After quite a little soul-searching I have decided that I must include the unhappy story connected with the first marriage in our family, that of my brother Beram when he was 21 in 1932, because it reveals Father's strongly-held convictions on personal morality (which will seem narrow and incomprehensible to my younger readers, I have no doubt). But it also shows that Father's love of his children and family always outweighed his other moral convictions; I think that his love for us would have survived absolutely anything that we might have done and he would have forgiven us.
Beram met in London University a young woman called Mair. Both were among the brightest stars in the undergraduate firmament and shared a talent for and an interest in the use and study of language. Mair was in Westfield College and they met in inter-university Debates where both won popularity and acclaim. Very soon they were writing poetry together and published a book of their poems as joint authors. It is not surprising, therefore, that these two romantic people should find their intellectual affinity grow into a romantic alliance. Mair was not only a gifted scholar, she also possessed a most unusual and appealing beauty. As I have already explained, Beram took me around with him during his university days and I was almost as enamoured of Mair as he was, in an adolescent, idolatrous way. I often went with a school friend to her room in Westfield College and enjoyed crumpets toasted in front of a fire, and listened to records, (one of which remains even now in my somewhat flippant memory, "...and the bravest by far, In the ranks of the Czar, Was Abdul-a-bul-bul Amir!") She opened up a new world for me and so it is not surprising that I would gladly have laid down my life for her had I been asked to do so.
Late in the summer of 1931, my innocent Mother, always the first of the family to be up in the morning, (except when I sometimes beat her to it) found a letter that had fallen through the letter-box and into a big, brass gong that stood just behind our front door; it was addressed to Mrs Saklatvala and so she opened it. It was to change all our lives dramatically. It was from a landlady in Wales who had let her bungalow to Beram and Mair for a summer holiday, where they had apparently stayed as husband and wife. In 1931, this was NOT the commonplace it became later. Poor Mummy was horrified and rushed upstairs to Father, still peacefully dozing in bed. The letter was asking for settlement of a small laundry bill but the story it told was painfully clear. Father was stunned.
Years later, my practical sister frequently said that if only Mummy had kept quiet, life could have gone on as before. But my Mother would automatically turn to Father if anything at all upset her - it would certainly never have occurred to her to hide anything of moment from him.
The actual confrontation between Beram, Mair and my Mother and Father naturally took place behind the closed doors of the dining room, but I remember the whole household being subdued and steeped in gloom (even my resilient and normally undaunted sister, Candy). From time to time Mummy would emerge to prepare meals or to go shopping throughout a period of a few days and her anger and her hurt were apparent to us all. No one talked about what was going on except that Mummy from time to time would erupt into an angry outburst. Mair's parents were summoned and joined in the family conference. And last and most terrifying, the Principal of Westfield College herself, was called into the fray. The shame and solemnity overwhemed us all, like a leaden sky.
The upshot of all these deliberations and recriminations was that Beram and Mair were forbidden to see each other ever again. University College seemed not to be involved and no mention was made of any possibility that Beram might be prevented from taking his degree the following summer. But the Principal of Westfield College took a very different view and she ordained that Mair should be 'sent down' forthwith and that she should forgo the opportunity of taking her degree. Father was appalled at this decision; he recognised Mair's academic possibilities; also, she had won a scholarship to the University; he also felt it unfair that the woman in the case should be called upon to suffer more than the man. So he prevailed upon the stern lady to relent to the extent that Mair was to be allowed to sit her exam, but she was NOT to be allowed to mingle with other students of her year. She was condemned, therefore, to finish her studies in the privacy of her home and she was not to be allowed to go back to college and meet her fellow students. (I cannot recall if she was allowed to attend lectures or not). Poor Mair, who due to her successes in the University had come to consider herself rather superior to her parents and family, defiantly expressed the view that she could not possibly return to the environment of her family home where she would feel it impossible to study. Mummy was so angered by this attitude of superiority that she left the room and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and to let off steam. As she stood at the sink filling the kettle she exploded. "The silly little bitch!" she fumed, "Thinks herself better than her own parents - it's like expecting Binky to give birth to a greyhound!!" (Needless to explain that Binky was a nondescript little dog of mixed parentage and no greyhound had figured in his family tree!).
So it was thought that the two lovers were parted for ever. But Beram used me as a willing go-between. "Can you keep a secret?" he would ask me. Certainly I could and was only too eager to do so. So he and I would say innocently that we were going for a walk, or going to the Old Vic or going to see the paintings in Kenwood, and off we would go together to meet Mair. So the romance blossomed, fertilised by the conspiratorial and clandestine meetings into luxuriant growth; who knows but what, without the drama of secrecy, it might well have withered on the bough.
The following summer, both Beram and Mair were awarded their degrees, though Beram was not awarded the Quain Scholarship as his enthusiastic Professors had prophesied. All the parents and both families had no inkling that the two were still seeing each other. Only I was privy to the situation.
Later that year, in early September, my parents took me to a small and cheap hotel in Marienkirche, close to Ostend, for a short holiday. We returned in time to celebrate the double birthday of Mummy and Candy on 10th September and carried back with us, on ferry and train, an elaborate cream cake for the occasion. Five days after their birthday, Beram was to celebrate his twenty-first. It was to be a grand family occasion and Father and Mother had written out invitations to all their friends before they went on holiday and left them for Beram to post on the appropriate day. So as soon as the ladies' birthday celebrations were over, Mummy started to prepare for the dinner-party on the 15th. On the evening of the 14th, Father was preparing the best French china, and putting leaves in the big dining table; Mother was preparing the coming feast in the kitchen. Beram went in to Father in the dining room and, looking pale and trying hard not to look frightened, he told Father it was useless to go on with the preparations because none of the guests were coming. He had not posted the invitations. Instead of a family party, he had made arrangements to celebrate his coming of age with his college friends. Father was too shocked and too sad to be angry. Once again, the house was filled with silent gloom.
The day after his birthday, Beram dropped the final bombshell - he was now 21 and of age and he and Mair (who was some 5 years older than he was) planned to marry as soon as possible. Mummy's anger was boundless. As was Father's sorrow. I still kept my mouth shut about my own part in the conspiracy. Indeed, I never confessed to it.
Father eventually took the view that, since the marriage was to take place anyway and Mair was, willy-nilly, to become a member of the family, she must be accepted if not exactly welcomed. He agreed to go to their wedding. Mummy was adamant - she would have none of it. There followed the most frightening row between them that any of us had ever witnessed. Father was determined that Mummy should be at the wedding and she was equally determined not to be. Father became quite hysterically angry - "If you refuse to go," he ranted, "I lay a curse upon you! Your favourite child will be carried out of this house dead!" To which my Mother coldly and calmly replied, "Now you're talking like a gypsy!" and walked away. She did not go to the wedding. Father and I went together. I bought them a brass toasting fork - the first wedding present I ever bought. (I think it was in memory of the crumpets eaten in Mair's college room in happier days). Needless to say, we all came together eventually - though Mair's family were never happy about Beram and my family always had reservations about Mair. My own enthusiasm went quietly on, until many, many years later when the inevitable end of the marriage finally came about - mercifully, after Father's death.
This sad little story shows my father's stern attitude to personal morality but also proves that his love of family forced him to accept whatever lapses in morality any of us might suffer.It took my Mother longer to forgive but, mercifully, parental love is well-nigh indestructable.
During the next two years, two happier and more conventional marriages were celebrated in the family - that of my eldest brother as soon as he had completed his medical studies; he married a girl called Janet Watts, a contemporary of Beram's at U.C. where she had taken a degree in History. This was closely followed by Candy's marriage to Eric Backhaus. Both weddings followed long and ardent courtships and were welcomed by all of us and were days of great gladness. And Father lived to see his first little granddaughter born to Janet - she was not quite a year old when he died but he was thrilled by her arrival and an extension of the dynasty. When he returned home after his last visit he reported to Mummy that little Wendy was not well when he arrived - "But she was her usual smiling self by the time I left."