry and swollen, but I managed to give her moisture in the form of blood orange juice with the help of special small sponges on short sticks, and this calmed her. I talked to her in Italian, and she was able to communicate a little with me, expressing her pain at some of her recent experiences. I was unhappy with the lack of care and support in the hospital, and even asked if there was the possibility of her being moved to a hospice. I had a brainwave, and with the help of my mobile phone I was able to play to my mother a recording of Giuseppe di Stefano singing 'Core 'ngrato', a song with a special resonance for my mother, both for the singer, her favourite, and the words, about a girl called Catarì, an abbreviation of Caterina, her own mother's name, a song that I remember made her cry when she heard it, remembering her own mother. She mouthed every single word of the song.
I held her hand and she fell asleep, finally calm. I left her before midnight, and at 6am we received a call from the hospital. We returned immediately but of course she had already died. I was comforted though by the comfort I had been able to give her.

It was thus over a long period that I lost much of my fear around death and dying. I developed an adage in response to questions: 'Dying can be difficult, but death itself is actually easy in most cases.' It is this background that colours my attitude to my own death. I do not believe in heaven or an afterlife, and feel no need for them. I am happy that I have been able to live a good and full life, to have achieved much in my small way, especially to have touched other people's lives, and to have been touched by them. I am sad to be leaving the party early, it is such a wonderful party, life is still full and exciting for me, and I wish I had time to do more, to complete what I started, but I am grateful to have been allowed some extra time in which to tidy things up. I have been busy helping to make arrangements for my own funeral, and am honoured at some of the things that will happen, and am touched at people's kindness. I have been granted the privilege of hearing many good things, of being in contact with many people whose friendship or acquaintance I value. But I still wish the party didn't have to end quite yet.