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Intelligence Squared
Michael Rosen on Hope, Happiness and Finding Joy in the Small Things (Part One)
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- [00:00]
Conor
Hi everyone. I'm Conor, head of Programming at Intelligence Squared. As we head into the festive season, what is for many of us, a time of comfort, celebration and gatherings round a table. Most of us won't think twice about the clean water running from our taps that make it all possible. But for millions of people around the world, this is something they simply don't have. That's why here at the Intelligence Squared podcast, we're proud to partner with WaterAid, a charity working to change this and to shine a spotlight on something that connects us all. In a special episode of our podcast, journalist Coco Khan speaks to Amica Godfrey, Water AIDS Executive Director of International Programs. Amica has spent more than 25 years working across the world in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. She shares powerful stories about how clean water keeps children in school, helps mothers support their families or run businesses and and unlocks potential for entire communities. To hear the full conversation, just search Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and listen to the episode titled Everything Starts with water released on 17th December. Listen to the full episode now on the Intelligence Squared Podcast.
- [01:16]
Sponsor/Announcer
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose bundle, home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Today's episode is part one of our recent live event with author, poet and broadcaster Michael Rosenberg. Rosen joined us at the Shaw Theatre to discuss grief, recovery, hope and how we can find meaning and happiness in everyday moments. Michael Rosen is beloved for his humor and humanity. The author of more than 200 books, including the children's classic We're Going on a Bear Hunt, he has in recent years become an eloquent voice on grief and how he lived with sadness. His writing on the death of his son and the near fatal battle with COVID he experienced became getting through it, a powerful one man show exploring love, loss and mortality. Let's join our host Elle Ostili Wood, presenter and broadcaster now with more.
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Elle Ostili Wood
Thrilled to be joined this evening by, let's face it, National Treasure. Yes, yes, I'm saying it. I know he hates it. National Treasure Michael Rosen. Of course you'll all be familiar, but an author A poet and former children's laureate. Much loved folks for his joyful take on life and his very playful humor. He has written over 200 books. I know everybody knew some of them.
- [03:00]
Michael Rosen
Very small, very short.
- [03:04]
Elle Ostili Wood
I just felt a wave of inadequacy wash through the room there. Felt a little bit like a slacker. And of course that includes the children's classic we are Going on a Bear Hunt, which I'm sure we all know and love. Of course, in recent years you've also become an eloquent and powerful voice on grief and sadness and the ways that we live with it. Your powerful writing about the death of your son Eddie, of course, and your own near death battle with COVID became Getting through it, which was an acclaimed one man show exploring love, loss and mortality. And in 2023, he was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize for what judges called a fearless body of work that provides a lesson in humanity.
- [03:49]
Michael Rosen
I thought it was for my fearless.
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Conor
Body.
- [03:52]
Michael Rosen
Fearless body of work on the next line. So I got that bit wrong. Yeah.
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Elle Ostili Wood
Well, tonight Michael is joining us to introduce his new book, Good An A to Z of Hope and Happiness, which I think we could all do with some of. And it's a celebration of the small things that bring joy and happiness as well as an exploration of the ways that we can live well even in difficult times. So before we get started, a quick reminder that we are going to have a minute meaty Q and A section. I know that you're all raring to ask questions, so we've got a big half an hour Q and A. So that will be at 8, so start thinking of your questions and we'll be passing a mic around in the audience for those. But I guess let's get started.
- [04:33]
Michael Rosen
Let's do it.
- [04:34]
Elle Ostili Wood
We've got a lot to talk about.
- [04:35]
Michael Rosen
Very good. Yep.
- [04:36]
Elle Ostili Wood
So let's start with your new book. How would you describe it?
- [04:40]
Michael Rosen
It's about hope and happiness. That's in the subtitle, isn't it? Yes. Well, I was thinking I'd been working on the book that came before it, which was called Getting Better. I know the show's called Getting through it, it's a bit complicated but getting Better. And I think the editor, the wonderful Robin, she thought I'd got better. And she said, well now you've got better. And I said, no, no, no, you go on getting better. You never get better, you just go on getting better. She said, well now if you've got better then maybe you could write about that. And I said, well, isn't anything to write, is there? You just say, I got better. And she said, no, try a bit harder. And so can you think of anything kind of, you know, hopeful, like hope? And I said, yes, okay, I'll try. And then we came up with this idea of an Alphabet. Nobody's ever thought of that before. An Alphabet. I didn't invent the Alphabet. I'll just clear that up. And I said, yes, I can do that. Because sometimes I find it very difficult to think of a whole thing. I'm very envious of people who can do a plot right the way from beginning to the end. You know, I think if you take somebody like Thomas Hardy and you take Far from the Mounting Crowd or Jude the Obscure or something, he must have thought it right the way through, mustn't he? I mean, well, he was an architect, but he must have thought it right the way through. And I find that quite difficult to do. So in fact, in the book L is for little by little. And the book was written little by little. And one of the ways to do little by little is as an Alphabet. And so you write A and then you kind of know that the next one's going to be B. So I kind of mapped it out a bit. I kind of had things where I thought I could do D for death, because that's very hopeful. And I had it there on a piece of paper and I'd move it round so there was a kind of map and then Z was there. It told me that was Zimmerman and Zephaniah. It just read that straight away. But I did write it in order of the Alphabet and I found that very easy. Well, it was easier to do than I thought. Yes.
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Conor
What was your.
- [06:52]
Elle Ostili Wood
And I know this is probably not how you write, but what was your aim for this? What did you want readers to take away with them when they had finished it?
- [06:59]
Michael Rosen
I know what, I don't want them to think that it's a book of blueprints. You know, these self help books that say when you get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say you're great. And then you look in the mirror and you think, actually, I'm not great, I'm actually crap. And there's not much point in shouting at the mirror, you're great, when I feel absolute crap. And so I thought, there's no point in writing a book like that. So I remember having a conversation with Robin like that. And I said, these aren't blueprints. Whatever it is, I'm writing about the idea is these are things that have made me happy and hopeful. And so maybe what they are, they will generate ideas. There will be more of a spark than a blueprint. There's a slogan there, isn't there? Sparks, not blueprints. I quite like that. Yes. So it's a book of sparks. I seem to remember us having a little machine in the physics lab where you wound something round and it sparked across. What was it called? That's it. That man there. The Van der Graaff Generator. Give that man a prize. You get a free book. Yeah. Anyway, it's a bit like that. The book is in fact a Van der Graaff generator, where you wind a little thing around that's you reading it, and then it goes pew. And sparks across. That's the idea behind the book. So I'm talking about things that have happened to me and so on. I'm thinking, well, that was good fun. So maybe you could have fun like that.
- [08:29]
Elle Ostili Wood
I'm going to jump into the beginning of the book.
- [08:31]
Michael Rosen
Yes.
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Elle Ostili Wood
Because you. You kind of open the book with the last line from Voltaire's Candide, which is, let us cultivate our garden.
- [08:38]
Michael Rosen
Yeah.
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Elle Ostili Wood
And I love that idea. You really play with it. You draw several meanings of it. So. So why did you start there?
- [08:44]
Michael Rosen
Right, well, shall we do a little test on the audience?
- [08:47]
Elle Ostili Wood
Let's do it.
- [08:47]
Michael Rosen
So you'll notice that Voltaire doesn't begin with the letter A. So you're already there, aren't you? And then we now move to Candide, and already you're there. That. That doesn't begin with the letter A either. So how come Voltaire's Candide, not Conde's Voltaire, but Voltaire's Candide is the first chapter in the book. So there's a little test for you there. How come it's an A? This is. It's a sort of only connect. Best of all possible worlds. Sorry, best of all possible worlds. That's a good try. But that begins with B or M in French. Yeah. Sorry, Abigail. Anagram. No, that would just be really cheating. Voltaire as in Aravidule or. Yeah. No. Does anyone know what Voltaire's name was? It does begin with A. Yes. He's onto it. That's right. This is like connect, isn't it? Only connect. The Victoria Corin thing. That's right. So his name was Arrouweh. R A, R, O, U, E, T. I wanted to start with Il faut cultivais notre jardin, because it's sort of that. It is. If you like the foundation of optimism, if you like the fact the subtitle in English, it wasn't in French, but it was to call the book optimism Candid or Optimism. And that this slogan at the end of the book sort of hangs over any discussions about how we can be happy people. So you have Plato and people like that, but Voltaire, by putting this at the end of the book, Condeed goes to all these terrible, terrible things, you know, the earthquake in Lisbon and terrible stuff. And then it gets to the end and there's this philosopher, Ponglos, who's wittering on away about how we live in the best of all possible worlds. And it clearly isn't. It's clearly rather awful. And then they turn to Candide and say, well, what do we do now? Sort of thing. And Condide says, il faut. Cultivate notre jardin. We, we must, or however you want to translate it, cultivate our garden. I remember in the sixth form, and I was quite a sort of yobi rebel. Six former. And I. I loved Condi. I just thought it was absolutely brilliant. And what a terrible letdown this last line is, that we've had this whole cataclysm in the world and what's going to happen? You just go and, I don't know, grow your garden. And I have to say, my father was an obsessive gardener and I hated it, you know, he'd go in the middle of the garden, he'd say, mick, that's what you'd call me, Mick, come and have a look at this Cotoneaster. And when you're 17 and as I say, a sort of yobby rebel Cotone asters, they don't really excite you very much. And your old man going, it's extraordinary, look at that cotoneaster. And he'd go over to the next one thinking, hope that would get me excited about his garden. And he never did. And I thought, what a letdown. And then, as you say, I muse about what it can mean. I mean, one thing it could mean is just. Well, the only thing you can do is just go out in the garden and be like my dad, who I never called dad, by the way. We were communists, so you had to call him Harold. It was all for the collective, you see, that you all had to be on the same level. Though mysteriously, it didn't include my mother, she was Mum. So not quite sure how that worked out. But anyway, it was just this thing that is that all you had to do to be happy was just to go in the garden and cultivate it. Or maybe I then muse on it and think, well, maybe it is more than that. Maybe it's metaphorical. I mean, it could be that what you've got to do is do your own thing, not just the garden, literally. So you should notice how I think metaphorically. It's extraordinary, isn't it? And. And then I thought, well, maybe even so, Voltaire was a deist. So Voltaire believed that God made the earth, did it all, and then cleared off and then leaves us to get on with it. So maybe it means that you cultivate the bit that's been left for us now that God's disappeared. So maybe it means the whole thing. And then I thought, well, the most famous garden, certainly in the 18th century, was the Garden of Eden. And the Garden of Eden is the sort of beginning of everything. And maybe Voltaire believed in that. I don't know. So maybe it's somehow or other we've got to get back. Because there is a whole feeling around between 1750 and 1850 that if we could all get back to this state of innocence, that then we'd be happy if we could just be innocent. You know, that was the idea of Wordsworth. The child is father to the man. If we could just get back to being children and running about in nature. And also Rousseau as well, saying this. So maybe it means that. And then I thought, well, maybe there's another meaning that comes from that that is a bit more in tune with now, that maybe it's that we've got to look after this earth. So maybe there's a kind of eco message in it which may not have been explicit then, but sort of creeps through into now. That il faut cultivais notre jardin could sort of mean that we've got to look after the earth, because if we don't, we're all screwed. It's not actually the way Voltaire puts it, but that sort of sense. So, yes, those are my musings under A. For arrouy. Yes, that's right. I like your anagram idea, by the way, but what a cheat that would have been. But anyway.
- [14:18]
Elle Ostili Wood
Yes, well, I mean, from. From Cultivation to Curiosity. This is one of my favorite chapters where you talk about curiosity, how your parents taught you the importance of curiosity. But also, and I love this idea that you talked about curiosity as a way of resting control back in a world where perhaps you can sometimes feel a little bit helpless, that it stops you from just being a passive victim of everything happening in the world.
- [14:43]
Michael Rosen
Yes, I mean, you could say there's education and education is this stuff you learn. And we now have what's called a knowledge rich curriculum. Some teachers in the audience getting very excited by that, just suddenly thought, yes, that's what we're in. That nice man, Mr. Gove, he gave us the knowledge rich curriculum. And you can say that's what education does. And the only problem about it is it doesn't leave much room. They've left less and less room in the curriculum for you to do anything for yourself, because it's being done to you. It's what used to be called the old jug and mug theory of education. The teacher is the full jug, the child's the empty mug, and then you pour the jug into the mug. The jug and mug theory of education. And we've sort of got to that where, you know, to a certain extent that's what we had in the 50s. And it's very easy to come out of that system or even just generally in life to just think, well, I'll just take what's thrown at me. And the problem with that is that it depresses you and oppresses you. At least that's how I feel, that whenever I feel I'm being passive, I get quite grumpy with myself. I may possibly get grumpy with people around me, one of whom is in the audience tonight. Hi Ems. And I'm sure she could concur with that. But if I feel that I'm being passive. So I'm always constantly looking for ways to be curious and to do something that is making me less passive, if you like. I mean, my parents were, I suppose, partly educated me in that. I mean, we used to go camping. I think it's in Marx, in Das Kapital somewhere. I mean, there were lots of these Marxist books on my parents shelves and I'm pretty sure that in Marx, in Das Kapital, possibly in the Grunt Risser, I'm not quite sure, but in Marx it says you must go camping. At least that's how my parents interpreted Das Kapital. And so we went camping. And also somewhere in it it said, you must go camping where it rains a lot. So we'd camp either on the Welsh borders or the North York moors, or if we went to France, we camped in the Jura Mountains. So it was always raining wherever we camped for at least three out of the four weeks, just non stop pouring with rain. The worst was the Jura Mountains, in fact, because it actually rained so much, a river came through My tent. And the old man thought that was brilliant. Harold thought this was great because he could get out his US army entrenching tool, he was in the American army, and say, this is great, I can dig a trench. Anyway, it didn't make any difference because he just overflowed the trench. But anyway. But they loved camping because you could be curious. So what that involved was reading an Ordnance Survey map. I don't know whether anybody here can do that. Yeah, there's a bit of excited groaning. Yeah. So he would say, con. That was my mother's name, Connie. Con. Con. This is really nice. The boys will like this. There's a tumulus. Do you know what a tumulus is? No. Anyway, never mind. So anyway, he'd say, there's a tumulus. So we'd walk for 10 miles, right, in the rain, getting completely soaked, and then suddenly we'd arrive at a hedge and my dad would say, I think it's here. And he'd peep over the hedge and he'd say, there, there's the tumulus. And it's just a bump, it's just a bump in the ground and it's a. There, that's a tumulus. It's probably Neolithic. And then, you know, you're nine years old and soaking and absolutely smashed and you're looking at this green bump. And he'd say, that's amazing, Con, isn't it? It's amazing. And then we'd walk another 10 miles and we'd get to an old barn or a church, you know, I mean, there's Jewish atheists, they love churches. And they'd walk into the church and go, extraordinary. That's hammer beam vaulting. That's extraordinary. Look. Look at the corbel heads. Look at the corbel heads. And, well, the only thing we liked about church, at least you could get dry for a bit. And they would have to walk another 20 miles home. So, anyway, so that's how I learned to love Das Kapital. And. But it was very. And I did catch the illness, that illness, the curiosity illness, from them. I remember once standing in a barn and looking up at the ceiling, and I've got my kids with me. And I said, wow, that beam, that must be. That must be about 600 years old. And my stepdaughter said, just because something's old doesn't mean it's good. I've hated her ever since for that. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's good. Of course, it's good if it's old. Anyway, I didn't manage to get them excited by that. By the old beams in a barn 500 years old. Yeah. So see, for curiosity. I do believe in it. Yeah, that's right. I did catch the illness from my parents. Yeah.
- [19:52]
Sponsor/Announcer
Foreign.
- [19:55]
Conor
Hi everyone. I'm Connor, head of programming at Intelligence Squared. As we head into the festive season, what is for many of us, a time of comfort, celebration and gatherings round a table. Most of us won't think twice about the clean water running from our taps that make it all possible. But for millions of people around the world, this is something they simply don't have. That's why here at the Intelligence Squared podcast, we're proud to partner with WaterAid, a charity working to change this and to shine a spotlight on something that connects us all. In a special episode of our podcast, journalist Coco Kahn speaks to Amica Godfrey, WaterAid's executive director of International Programs. Ameca has spent more than 25 years working across the world in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. She shares powerful stories about how clean water keeps children in school, helps mothers support their families or run businesses, and unlocks potential for entire communities. To hear the full conversation, just search Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and listen to the episode titled Everything Starts with water, released on 17 December. Listen to the full episode now on the Intelligence Squared podcast. If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify.
- [21:15]
Michael Rosen
You know that purple shop pay button.
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Conor
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Michael Rosen
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Michael Rosen
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- [22:09]
Elle Ostili Wood
So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text, but which u do you listen to? Is it we could buy a house.
- [22:16]
Conor
In Tulum.
- [22:19]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [22:23]
Elle Ostili Wood
We could lose everything.
- [22:27]
Michael Rosen
Or let's do a little research. Get your head in the trade and.
- [22:31]
Elle Ostili Wood
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- [23:12]
Elle Ostili Wood
I mean, not to sound like a therapist, but let's talk about your parents because, yeah, they are very present in this book, you know, in particular, as you said, their politics. And I loved your description of how they were at the Battle of Cable Street. You know, you talk about how they've influenced you. So, you know, tell us more. How have they shaped you in their politics?
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Michael Rosen
Yes, well, we have you for. No, it's not there. I had hoped I'd do the letters and people would jump back and me. You for union. Yeah, exactly. Somebody says, yes, obviously a shop steward in the audience. Yeah. So you for union and. Well, the story I tell is that my mother, we're sitting around the tea table and my mother, she did sort of run the tea table. She was, she was quite a sort of governor, what in Yiddish you'd call a gubber. A gubber is a sort of governor, it's the same sort of word. And she was quite a gubber at the tea table and she suddenly, I remember, opened an envelope, whether it was at tea time or at breakfast, I think it may have been at tea time. She opened the envelope and she held it up and she said, I'm 4/7 of your father. Which to an 8, 9 year old doesn't mean a lot. I mean, I was lousy at fractions anyway, so I'm not quite sure what she meant. And she said, yes, I've got my fourth increment still not very clear for a seven or eight year old. What had happened was that the National Union of Teachers had campaigned for equal pay for men and women prior to that. They thought that women didn't deserve equal pay, you know, which was a very good principle. Women shouldn't have the same money for doing the same things as men. And the nas, as it was then, thought that was brilliant. But the nut, which had a lot of women teachers in it, thought that was a bad idea and so they campaigned against it. And my parents were very militantly in favor of equal pay and then they said, yes, you've won Equal pay, Hooray, the government giving you equal pay but you can only have it in sevenths, which were called increments. And so I can remember my mum opening this envelope and saying, you know, I've got the fourth increment, you see, I haven't. Four, seven. And she did explain it to me and I didn't understand it but anyway she did explain it to me and she did explain other things as well. I mean she said that there was what was called the bus strike. That's all it was ever called, 1958, the bus strike. And I don't think it had ever happened before but all the London buses stopped and that meant that I had to ride to school in the car of the maths teacher, which was not great because I was absolutely terrible at maths. So I used to sit in the car dreading that he would ask me about quadratic equations if we'd got to them when I was 1958. But anyway, I just used to dread it that Mr. Ponce would suddenly go x squared plus y squared plus. Anyway, he didn't, which was fine, but quite some of the kids at Harrowd County Grammar School were complaining because that's what we were taught to do, remember by the newspapers. The greedy bus drivers were holding the country to ransom. And I came home talking to my Jewish Communist. No, they just left the Communist party by then, 1957. And I said, my mate Dave says that the greedy bus drivers are holding the country to ransom. And it didn't go down very well. That one didn't go down too well. Mum looked at me and she used to say things sort of slightly sideways, my mother, and she said, oh well, you'll have to put money in the bucket. So she jumped a bit, you know. Are you following me? No, I didn't follow either. No, what it meant, I said, what bucket? And she said the bucket outside Harrow Wheeled Bus Garage. And I said how do you know there's a bucket? I said, well of course there's a bucket, it's the strike fund. So she said you'll have to go and put money in the bucket. So this was my first training in trade union activity and so I had to go with the 10 bob note. And in my Harrowield county. What did I say? HWCGS County Grammar School uniform with my cap. I strolled up to the bus garage where of course there was a picket line and they looked at me and then I dropped a 10 bob note in the bucket and there was a kind of sort of jovial look at why I was doing this and I didn't have to explain myself, but I just did that and went home. And then Mum gave me a lecture about solidarity and one for all, and then my father and all for one. I missed that bit out, sorry. And then my dad explained that his. The way he learned about trade unions was from his grandfather. Now, his grandfather only partially spoke English. He spoke English, Polish and Yiddish. And he said that when my father had asked him, what is a union? And my father said he quite affectionately imitated his grandfather or his Zada, as you'd say in Yiddish, he said, voss is a union. Voss is a union. You take van match you can break, two, match you can break, three, match you can break, but the whole box of matches you can't break. That's his voss as a union. So anyway, he said that the only slight problem with that is it's the same image as I think the fascists use. But anyway, this was before fascism had fully reared its ugly head. But anyway, so I think that's the principle of the fast gaze that the Romans hold. So anyway, it's the same idea that you can't break all the sticks. Anyway, this had obviously carried into the 1890s Trade union movement of Poland, or the Jewish trade unions, which was called the Bund. And there was my dad telling me, and now I'm telling you. So I'm carrying over a piece of union wisdom from the 1890s in Poland into the Shore Theater in 2025. It's quite extraordinary, isn't it? So there and then my mother, basically, she thought the tea table was a good environment for lecturing us on the Battle of Cable street, the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of the Bulge. So she would move the things around and so, Battle of Cable street, just in case you don't know, there was this man called Sir Oswald Mosley, and his idea was to bring the people called the British Union of Fascists to march through the East End of London, which was a largely Jewish area. But he wasn't anti Semitic. That's a joke, by the way. And it wasn't provocation at all. And he was going to march down Cable street with his nice little chaps in uniform. And then the people in the East End had a different idea. They thought that if they stood in the way, he wouldn't be able to walk down there. So they all assembled quite spontaneously at Gardiner's Corner. But then the police had yet another idea, that Mosley had the right to do it. So they spent all day Charging the people standing at Gardiner's Corner. There were about 200,000 people, maybe, I don't know, 10,000 cops. And they did. The police didn't win the day. They kept bashing people with batons. And Mosley was standing in Mansell street near the Tower of London and he never got the okay to march. So my parents were at the Battle of Cable Street. I often think. Yes. No, I think it was their first date, actually. I mean, you know, when you look at your parents and I mean, just imagine now, your parents and you think of their first date, what comes up to your mind? Are they dancing, you know, in the moonlight? Are they. What about your parents? What are they doing? Your parents are. Yeah.
- [30:49]
Elle Ostili Wood
I mean, I think they were at a gig. I think they went to see maybe Stevie Wonder.
- [30:53]
Michael Rosen
Oh, my God. It's wonderful, isn't it? Yes. What about. What about you? What about your parents? What were they doing on the front row here? Yes.
- [31:01]
Elle Ostili Wood
Any answers?
- [31:02]
Michael Rosen
Any thoughts? Do you know what your parents are doing? Oh, it's Robert. Oh, hello, Robert. How are you doing, schmils? Are you all right? Yes. Do you know what your parents were doing on their first night? They were in. In Palestine. Extraordinary. What were. Yes, right. What were they doing? Dancing. No. Being Zionists. Yes. Robert, behave, all right? Just behave. I've known Robert for a long time. He features in this book, but disguised. Okay. So I just. He never behaves, ever. I went to medical school with him. Yeah. No, don't laugh, please. Yeah, we were at medical school together and he disrupted my whole life. He basically ruined my life for me and now he's doing it again. So. Anyway, I've warned you. That's right. Somebody else. Yeah. First date of your parents. Yes. At a Communist Party party. That sounds exciting as well. Yes. Was it. Was it a Communist Party bazaar where they sold. No, A Saturday night party, some kind of rave where they sang Kalinka. Kalinka. Kalinka. Kalinka. Yeah, yeah. Red army songs, that sort of thing. Yeah, lovely. Well, anyway, my parents. It was the Battle of Cable Street. The only thing is that as my mother moved the Mosley to there and then moved the. The masses here, and then the police are coming in. That's her glasses. You can see they're coming in from there. She pointed out that her and Harold got caught on the wrong side of the barricades. There was a side street and there were all these barricades that the East Enders put up because they thought that Mosley might come, but so they were slinging beds and bicycles and tables, you can see the photographs. And bus got turned over, or the bus driver turned it over. Anyways, a lot of argument about that. There was a tram got stuck, inverted commas. Anyway, my parents got stuck on the wrong side of the barricade and they looked round and the Mounties, the mounted police, were coming for them and they had what Americans call nightsticks, the Brits, they were from the Indian army, not the little hand battens, but the great big long sticks. And they were coming towards Harold and Connie and they were coming towards them like that. And then they were getting very scared and then a door opened and Harold and Connie were pulled into the house and so they didn't get wallet. But whenever my parents told the story, they would always finish it by saying, and so we were on the wrong side of the barricades. And then everyone would laugh and I'd think, well, why is that funny anyway? It's a. It's a saying, you know, to be on the wrong side of the barricades. And they. They seem to think that was very funny and so did everybody else. But anyway. And my mum told these stories on the. On the kitchen table. So I was talking about education earlier and the idea about not being passive. And I often think about the education I was getting. I mean, there was the tumulus, obviously, the green bump, but also I was getting Cable street and Vosses, a union, so I was getting that as well. I was also getting the. The sweat baths. The story of the sweat bath. They're called the Schwitz in Yiddish, so sometimes called Russian baths, sometimes called Turkish baths. And my dad did a whole routine about going with his zaida to the Schwitz. And apparently when you went. Because they didn't have a bath in the house, so when you went to the public bath, they didn't let you use the taps. Yeah, the taps were outside your cubicle so they could control the amount of hot water that you got. Did you get the picture? You say you're in a bath and then the taps are outside and then you call for the lady or the man to turn on the hot water for you. And my dad said he'd go with his aider, you see, and then he would hear all these old Yiddish guys, these old Polish Yiddish guys sort of up along the road calling out because the cubicles were open, and he'd hear an old guy going, a little bit more hardwasseh number three, please, you see? And there'd be a pause and then suddenly you go, a tuhaday lazada and then it'd be another long pause and then it'd go ah. Anyway, that was one of my dad's routines. I'm reproducing from 1925 for you so it's a hundred year old Schwitz from from the East End of London.
- [35:34]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [36:31]
Michael Rosen
Choose a meal deal with McValue, the $5 McChicken meal deal, the $6 McDouble meal deal or the new $7 Daily Double meal deal, each with its own small fries, drink and Four Piece McNuggets. There's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only. Parts of the participation may vary.
- [36:45]
Conor
Not to alter McDelivery.
- [37:01]
Sponsor/Announcer
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