Our Children

We have two delightful children Michelle and Jason and we brought them up in a Jewish environment, we kept the festivals and they had a Bar Mitzvah and a Bat Mitzvah, but we were not orthodox, although they both went to the Jewish King David School for their earliest years. 

They have married and made us Grandparents but neither found Jewish partners.  Unfortunately, Michelle married far too soon and there was nothing we could do to stop her.  We gained a Grand-daughter Melissa, however Michelle's marriage eventually ended with a nasty divorce.  Since then, she has found a partner (also with the name Jason) and now seems to be happier. 

Our son Jason married Philippa much later and so we now have two Grandsons too, Zach and Jacob.  I do wonder what sort of lives all our grandchildren are going to have.  But this is not going to be about our family, this is mainly about my own experiences, our friends, and my business ventures.


Trudy Worked as a Model

Trudy worked at various times as a fashion model.  Through agencies she did some fashion shows, appeared on various packaging for Boots baby products, M.E.B. sales literature and was featured in a TV commercial for the Bullring Shopping Centre that was frequently repeated over a two-year period. 

Trudy also did some in-store promotions work for cosmetics and perfumes at Boots in New Street, Birmingham.  In addition Trudy was selected to do translating at the N.E.C. for Gullick Dobson.


Publishing 'In Search of Netsuke & Inro'

I helped plan the publishing of Dad's book 'In Search of Netsuke & Inro' in 1974, especially the photography.  In those days colour printing was expensive and there were 370 items to include. 

I made several tests of group shots before deciding on how many colour pages would be needed.  We spent many hours in our spare time mostly at weekends planning what should be near what.  Because so many netsuke were in each shot, we decided that we would have to use a 10" x 8" plate camera to obtain sufficient detail of each netsuke on the printed page.  Once everything was planned, we hired a photographer, and I positioned every piece for each photograph using my test shots that Dad had approved as a reference.  

This was time consuming as every netsuke needed to be positioned and stuck in place with blue tac to show the best view of it.  If only we had been able to use digital images, it would have been so much easier.  But this was my first experience of professional product photography, and I learned a lot about plate cameras and lighting, it was fascinating.

What is strange is that once published it proved difficult to obtain sales, priced at £12.50, when most other specialised books on Netsuke were more expensive, we sadly did not achieve many sales.  I do not know what happened to the remaining unsold stock, but I remember that Dad had found someone, I think in Guernsey that advertised to purchase unsold books - no doubt at a very low price, and I believe that was what happened.  I do wonder what became of them all after that.  

Many years later I have seen second-hand book sellers, offering Dad's book as a rare edition, for over £40 each, a couple were priced at £70!