Childhood memories of Jewish life in Preston

In the 1950s Preston had an active Jewish community, when several of the town’s GPs, especially in Deepdale, were Jewish. One member of that community was Linda Martin who was born in the town in 1946, the daughter of Maurice Barker, a tailor, who was active in Jewish affairs in Preston.

Linda later moved away from Preston but returned after twenty-five years and wrote an account of her childhood which was published in 2010, including the following anecdote that captures a now lost world:

‘The congregation even afforded a Rabbi, amongst whose duties was the ritual slaughter of chickens. These would be wheeled down for slaughter with their legs tied, usually in a pram. My elder sister said that this task often fell to her, and she was in dread of anyone looking into the pram to see the “bonny baby”!

‘On one occasion, the family decided to feast upon Goose, and she was duly sent forth with pram and Goose to find the Rabbi. All alone. He was quite furious that no adult had come along to help hold the unwieldy beast whilst he said his baruches and employed the knife. She waited whilst he took the goose out of sight; but she heard more than baruches …. in fact such language from a Rabbi she had never heard before – prompted by the fact that the Goose bit him!

‘It was ever thus. Half a century earlier, Fishers the Furriers used to send their boys Cecil and Harry on a similar mission. All went well until one eventful day when they crossed Fishergate by way of the “island” in the middle of the main street.

‘This was the stepped up, wrought iron edifice with flights of stairs at each end leading to subterranean facilities for “Ladies” at one end and “Gentlemen” at the other.

‘Somewhat more hasty than was wise, Cecil bumped the pram up onto the island with such gusto that two chickens, legs tied, were shocked out of their stupor and flapped out of the pram and tumbled and flew down the flight of steps into the Ladies’ lavatory, from which came the sound of much screaming.

‘Cecil drew rank, and insisted that he was much too big to go down to retrieve them, but that young Harry was the only one who could present himself without causing a scandal. The ignominy remained with him seventy years later!’

Linda later moved to the Scottish Highlands, where she built a house at Lochaline.

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See also: A history of Preston’s Jewish community