LB-JulesMoed-SampleBook2-jacket:Black 14/09/2011 15:51 Page 1
In the sixteenth century one of our Moëd ancestors became King of Poland, for one night only! At that time there was a formal agreement when one king would hand over to the next. As this ceremony could not take place and they could not be without a king, a neutral person was chosen - our ancestor! - as he was young and unmarried. Therefore he became ‘king for a night’.
“Recalling this story and many others was an engaging and enlightening process which I thoroughly enjoyed and brought back to life nearly 80 years of memories I thought I had long forgotten.” Jules Moëd
Life is for Sharing
So starts this memoir of an inspiring and charismatic man, husband, father, and so much more.
Jules Moëd
Life is for Sharing Jules Moëd
This sample book includes some extracts from the autobiography of Jules MoĂŤd.
A complete book would include up to 150 pages of text and up to 24 pages of photographs.
Copyright (c) 2011 Roy MoĂŤd First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Life Book Limited The right of Roy MoĂŤd to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
Typeset in Goudy Old Style Printed and bound in the UK
Life Book Limited Munstead Cottage Hascombe Road Godalming, Surrey GU8 4AB www.lifebookltd.com
Life is for Sharing
Jules MoĂŤd
Dedication
It’s only when looking back on my life and in telling the story that I realise my good fortune in having health, financial security, great friends and a loving family. I would like to dedicate my book to all those who contributed to that and to thank them. Jules
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Contents
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
A Little Family History The Early Years My Teenage Years My Twenties My Thirties Emigration to Jersey One Island to Another My Late Seventies My Life in Photographs
1 5 11 17 23 27 31 33 35
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Chapter One A Little Family History Rabbi Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen, 1545-1617 In the sixteenth century one of our Moëd ancestors became King of Poland, for one night only! At that time there was a formal agreement when one king would hand over to the next. As this ceremony could not take place and they could not be without a king, a neutral person was chosen – our ancestor! – as he was young and unmarried. Therefore he became “king for a night.” Our ancestors having originated from Mid-Europe moved to Russia many centuries ago.
The First Moëd; Rabbi Schmuel Hakatan (Hakatan means small) My great, great-grandfather, Schmuel, was born in 1806 and lived in Sochovole, which was then part of Russia. He tried to be humble compared to his ancestors, whom he thought more brilliant than he. He studied the commentary called Tractate Moëd and was so taken by it that he adopted the name Moëd and -1-
Life is for Sharing
it became the family name. It is believed that the book is in the biblical sphere called Moëd. He married in 1826.
Sons of Sons Schmuel’s son was Rabbi Yehuda Leb. Yehuda, my greatgrandfather, was born in 1829 and was a popular man and a do-gooder. He was the last in the line of 32 generations of rabbis within the family. He married in 1849 and had five children: Ephram, Lifche, Neche, Uziel and Yoseph. The son Emphram, my grandfather whom I never met, was born in 1852. He married in 1872 and had nine children: six boys and three girls. The eldest son was Sam, and also Moshe, Tevel, Paul, Enoch and my own father Uziel. The girls were Dinan, Neche and Hinda. Sam was born in 1875 and by 1895 had married. We have a picture of the entire family taken in Antwerp, 1910. It must have been a very special occasion for the whole family to be assembled in one place at that time. Perhaps it was to say goodbye to Emphram and his wife Gittel who were departing for Israel that year. Unfortunately I don’t know much about Emphram, having no idea what he did for a living. However, his grave has been found and he is buried on the Mount of Olives alongside my grandmother. I haven’t visited it myself but may have a photograph, which was sent over by the family. My grandparents from my mother’s side were Polish, but I know nothing of them. Grandfather Emphram went with my Father Uziel to -2-
Chapter One: A Little Family History
Johannesburg in 1905/6 where they set up as glass merchants. However, the business was not a success so they returned to Belgium. When Grandfather Emphram immigrated to Israel, the children stayed behind in Antwerp, later dispersing to Israel and New York. Sam was amongst one of the earliest people who introduced the diamond business to Israel. He was a cleaver and diamond merchant and was responsible for introducing most of the family to the diamond business and became the wealthiest of the family. Moshe was very, very short sighted and had difficulty working with diamonds but was an employee of some sort within the business. He immigrated to Israel, I think after the First World War.
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Chapter Three My Teenage Years The Great Depression Papa spoke English having lived in London, as well as Yiddish and French. He continued to purchase diamonds and ship them back to Antwerp to the family until 1929/1930 when the world depression put an end to that. We no longer could continue to employ Miss Miller, who eventually returned to England, and the diamond business went to hell and we had to leave our house and find cheaper accommodation out in the suburbs. At this time, when the whole world was suffering from the great depression, my father removed me from school and took me to the Northern Transvaal to work. This was 250 miles away from Jo’burg, right in the wild! It was May 1931, and although only 16 years of age I wasn’t at all upset about leaving school and starting my first job. He’d leased a small gold mine from a widow, and was trying to make a bit of a living out of it. I stayed there with the engineer and what staff there was to run it, with the hope of running a nightshift to increase the mine capacity, whilst father returned to Johannesburg. - 11 -
Life is for Sharing
Mining in that area wasn’t done underground. Instead one used a ‘top down’ approach, where the principal of washing soil over channels running along the sides of the mountains, which fed into a dam. Productivity was largely dependent on getting enough water and my job was to march up and down during the day repairing any leaks that occurred. Once the dam was full, it was let out into a 20 inch pipe, narrowing down over 50 feet to a cast iron nozzle with about a 2 inch aperture. This water cannon was then opened and jets of water aimed at the lower ground opposite so the upper ground fell away falling onto large sheets of corduroy fabric. (Corduroy was actually invented for gold mining. It had a hairy rib every 12 inches and while the sediment washed over it, gold being heavier than sediment it collected in the ribs.) Once the dam emptied, the corduroy was collected up and taken to a drum where the material was rinsed out thoroughly. The sediment collected at the bottom was then put into a panhandle, water swirled off causing the sediment to rise and eventually lying in the bottom of the pan was gold dust. Life at the mine was in very meager conditions. The weather was warm and we had the use of two cabins, one for eating and the other sleeping in. Meat was eaten about once a week, as provisions had to be brought in Tzaneen, which was 25 mile away. Food had to be hung in sacks, which were kept damp, and any green edges would be cut off and the centre eaten. The dinner table stood in tins of water to stop ants climbing up and we had a girl who cooked for us. I do remember she didn’t wear a top. Unfortunately we never really got enough gold. Although we had improved productivity, it wasn’t enough to be worthwhile, as we recovered only enough gold to pay the engineer and staff. After - 12 -
Chapter Three: My Teenage Years
about five months we gave up. To add insult to injury, four months after we closed down, the world suddenly went mad for gold, and the prices we would have got just shot up. We would have been getting four times the amount for our produce if we’d waited!
Looking After the Family When I returned to Johannesburg in September 1931 I had a variety of jobs, with most of my earnings going to help support our home. I obtained my drivers licence as soon as I turned 17, although I used to drive before that using Dad’s car up at the gold mine. I bought my first car, a Chevrolet I think, when I was 18 or 19 years of age. My next job I started as a diamond polisher, which were actually called cutters as the diamonds had to be cut first. We were initially trained on steel ball bearings, until proficient enough to cut diamonds. However, after a few months we were allowed to start polishing but experts completed it for us, as they had to ensure the angles were exact. The process of diamond polishing was to place a diamond in what looked like an eggcup, which was filled with a type of soft putty. The diamond was pressed into it until it hardened and held it fast. The stem of the eggcup would be placed in a handle and the polishing wheel would be brought down over the diamond and a little shaved off at a time. This then would be examined, shaved and polished and continued along like this until the diamond was complete. I never got to do this as this was an extremely skilled job and took a very long time to polish a - 13 -
Life is for Sharing
diamond. Having been at the firm only five or six months, the depression affected trade and the factory closed down. I was out of a job and my father wasn’t earning and we were living on money he was able to borrow, due to his fine reputation as an honest man. I did a couple of odd jobs in shops – one at a dam selling necessities to the workers, another selling shoes, and another shirts. Papa tried making women’s dresses at home, employing a couple of women helpers. Times were bad with very little money coming in due to the depression. However, by around 1934/5 Papa resumed his diamond business going down to Liftenburg every week and buying them and shipping back to the family in Antwerp. I eventually went to night school and continued my education in Maths and the English language for quite a few years, attending two hours per night, except Fridays being the Sabbath. Joe had a friend at school called Kurt Rosenburg. Kurt’s brothers ran a firm, called Robol Limited, which was a steel merchants selling girders, steel plates, bolts and nuts and got me a job there as office boy in 1933 at the age of 18. Soon after I started at Robol, I got into the sales department and started taking orders over the telephone. By this time Joe, having reached 20, left home. He had gone to university, although I don’t think he finished the course and didn’t get his degree. He tied up with an older woman, Fanny, who was about ten years his senior, and helped run her bookshop. The Vanguard. It was quite a successful one and well thought of in Johannesburg, especially for education material. He eventually started living with her. He never helped us financially with the - 14 -
Chapter Three: My Teenage Years
burden, it was always mine to look after the family. My brother Dick remained at home with my parents. Joe also got into difficulties and had to be helped. Later when his landlords wanted their premises he ignored my pleas and dire warnings by moving into much larger and expensive premises and borrowing from the bank a large sum to fit and equip it. They struggled for years. It’s a long sad story and eventually they had to close Vanguard Booksellers, which had once been the outstanding bookshop of the southern hemisphere. Here again financial help was needed for day-to-day living. I did quite well at Robol and after three years became their Internal Sales Manager, earning £18 per month, with most going to the family. Johannesburg had a commercial exchange where mines and factories would put up lists of their requirements and expect written quotations by mid-day and then they would place orders. Part of my job was to draw up quotations with the rest of the time on the phone dealing with enquiries.
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Chapter Four My Twenties Early Twenties My father was doing reasonably well, and I was still living at home. I had tried speculating on the stock exchange but lost badly and settled with ÂŁ50 bonus. I worked at Robol until 1937/38, when I was head-hunted by Rance Colley, who I had been doing a lot of business with over the phone. One day he invited me to see him, and he offered me the job of sales manager within his business. I joined Rance and his mining supplies business and my earnings increased quickly! His firm shared out part of the turnover amoung his staff, so suddenly I was earning up to ÂŁ35 per month plus a bonus of about ÂŁ8 per month. I was able to help my father and my family. For the first time I was able to keep more than just pocket money for myself. I started planning a budget and started saving. I took out an endowment policy and saved for holidays and tax liability. I made a friendship with a girl over the telephone from one of the other firms, and we had a nice affair for four or five years. We - 17 -
Life is for Sharing
used to go to a show and come back to the office… I had the keys! Meanwhile Dick joined the army when he left school until after the war in 1945. Papa struggled on with the diamond business until it petered out in 1939 with the coming of the Second World War. Rance Colley held a staff meeting where he stated that all males were free to join the army on half salary provided. I however was declared vital for the business and wasn’t allowed to join the army. We were classified as ‘key service’ and were now a supplier to the war efforts. I would go around the country to find goods, stocks and supplies to send back to those in the war. I was the only man that stayed in the business with the rest of the women, and the other five men went to war.
Joyce and Our Wedding Although I had known Joyce (born 18.5.1917) for a while, as she was part of a large crowd I knocked around with I only saw her occasionally. My friends in the crowd were Mabel and Pat and we were a close-knit gang. We used to go ice-skating on the outskirts of town and Joyce would come along. I had a very good friend who worked in the firm where Joyce worked. I wanted to meet her but he said they weren’t on good terms at that point, and they weren’t even talking. He agreed to talk to her though on my behalf, approached her and said, “Can we have pax [peace] for half an hour so I can tell you something, and after that we can go back to our silence!” Soon we were introduced at the ice rink, and we started going out. Love at first sight! We were into the same things, we danced well together at - 18 -
Chapter Four: My Twenties
the night clubs. We’d go out at 10.00pm at night and dance through to 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning! Her friends were my friends too, especially Mabel, who was one of the first people I met coming off the boat from Belgium! And we’re still in touch now. That was September 1939, and in January we got married! That was May 1940, and by September I had proposed and we got married in January 1941 at the Berea Shul. Having managed to save £200 we had a wonderful wedding and went to the H.O.D. Hall afterwards for a party where we had a dinner-dance with about 80 family and friends. There was a band and my friend Horace was best man, with Mabel being bridesmaid to Joyce. We set off on our honeymoon, spending our first night in the Veriniging Hotel, in Veriniging, 30 miles from Johannesburg on the Vall River. We drove the firm’s car, which was a lovely Chevrolet coupé. We then drove to Wilderness, on the Garden Route of the Cape. I remember the hotel had six windows around the corner room that we had with lovely views of the grasslands. It had a golf course and beach nearby.
Newlyweds Joyce liked tennis and hockey and played hockey for the school, continuing even after we were married playing for the old girls team for quite a few years. South Africa had at that time little local manufacturing and it imported everything required from Europe. When the war came there were a lot of shortages. Not of food, which was in plentiful supply, but as most things were imported and ships were being sunk, life in South Africa became difficult. - 19 -
Life is for Sharing
In 1941, being in the sales Department of Rance Colley, I knew what goods were in short supply and started a side business with my father. Papa would go out into the countryside to small shops where he bought specific goods as listed by me. He brought them back, selling to us at Rance Colley, and we in turn sold it on. Prices went sky high. We all earned quite well and it allowed us as a family for the first time to earn more than we actually spent and Papa was able to pay his way and save a little. He continued working in the countryside foraging until after the war when he resumed his diamond business.
Johannesburg By 1943 Sam Newman who was a cousin and in building supplies, head-hunted me and offered me a job in Cape Town. I took the job in the January but with the precaution to arrange that if we weren’t happy in Cape Town he would advance me £3,000 so that I could return to Johannesburg and start my own business. Which is what eventually happened. We drove down to Cape Town and I started work but Sam was a very difficult person to work with which my father had warned me about. Whereas Johannesburg had always been a busy industrial town with people working hard and fast, Cape Town was more like a holiday place and people were completely different from what I had known. They were very slow, older, had little originality, drive or ‘oomph’, and were very fixed in their ways and unable to take chances. So after six months we returned to Johannesburg and our home, which we had been renting out to Jerry Simpson. We’d have - 20 -
Chapter Four: My Twenties
friends over most weekends for barbecues and were very happy there. We had a servant called Klass, and later Gibson Movetzecla who was with us until we left South Africa. Joyce continued working for a clothing manufacturer as their bookkeeper. The younger brother, Horace, Nathan’s brother, owned the business and Horace was best man at our wedding. Joyce’s best friend Mabel Shlom was her bridesmaid. She stayed there until we went to Cape Town.
The Beginnings of ‘JMPL’ At age 29 in 1944 I started my own business J Moed (Pty) Ltd in Johannesburg, using the £3,000 loan from Sam Newman. My first premises was a huge corrugated iron shed that got as hot as hell in the summer! It had a raised floor and we had to lift everything we bought in up a ramp into the store. We started dealing in rolls of fencing wire, bolts and nuts and spring washers. Spring washers spring to mind (excuse the pun) as following the war there was a tremendous shortage. As army surplus stores were selling off stocks, I bought barrels of these washers and employed four people to count them out and make up into packets of one gross each, as that was how they were sold, and made quite a business selling them at a good profit. This store was just off Von Weilligh Street at which I only stayed for about two years. Joyce became my secretary doing the bookkeeping, invoicing and letter writing. In 1944 Andree was born and we had a lovely African nurse, Mary, whom we felt we could trust and who looked after Andree whilst Joyce was at work. Business premises were in short supply, but I found ‘The - 21 -
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Geneva Café’ which had opened a branch in the business office area of Johannesburg, very near the Commercial Exchange, but wasn’t making a success. The lease was up for sale so I bought it. I remember having to get rid of tables and chairs and fireplaces, and from there I started a business selling engineers’ supplies, tools, DIY items and small machines, lathes and such like. I became a member of the Commercial Exchange, where I now went every day and put in quotations for items that interested us, besides running our business. Having been a café it had a large window where we displayed our variety of stock. We started selling retail to mines and engineering shops and catered for DIY people, as well as the industrial sector, which we did through the Commercial Exchange. When Paul came along in 1947 Joyce gave up work so she could be at home with the children and Nurse Mary, so I employed a secretary, Dorothy Simons. She stayed with me until the end of our time in 1960 and was a very loyal employee and looked after my interests when I left South Africa. At home, Lydia was employed as a cook and nanny/nurse.
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Chapter Six Emigration to Jersey Setting Sail We had become naturalised British subjects in South Africa as it was run as a British colony at that time. By 1960 we had decided to move to Jersey. This came about due to our being on holiday at a seaside resort on the south coast, an area below Durban, where we met up with a couple whom were visiting from Jersey. They were Mrs Thornleigh-Taylor and her husband who had gone to stay with our friend Joan. From her we learnt a great deal about the island. It was not part of the UK but was financially tied up with the UK. The Jersey Pound was equal to the English Pound and tax was low, at about 20%. When we decided to leave South Africa, Jersey tempted us and although I’d never visited the island before we set sail for our new home, leaving my brother Dick running JMPL. He had by now a further 30% in the company making him a 50% shareholder and partner. On arrival in Jersey in June 1960 we went straight to a hotel and checked in. During the winter we stayed at the hotel, and each - 27 -
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summer we rented a house. This went on for at least three years until we bought a house. The island was a good place for the children to finish schooling and we had a very pleasant seven years there. In 1963 Andree moved to London to work as a nurse at University College Hospital.
The Drive-In and Island Life In Jersey I had to find something to do and within a few months of our arrival I came across 2 tennis courts and some land for sale. The tennis courts had building restrictions, although the adjoining plot of land didn’t. I therefore purchased both for £2,000 and opened up a ‘Drive-In’ in 1961, an American idea that was already widely used in South Africa. On the adjoining site we built a café/tea room and cars would drive onto the tennis courts that were level to the street. Trays were fitted to their cars and we employed waiters who would serve refreshments, toasted sandwiches and light meals. Joyce and I ran the Drive-In for three years before I sold it as a franchise in 1964 but kept the property and leased out the area on a seven-year lease to the first tenant, a chap called Oxley. Later that year we purchased a house called Beauvoir, half way between St Hellier and Gorey. It was a large property in a walled garden. We lived on the ground floor, which had a day room, lounge, one large and two small bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, big garage and loft for storage. The first floor had a flat which we rented out. Paul left Jersey and went to a Jewish Boarding School in Belford Park, in London. - 28 -
Chapter Six: Emigration to Jersey
In 1966 I bought No. 1 New Row Cottage which was one of the two properties at the rear of the Drive-In site. This had been owned by Arthur Mills, from whom I had previously bought the tennis courts.
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Chapter Nine My Life in Photographs
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Life is for Sharing
Me in Johannesburg, 1935
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Our wedding, 26th January 1941 From left to right: Arthur, Mavis, Bessie, Sacks, me, Joyce, Uziel, Karola, Fanny, Jake. Friends in back row are Nathan and Horace.
Life is for Sharing
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Life is for Sharing
Joyce and I in Durban, 1941
Joyce and I in 1944, South Africa
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LB-JulesMoed-SampleBook2-jacket:Black 14/09/2011 15:51 Page 1
In the sixteenth century one of our Moëd ancestors became King of Poland, for one night only! At that time there was a formal agreement when one king would hand over to the next. As this ceremony could not take place and they could not be without a king, a neutral person was chosen - our ancestor! - as he was young and unmarried. Therefore he became ‘king for a night’.
“Recalling this story and many others was an engaging and enlightening process which I thoroughly enjoyed and brought back to life nearly 80 years of memories I thought I had long forgotten.” Jules Moëd
Life is for Sharing
So starts this memoir of an inspiring and charismatic man, husband, father, and so much more.
Jules Moëd
Life is for Sharing Jules Moëd