IF ANYONE HAS WAR TIME MEMORIES OF ST ANNES
please contact our local historian at hiltone1966@gmail.com
Two old acquaintances were reunited after 74 years — thanks to the
Jewish Telegraph
.
Pauline Pike and Jonathan Lever had a chat over the phone after they were put in touch by author Hilary Thomas.
In August, the JT had published her appeal looking for people who were evacuated to St Annes during the Second World War.
Both Pauline and Jonathan lived in St Annes during the war.
And, having seen the piece in this newspaper, they contacted Hilary, who put them in touch.
She was looking for people to take part in the Connecting Small Histories project, a collaboration between the Jewish Small Communities Network and Swansea University.
The Heritage Lottery-funded project seeks to rediscover and reconnect the hidden and sometimes displaced histories of six localities across England, which are St Annes, Eastbourne, Cumbria, Bradford, Somerset and Sunderland.
Leeds-born Pauline, who now lives in Didsbury, and her family were evacuated to St Annes in 1939.
Pauline, her parents, Jeanette and Harry Green, and her brother Arnold lived at 25 St Leonard’s Road West in the Lancashire seaside town.
Mancunian Jonathan, his parents, Cyril and Dorothy, and his brother, Brian, moved to St Annes in 1940.
In 1946, they returned to their home in Manchester — apart from a then-10-year-old Jonathan, who was due to start at boarding school.
But, as the school was unable to accommodate him as a boarder for a few months, he went to stay with a Jewish family called Green.
He remembered that there were two older children — Pauline and Arnold.
“It’s quite amazing, really,” said mother-of-three Pauline, who is now 90.
“I do remember him as a little boy and so it was nice to talk to Jonathan after all these years.”
Father-of-two Jonathan, who is now 84, said: “The Greens were a very kind and friendly family.
“I don’t remember much about Pauline and Arnold, although I do remember cycling from their house to school and then to see my maternal grandparents, Sarah and Teddy Lipman, who lived at a hotel in St Annes called Sefton Court.”
Both Pauline, who has five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and grandfather-of-five Jonathan have had a couple of conversations after their initial phone call.
The coronavirus pandemic means they cannot meet up just yet, but a real-life reunion may happen soon.