My mother, Gerda Laura
Clara Alice Sloan, nee. Friedman.
In 2017 I stayed with a friend, Steve Shalet, at his home in
Derbyshire. (We were fellow medical students in London in the 1960s). He knew I liked writing and that I found
writing therapeutic. He told me he had written about his two children and that
he had restricted himself to three A4 sheets. I found his essay poignant and
contained an account that could not be easily made verbally. He suggested I
ought to do a similar thing about my mother after I had described some of
experiences of her being a German refugee with a medical qualification coming
to England in 1938.
My mother was born in Berlin and her parents, Richard and
Lilly) were very wealthy and of Jewish background. She was the youngest of
three and she and her brothers, Herbert and Ernst, were educated in their early
years by an English governess, Miss Henderson. They could all speak very good
English. They lived in a luxurious house in the diplomatic area of Berlin. She
had a good education and studied medicine in the University of Berlin. Hitler
rose to power and she and some of her friends had to wear a yellow armband at
medical school because they were of the Jewish race, However, my grandparents
and their children were brought up worshiping in the Lutheran church. My
grandfather had significant business interests in England and moved to become a
naturalized citizen of Great Britain in 1933 as did Lilly, his wife. They had a
flat in Maida Vale in London
My mother was determined to complete her medical studies and
obtained her Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1938. She left Germany immediately
after qualifying and only just escaped the country in time to save her life. Her
parents had moved from London to Harrogate and my mother joined them there. The
British Government announced that foreign doctors had to requalify by re-taking
the final examination. She passed the conjoint finals (MRCS, LRCP) in
Edinburgh. I thought that was very impressive. Shortly after passing those
exams, the government announced that there was no longer any need for German
doctors to retake them!
She applied for about three hundred jobs and got nowhere. My
father (who was a General Practitioner in Airedale, Castleford, Yorkshire) was
in the middle of a very difficult divorce and had advertised for an assistant.
He read my mother’s application and said to a friend “I only hope she is not
good looking.” They were married in 1944 and nearly one year later I was born.
For the duration of the war she was under a curfew and was not allowed out in
the evenings or at night. A policeman would check on her every evening and
joined my parents for a relaxing cup of tea.
My mother thought this was a great luxury for a GP – not to be allowed
out at night. My father must have done all the night visits.
What always amazed me was how the people of Airedale and
Castleford took to my mother, a German in the second world war. This was
because she was a refugee but also because she was so kind and caring to her
patients. She was so thankful that Great Britain took her in and let her do the
job of her dreams. Their housekeeper, Mrs. McGrath, had a son, Harry, who was a
prisoner of war in Germany in the war and contracted TB there. He eventually
died as a result of that disease in the early 1960s. Harry never had an ill
thought about my mother and indeed used to drive her or my father occasionally.
My mother was a modern woman. She was the first woman in
Castleford to wear trousers (slacks). She was a cultured woman and took us to
the ballet, musicals in London and she read widely. She was a good bridge
player and liked to bet on the horses (she had a horse when she was a young
girl).
I saw how the war affected my mother for the rest of her
life. She had problems sleeping and like she did in the war, listened to the
news all the time on the BBC world service during the night. She knew that if
Hitler had won that she was on a death list. She had a serious guilt complex
that she had survived and had not died in a concentration camp. Her grandmother’s
cousin Peter died in Auschwitz in 1943, I cannot imagine what it must feel like
to have to leave one’s country.
Her parents moved back to London after the war ended. In
1953 her father died suddenly and shortly afterwards her mother, Lilly,
committed suicide by cutting her wrists in the bath. I was 8 years old. I think
they told me they had both died but I really can’t remember. I wonder if this
was psychological repression. My paternal grandfather died about that time also
and I know they did not tell me about that for a year. I cannot remember either
of my parents being at all upset and my happy childhood simply continued.
Lilly, liked my mother was a very loving person. My mother’s father was a
gambler, drinker and womaniser. He was a character and I loved hearing the
stories about him. We will never know why Lilly committed suicide. This selfish
act had a considerable effect on my mother magnified by the fact that one of
her brothers blamed her for not getting to her mother in London quickly enough
after her father’s death. This added to her already significant guilt complex
as a survivor of the war. She drank too much alcohol but mainly in the
evenings. The drinking did not affect her job. My father was a tea totaller!!
She developed oesophageal varices and had cirrhosis of the liver when she died
in 1990 aged 77. I regret the rows we had in her later life about her excessive
drinking. I wanted her to be well and loved her. I forgave my mother everything
because she deeply loved my father, her mother and me.
My mother was a very loving and generous person and not just
to me. She always supported me as did my father until his death in 1966. I was
petrified that my mother would commit suicide after my father’s death. They
bought me a car when I became a student in 1963 and my mother bought me two
further cars later. In 1970 when Felicity and I married she gave us a house she
owned as a wedding gift. When I got a job as a GP in Cheltenham my mother moved
down there to be near me. My second wife, Kath, and I sold that house and I
bought a flat in Budleigh Salterton in Devon. The sale of that flat funded our
setting up a General Practice from scratch in Airedale, Castleford, after my
mother had retired. When I moved from Cheltenham back to Castleford my mother
moved there to be near us.
Building up the practice was very difficult. Of course all
my new patients had to come from neighboring practices. At one point my mother
broke her agreement with her former partner not to practice again in Castleford
for 5 years after retirement and helped me out when I was under great stress.
She actually became my medical partner for over a year. Consequently, her
former partner served an injunction on her and we had to close the practice for
a couple of weeks. My mother would be proud that Kath and I built up a thriving
training practice which won awards and ended up with a huge building with 19
consulting rooms. Kath was the practice manager. Our family had a street named
after it – Sloan place – which I drive past every day. Kath and my parents are
commemorated on the Foundation Wall of the Royal College of General
Practitioners.
My mother lived alone from 1966 to 1990. She led a full life
after my father died with holidays, friends, playing bridge, betting on the
horses etc. I have learned a lot from her and others about how to cope with
bereavement and living alone. Towards her end of life in November 1989 I sat
with her in the nursing home. She could not communicate. On the TV in her room
footage was being shown of the Berlin wall coming down. How she would have
loved to see that momentous event.
Her ashes were buried in a joint grave with my father’s in
Putney Vale Cemetery, London. Her parents’ ashes are in the adjacent grave. It
was at the request of my father that his ashes should be buried next to his
in-laws’ so that in the end my mother’s ashes could be near his and her parents’.
