They lived on Ash Street, on the A5267, a discreet road of gothic, redbrick Victorian houses. The family had a massive industrial-style fridge to feed all comers at any time. There were tomatoes and fruit in the greenhouse, on which the boys feasted as children; an endless beach, on which Richard recalled learning to drive; the cheder classes he and his brothers attended; their barmitzvahs.
Sandgrounders, as the people of Southport are known, are an all-embracing, gracious community. During my frequent visits there, I cannot not recall a whiff of antisemitism or racism.
There was the elegance of Lord Street with its cool shops, which I loved, built in the 19th century, with arcades, gazebos and a fountain, more resonant of Brussels and yet imbued with the intrinsic Englishness of an old northern town.
It was to Southport that some of the family escaped from the war. My father-in law moved his wife and children there from their house in Manchester, which had been bombed, killing their neighbours. A safe place. My public-spirited mother-in-law, Bella, opened Jewish care and respite homes, old people’s homes and orphanages, wearing the stylish Osprey hat that won her the soubriquet Queen Mother of Southport. For her generosity she was loved by friends and neighbours of all persuasions and spent her final years in a comfortable home there for elderly Jews, run by an affectionate team of carers.
So long had this English seaside town lived side by side with its neighbours of all ethnicities – English, Jewish, Muslim – that, for me, the memory of driving up from London to celebrate our engagement with my in-laws, the frequent visits during our married life for the High Holy Days and after the births of my three children, now bears a deep scar.
I feel guilty about these feelings, because, in a way, they are proxy emotions. I am fortunately not one of those whose lives have been destroyed by the worst tragedy that can befall a parent – the loss of a child. But in my own way, Southport was a rite of passage to marriage and motherhood, now so bitterly transformed by images of murder and social media-fuelled thuggery.
The town will never lose its tranquillity and generous heart. Public-spirited people have proved that already. But if its age of innocence is over, let’s hope that the waves of terror that engulfed Southport will not define it for all time.
