I wouldn't be in the least surprised to meet a descendant of the Salmon-Gluckstein- Lyons family empire one day. Coming from a tiny family as I do I always think huge families must be so exciting. All those cousins to grow up with. Plenty of scope for feuds and disagreements too, but mahoosive family gatherings to remember and new additions and departures to deal with. A full time job.
I suspect some of you are going to relieve me of the illusion...
Having enjoyed Hadley Freeman's House of Glass so much, the search was on for more Jewish family history memoirs and, as if by magic, the paperback edition of Legacy by Thomas Harding has just been published.
'A panoramic new history of modern Britain, as told through the story of one extraordinary family, and one groundbreaking company.
This is the story of how a family transformed themselves from penniless immigrants to build a company that revolutionised the way we eat, drink and are entertained. For over a century, Lyons was everywhere. Its restaurants and corner houses were on every high street, its coffee and tea in every cup, its products in every home. But it was a victory that was not easily won.
Told through the lives of five generations, Legacy is at once intimate and sweeping, charting the tragedy and unimaginable success of one of Britain's most famous families. It is also an illuminating new exploration of Britain and its place in the world...'
The book was all of this and more and at 600 pages has kept me busy for several weeks.
Thomas Harding, himself a member of the family (as are Nigella Lawson and George Monbiot) , traces his ancestors back as far as Lehmann and Helena Gluckstein and the turn of the nineteenth century. The Glucksteins will be driven out of one home after another by successive pogroms, their journeys various bringing them closer and closer to the North Sea coast of Europe before their son Samuel eventually arrives in Whitechapel in London in 1843. This will have involved, at one point, his father Lehmann faking his own death as the danger increases.
Samuel quickly identifies tobacco and the manufacture of cigars as a potential source of income, and by sheer determination, good business sense and incredible hard work the family have fifteen shops by 1881. Marriages various increase the size of the family, Samuel's daughter Lena will have thirteen children (six of whom will die) and with it comes the establishment of The Fund.
The Fund is an agreement, a form of family co-operative that will offer security, solidarity and a fair sharing of assets regardless of personal circumstances or input, but above all it offers a safety net for a family only too well aware of the potential precariousness of their lives in the face of any changing political situation.
This is a family with huge entrepreneurial capabilities and, when it becomes clear that tobacco might have its limitations for expansion, it is decided by The Fund that they will move into catering. Monte (son of Lena) has spotted a niche market and finds the family a trusted front man who will become the acceptable face and name of the new business...enter Joseph Lyons. Joseph has the gift of the gab, he's a showman, a raconteur and a humourist in contrast to the more serious members of the family and how impressive that they recognised this lack in themselves and were prepared to find it elsewhere. There is also the matter of the name. The family are constantly aware of their Jewish heritage and how their name may become prejudicial.
The first Lyons enterprise in 1889 is to cater for everyone visiting Barnum & Bailey's Circus at Olympia through the year that the circus performs.
I was reeling at the sheer scale of it all...three million visitors to be fed and watered but it is a triumph or organisation and implementation, paving the way for the first Lyons Teashop in 1894.
The family grows, the empire grows and will embrace the Trocadero in Piccadilly as well as a growing number of teashops and Corner Houses. Hotels will follow including the Tower Hotel which became one of London's swishest venues. I was taken there for dinner once in 1972, by a boyfriend desperate to impress (not Bookhound, he didn’t need to) it was pink napkins and very posh and I think I probably wore my pink gingham hot pants which shows how unposh I was.
The historical context offered by Thomas Harding throughout adds to the interest...the Boer War, Jack the Ripper in the East End, both World Wars and from it emerges a family wholly justified (were it needed) for their sense of family cohesion. They would throw themselves willingly into any national effort including setting up an ammunition factory during the war.
The saddest thing is that I knew what was to come though not the 'how'. There are no Lyons Teashops or Corner Houses anymore, the Troc has been boarded up for years (or was last time I saw it) and gone are the tea, the ice cream and all the famous brands I grew up with. I won't spoil the next bit because it makes for fascinating reading, but suffice to say this is one heck of a good read and I turned the final page knowing I'd met a family I loved and about whom I'd learned so much.
Bookhound has learned a lot as well, more ‘Did you know....’ than you’d ever think possible, so I think he might be quite relieved I have turned the final page too.
If you’ve read Legacy please do share your thoughts as always...
And what about Lyons Tea Shops...does anyone else remember them...
And the Nippys, as the waitresses were called...
As a child I would often come home from a long Saturday shopping expedition and be ill. My mum decided this was because I’d gone too long without food so she instituted the half-way-round-tea-and-cake routine and ever after I was fine thanks to the Lyons Tea Shop and an iced bun.
And hot pants...go on...own up, it definitely wasn’t just me...
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