Memories of a Bygone Era

Excerpts from To Egypt With Love - Memories of a Bygone Era, published on Amazon

BY; Viviane Bowell

My story - Viviane Bowell (née Chouchan)

 

Submitted July 25, 2021

I was born and brought up in Cairo, where I lived until the age of 14. I grew up in a secular Sephardi community, surrounded by a strong family network and many friends. My mother’s family originally came from Aleppo . Aleppo was once a great city and one of the key centres along the legendary Silk Road. A main caravan route linked it to Baghdad and Basra and goods from the East passed through its markets, on their way to the Mediterranean coast and Europe. Many businesses thrived. They specialised in importing and exporting goods from the Far East, such as spices, dried fruits and silk, which were highly prized at the time. The importance of Aleppo diminished greatly with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, when it ceased to be the centre of the camel-caravan trade. My grandparents eventually decided to move to Egypt in 1910, which was considered the new Eldorado.

My father’s family originates from Toledo and are therefore the true Sephardim (Sepharad means Spain in Hebrew). They belong to a slowly disappearing culture and were expelled from their ancestral home in 1492 during the time of the infamous Inquisition, when an edict from Isabel of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon decreed that all Jews must leave, unless they agreed to convert to Christianity. My ancestors, like many others, travelled through the Mediterranean and eventually settled in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire. They were welcomed by Sultan Bayazid II, who declared that Spain’s loss of its Jews would be his own gain. When the Ottoman Empire began to crumble, my grandparents decided to leave for economic reasons and decided to settle in Egypt, where they arrived in 1908. Egypt was a melting pot of cultures and communities, and it’s difficult to determine why they had ended up there. Descendants of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula had come to Egypt in the sixteenth century and again in the nineteenth. They came from Salonika, Smyrna, Istanbul, the Balkans and North Africa. Immigrants from the Yemen and North Africa had started to come as far back as the Middle Ages. This original community, which had been in Egypt for many generations, was joined by several waves of immigrants. The story of the wandering Jew continues with my parents’ and my generation - like many other Jewish families, we were forced to leave Egypt in 1956 after the Suez crisis. We chose to settle in England, simply because my mother had a British passport.

COVID 19 happened suddenly and, with constant lockdowns, left me with a lot of time on my hands. One day, it occurred to me that I should try and write some of my story, so that my heritage, along with that of many Egyptian Jews, is not forgotten. We had a unique culture, but I fear that with the passage of time and new generations, this will disappear. Every individual story written about our lost world is important and will hopefully provide an insight into our rich, unique and diverse customs and traditions. As people die and memories fade, it will become much harder to learn about our community. I wanted to leave a legacy to my children and what started as a few pages about my childhood eventually became a book which I have just published with Amazon. It is called To Egypt with Love, Memories of a Bygone World.

Writing about growing up in Egypt was a healing process. My experience may be slightly different from other Jews living in Egypt at the time, depending on their social status and the circumstances in which they left, or were forced to leave. Nevertheless, throughout all our stories and memories, there is a shared common thread – the acknowledgment that, while it lasted, life in Egypt was good, as well as the sense of loss and trauma at being uprooted.

Each story reflects a profound love and nostalgia for what we have lost, while at the same time accepting that a country we had thought of as our own no longer wanted us. This did not happen overnight, but in stages – first complacency ignorance and disbelief, eventually followed by fear. My story is not unique. It is the story of all the Jewish migrants who had to leave the land of their birth and learn to make a new life in another country. In the case of my parents and others of their generation, it is a story of resilience and survival.

There is no doubt that the Jews contributed greatly to the development of modern Egypt and left behind an important legacy. Jews have always adapted wherever they have ended up living and, in many instances, have flourished. They did this partly out of gratitude for the country that had welcomed them, but also to improve their lives and that of their community. On the whole, and at least until 1948, they got on well with their Arab neighbours and enabled the country to prosper.

However, in most cases, they lived on the fringe of the real Egyptian society, happy to remain within the confines of their own immediate circle. My parents, their families and friends certainly never made the effort to socialise with Egyptian people, even with the wealthier middle class ones. I don’t think the possibility ever occurred to them. Theirs was a rather narrow-minded way of life, where work, family and socialising were important, but there was little else beyond that. Meanwhile, the real Egyptians, the ones to whom Egypt belonged, were not having such an easy time. Like any third world country, there was poverty and the economy relied heavily on the Europeans and their expertise.

French came to Egypt by the sword in 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte’s army landed after its voyage across the Mediterranean. For the better part of two centuries, Egypt was a privileged land for the French language, despite only remaining under French control for a few years and being placed under English domination for more than 60 years. We spoke French at home and with our family and friends, though my father often spoke Ladino with his siblings. The exception was my maternal grandmother, who only spoke Arabic, more precisely Syrian Arabic, which is pronounced differently.

Cairo was often referred to as ‘the Paris of the Nile’. We lived in an apartment block in downtown Cairo, a stones’ throw from Midan Soliman Pacha (now Midan Talat Harb). The main shopping streets, Fuad Street and Kasr-el-Nil Street, were only a few minutes’ walk away. This was where the best shops and department stores were situated. We were also minutes away from the famous Groppi tearooms. Right opposite our apartment block was the Cairo broadcasting house. Our apartment was on the fourth floor and had a lift. As you came into the building, you were always greeted by the bawab, the Arabic word for concierge or caretaker. He was an institution and played an important role. Whatever his age, he had the gift of remembering faces and people.

All the apartments had a balcony and this was where we often sat before sunset. The heat of Cairo would have subsided by then and there was a wonderful breeze coming from the Sahara desert. The street below came alive with the cries of vendors, the sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer and the music played in the cafés and many apartments – all loud and different tunes, of course, so it sounded like a cacophony but it didn’t matter, I doubt we even noticed.

After Arabic, the main language in Egypt was French. Walking in downtown Cairo, you would have been forgiven for thinking that you were in Marseilles or any city in the South of France. The names of the streets, as well as above the shop fronts and on the billboards, were all in French, with the Arabic names underneath. The official day of rest was Sunday and not Friday, even though Egypt was a Muslim country. Everything was closed for the main Christian and Jewish holidays – all businesses and shops, even those belonging to Muslims, were shut for Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

We were not rich, but we were comfortably off and my father had a strong work ethic. He was the Managing Director of John Dickinson Co, a well-known British company with large offices in England. We had a khadam, also known as sufragi (manservant in Arabic) called Salah and a maid called Amina. She was very young when she came to us and her job was to look after the children, make the beds, help with the laundry and general light duties. I loved her right from the start and we always got on well. I spent much more time with her than I did with my mother and she was often the one who put us to bed if my parents went out.

We were brought up in a bubble. Politics were never discussed in front of us. All my parents’ serious conversations or disagreements took place behind closed doors. Euphemisms were used whenever possible; for instance, my mother never simply said that someone had died. Instead, she referred to it as ‘having lost someone’. For years, as a child I believed that the person she was referring to had somehow got lost in the woods. It was the Jewish Aleppo way never to expose children even to the hint of death. I was never told that my paternal grandfather had died – one day, he was no longer there. I grew up believing that my parents knew everything, were always right and in a sense were infallible. It was implicit that the adults knew better.

I attended the French Lycée, a non-denominational school situated in the nearby district of Bab-el Luk, within walking distance of our apartment. We studied all the important French playwrights, Molière, Corneille and Racine, as well as writers such as Voltaire, Balzac, Zola and Victor Hugo. We knew the fables of La Fontaine from a very early age and part of our homework was often to learn a particular one par coeur, meaning by heart. We had to study Ancient Egyptian history in depth and became familiar with Isis, Osiris, the Pharaonic dynasties and the burial customs of Ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. Those rituals and protocols included mummifying the body, casting magic spells and burying the person with goods thought to be needed in the afterlife. I found it all very fascinating.

We were taught some English at school and our English teacher is the only one I still remember vividly. She was called Miss Volkonsky and claimed to be a Russian princess who had fled the country after the Russian revolution. I believe she was telling the truth and we were scared of her. She was very thin, always wore white and had a wide turban of the same colour on her head, which all gave her the appearance of a ghost. She was not a very good teacher as, after six years of being in her class, all I could say when we arrived in England was good morning.

We had an excellent French education and, whilst our French did not sound precisely like the one spoken in Paris, it was nevertheless correct. The two other languages we were taught, English and Arabic, were fairly rudimentary. Before the revolution of 1952, we only had Arabic lessons two hours a week and that was the classical Arabic, which had nothing to do with the colloquial language spoken in the street by the servants and the local population. Although we spoke French at home, both my parents spoke fluent Arabic and it was the only language my maternal grandmother knew.

After the revolution, writing and reading Arabic became compulsory and I therefore had to have some private tuition in order to satisfy the new government requirements. My parents found a sheikh (a Muslim cleric) who came to the house once a week. He was as uninterested in teaching me as I was in learning. He did not start the lesson until he was served with a cup of Turkish coffee – probably to keep him awake, as I think he would have nodded off otherwise. He was a patient man and didn’t get annoyed if I made a mistake; he just wasn’t inspiring and I didn’t get very far with his teaching.

The Lycée was a vast building with a private courtyard. It was sealed from the outside world by a big gate that was kept shut, except when we arrived in the morning and when we left at lunchtime. School started at 8.00 and finished at 1.00 pm. At break at 11.00 am, we would spill into the playground. I had two friends, called Liliane and Sheila. We didn’t meet in each other’s houses out of school, but played at break and went to the cinema together. The system in the Lycée was such that students remained in the same room for the whole school year and the teachers went from class to class. As a result, one stayed the entire school year with the same schoolmates and then moved with them from year to year. Strong friendship bonds were thus established.

In Egypt, middle class Jewish girls generally did not work unless they had to, with the exception of some more independent girls who aspired to something more than a life of leisure. Those who had a job were young – the pretty salesgirls at the Cicurel store and the occasional secretary or teacher. Married women in Egypt could not work; for a married woman to do so was unthinkable, as it meant that her husband could no longer take care of his family. This changed a little after the revolution of 1952, when the military regime capriciously confiscated Jewish businesses and property, often leaving their owners in financial ruin. In addition, companies were asked to limit the numbers of their Jewish employees, leaving those dismissed without an income.

However, even if the wives wanted to work, there was very little that they could do. They had only known a life of leisure and were not trained for anything, except how to be a good housewife. Generally, young Jewish girls were expected to learn how to cook and bake, while waiting for a suitable husband to come along. Many marriages were arranged, or the future couple were introduced to each other by mutual friends. The ladies continued their life of leisure after they got married.

This way of life could not have lasted forever, even if the political events culminating in the expulsion of the Jewish community had not happened. That was my parents’ generation, but the younger one was beginning to want something more meaningful. Girls often started working after they left school, at least until they got married. Many youngsters were sent to Europe to finish their studies – having experienced a different lifestyle and mentality, they were often reluctant to come back to Egypt after their final exams.

The Shepheard’s hotel on Ibrahim Pacha street was one of the most prestigious hotels in downtown Cairo and occupied the former palace where Napoleon had once established his headquarters. Many visiting dignitaries chose to stay there, which gave it its special cachet. This was where Winston Churchill had met in secret with President Roosevelt, and Rommel had also stayed there. The hotel was regarded as the symbol of British presence in Egypt and was the first building destroyed on 26 January 1952 during the burning of Cairo, now referred to as Black Saturday.

Groppi was a legendary tearoom in Cairo and a favourite meeting place, where people regularly went to see and be seen. It was founded in 1909 by a Swiss pastry chef called Giacomo Groppi. It was very cosmopolitan and the centre of the Cairo social scene. As you entered the shop, the first thing you saw were counters full of the most delicious pastries, rivalling those found in patisseries in Paris. There were éclairs au chocolat, marrons glacés (caramelised chestnuts) and delicious millefeuilles. As well as Groppi, there were many tearooms in Cairo where friends met for a coffee, a pastry and of course some gossip. Familiar names were A L’Américaine, La Parisienne, Café Riche and the patisserie Loques. Groppi was always my favourite as, apart from the meringue with chantilly cream, I was very fond of their marquise aux marrons (with chestnut cream) and their peach melba. A L’Américaine served huge sandwiches stuffed with cold cuts.

The most upscale and biggest department store in Cairo was called Maison Cicurel. Their full name was Grands Magasins Cicurel et Oreco. The Cicurel branch developed into Egypt’s largest and most fashionable department store. They specialised in ready-to-wear men’s and women’s clothes, shoes, handbags and houseware, much of which were imported from Europe. It had an excellent reputation for quality and was a purveyor to the Royal palace during the reigns of Kings Fuad and Farouk. The Oreco branch of the firm consisted of thrift stores serving the lower middle classes.

My mother also used to shop in smaller department stores such as Orosdi-Back, Chemla, Maison Gattegno or Sednaoui – all those names are evoked with a great deal of nostalgia. Sednaoui was the only department store in Cairo not owned by Jews. Interestingly, there are currently 80 Cicurel, Oreco and Hannaux stores in Egypt, all under state control and in a state of disrepair. The people who shop there now have no idea that once upon a time all these stores were owned by Jewish people.

My parents had a very good social life and went out practically every evening. They had a close-knit group of friends consisting of another three couples and they shared many things – holidays, of course, but also evenings out for a meal or dinner dancing. Restaurants stayed open very late; people didn’t dine until midnight and then went out dancing. One of their regular haunts was the Semiramis hotel rooftop. The hotel still exists and is now part of the Hilton chain. They regularly went to Cairo’s trendiest entertainment venue, called L’Auberge des Pyramides, a favourite of King Farouk. It had a popular restaurant, a casino and a modern nightclub featuring entertainment brought from Europe and Latin America.

Until the fifties, Cairo was a major stop on tours by performing arts companies such as the Comédie Française and La Scala opera house. My parents always went to the theatre when the former was in town. They also loved tennis and went to watch all the main tournaments; famous players of the time included Pancho Gonzales, Lew Hoad, Ashley Cooper and Ken Rosewall. Cairo and Alexandria had practically everything a European capital offered. As well as an opera, symphony, concerts, horse racing and shows, there were many colonial style nightclubs with elaborate shows. The most recent movies from France, England and America were shown in various cinemas across the cities, always with French subtitles. The Jewish Egyptian community considered itself more European than Arab. The latest fashions from Paris were displayed in the numerous Cairo stores. Most ladies had their personal dressmaker who could whip up the latest Paris design from a pattern. Clothes were very important in Egypt’s two main cities, Cairo and Alexandria. The women were always well dressed, and most gentlemen possessed at least one white sharkskin suit – handmade by expert Egyptian tailors. This is what they wore when they went out in the evening, especially on holiday. Jewellery was always the preferred gift item and women collected jewellery – this applied to Egyptian women as well and even the ‘fellah’ woman wore 18 carat or 22 carat bangles on her wrists.

It was a privileged life for those who led a European lifestyle, but out of reach for most Egyptians, unless they were wealthy professionals. What was acceptable in Egypt in the 40s and 50s would be perceived as a social injustice nowadays. Underneath this glamorous veneer and existing side by side with it, was a lot of poverty. We were not exposed to it, but I remember the beggars in the street, many of them blind or with limbs missing.

Sporting clubs were an important part of social life. The most exclusive was the Gezirah Sporting Club in Zamalek, but there were also the Heliopolis Sporting Club and the Maadi Sporting Club. My parents were members of the Tawfikiya Tennis Club, which we referred to as the TTC. It was smaller than the others and more accessible to the middle classes. This was where my parents and their friends met most Sundays.

I liked Sundays because I spent it with my parents and we always went out for the day. If not to the sporting club, then to the Mena House Hotel. It was located five miles from the centre of Cairo and stood at the foot of the Pyramids plateau – guests had a priceless view of the Pyramids from the hotel bedrooms and restaurant terrace. In keeping with its romantic desert setting, the Mena House catered for wealthy socialites and offered luxurious hospitality. It had elegant furniture, superb restaurants, a bar that served imported drinks, libraries, rooms for card games, and a huge swimming pool.

The Mena House Hotel was not just a luxury hotel, it was a legend. Many celebrities had stayed there – Agatha Christie, who wrote the first pages of Death on the Nile during one of her visits, Churchill, Montgomery, Roosevelt, Cecil B. De Mille and Edward, Prince of Wales. The Mena House hotel was a magical place for me and I remember the large gardens and the wonderful and heady smell of the jasmine flower, fol as it’s called in Arabic. Even after all these years, I still think of the Mena House with great fondness and nostalgia. It’s a reminder of a golden bygone era, a part of my childhood which I can never recapture.

Summers were the best. Our school holidays lasted three months – June, July and August. Because of the unbearable Cairo heat in summer, the tradition was to escape the city and go to the seaside. For many years, we spent those summer months in Alexandria. My parents rented an apartment in the fashionable residential area of Sidi Bichr, as did their close group of friends. The most magical moment was when we finally arrived in Alexandria and, going down a small street, my father shouted Et voilà la mer – ‘here is the sea’ – we could see the Mediterranean, shimmering in the distance, blue and sparkling in the sun. Alexandria had a special scent; it was the sea salt, which you could smell a mile away, in contrast to Cairo, which had a dry desert smell. The residential areas were along the Corniche and all the fashionable hotels, casinos and nightclubs looked towards the sea – Hotel Beau Rivage, the Casino of Shatby and Montazah Palace, set in extensive gardens overlooking the coast. The apartment my parents rented was always near the waterfront, a few minutes’ walk from the beach.

The beach at Sidi Bichr was a long expanse of fine golden sand, set against the background of the blue Mediterranean Sea. I loved dipping my toes in the wet sand or standing at the edge of the water, watching the gentle waves come in. I had already learnt how to swim in the pool of the Tawfikieh Tennis Club, but perfected this during the summer. The sea was nearly always calm and we were only allowed in if the flag was white, which meant that it was safe. We always found something to do and were never bored. One of our favourite pastimes on the beach was to try and catch crabs and there was much excitement when someone caught one. We held them on their belly so they wouldn’t pinch our fingers and always put them back in the sea. The most evocative time of day was at sunset, when you could watch the spectacular sun slowly plunge into the sea and disappear.

Holidays were endless days of sunshine. The men accompanied their families and initially stayed for a few days. They then had to go back to Cairo for their jobs. They returned every weekend, arriving pasty-looking on a Friday and leaving again on a Sunday. They came by train, as it was probably easier than the car journey and there was a fast train from Cairo to Alexandria called the Diesel. We all did the usual holiday things – every morning was spent by the sea and, because the water was always warm, it was possible to go in and out of the sea constantly. The sand was very fine and felt like silk and when you came out of the water, the heat of the sun dried you in a couple of minutes. I remember the gentle sound of the waves against the shore, the shimmering blue of the Mediterranean and the warm rays of the sun on your face.

The women passed the time chatting and doing embroidery, which we called petit point. The designs were wonderfully intricate and lovely enough to be framed – flowers with fawns and peacocks, a prince whispering to his princess. The children also had their own needlepoint frame and would spend a little time concentrating on this, mostly to cool down from the heat of the sun. This never lasted very long, as playing on the beach and going in the sea was much more fun.

After many years spending the summer holidays in Alexandria, my parents and their friends decided they needed a change and chose a resort called Ras-El-Bar, which translates as ‘head of the land’. It is located on the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Damietta Nile branch, hence the name. It is now a fashionable all year round resort, but back then it was solely a summer one and a unique Egyptian experience. During the summer the Nile was at its lowest point and at Ras El-Bar, the Damietta branch of the Nile met the Mediterranean. People took advantage of the river’s low levels and constructed a whole village of reed and wood – only for it to be taken down at the end of the summer, when the Nile would again rise and flood the entire area. This temporary summer resort made of straw huts on stilts suddenly became fashionable. People liked living on top of each other, but I much preferred the comfort of a summer apartment in Alexandria.

The accommodation consisted of cabanas erected just for the summer season – we called them huttes, or eshash in Arabic. My parents, together with their friends, rented what amounted to a two-bedroom cabana in a pavilion of six or eight. Each family had their own, but they were next door to each other, so there could not have been any privacy. It was all very basic and my parents and their friends liked this rustic charm. Because this was where the Nile met the Mediterranean, the sea was not blue but was dark in colour and so was the sand. There was only one Jewish hotel in the resort, called the Aslan. It was open to non-residents and there were evening dances on the terrace every night. A small orchestra played tangos, waltzes and other dances, and everyone converged on the dance floor. The men always wore white suits and the women low cut dresses.

Meals were taken outside on the verandah and this was where the street vendors came into their own. They started early in the morning selling ful medames (a stew of cooked fava beans served with oil and lemon juice and a hardboiled egg) and ta’amiya, the Egyptian word for falafel (deep fried balls made from chickpeas). The ful seller stopped with his cart outside our pavilion, we handed him a large pot and he filled it up. A special treat was something called foulade, which we sometimes had for brunch. It was ful medames, served with olives, tomatoes, feta cheese and bread. Later on in the morning, there were the vegetable sellers and the men selling freshly caught fish. Once the daily ‘shopping’ was done, the maid started preparing the lunch. My favourite sweet was called lokomadis, deep fried doughnut balls soaked in a sugar syrup and served warm.

We went to bed late, but the adults partied well into the night. They played cards or went to the open-air dancing. There was a small train which went round the resort and ran until the early hours of the morning. All the shops, cafes and restaurants stayed open until at least 3.00 am and the night life continued beyond that. Music could be heard from the open-air dancing. There were many communities in Egypt – Jewish (mainly Sephardic), Italian, Maltese, Spanish, French, British, etc. There was also a large Coptic community, a Greek Orthodox and an Armenian one. Many of the Sudanese people living in Egypt were employed in lower paid jobs. We maintained cordial relations with the other communities, but we did not mix socially. Each community had its own customs, traditions and way of cooking.

All religions were tolerated. We co-existed peacefully side by side with the local population, but there was a clear distinction between the so-called Europeans and Egyptians. Commerce and industry were exclusively in the hands of Europeans. Apart from the Banque Misr, all the banks were British or French. Many Jews had a foreign nationality, which their ancestors had somehow acquired in the past – mainly French, British and Italian. Cinemas, restaurants, cafes, night clubs, department stores, banks, and so on were run by Europeans, only the waiters were Egyptian and there were many establishments where the locals were not allowed. I realise that in the light of today’s society, this reeks of colonialism and it’s not surprising that the Egyptian population was initially so inspired by Nasser’s nationalism. By the time Nasser came to power, things had been changing gradually. It was compulsory for companies to employ Egyptian nationals and an educated middle class was establishing itself.

The Jewish community in Egypt was a closed, goldfish bowl society, which many people would find suffocating nowadays. It was also very narrow-minded. A woman’s role in life was to marry and have children and it seemed that things were always done with the objective of finding a husband. Gossip was rife, as everyone knew everyone else and it did not take much to set tongues wagging. Details of any whiff of a scandal were passed by word of mouth, with all due exaggeration and embellishments. Appearances were important in the Jewish community. You were expected to behave in a certain way and conform to the norm.

The constant preoccupation was with ‘what will people say’ or ‘what will people think’. The fear of being the subject of gossip meant that you never strayed from the straight and narrow, at least outwardly. I am sure that there were many things going on under the surface, which we were unaware of. A person was often referred to as comme il faut, which meant that he/she was as ‘one should be’. One was expected to know what the right thing to do was in every situation and how to do it. I was lucky to have had a privileged childhood in Egypt, but I am sure that, as I got older, I would have found the society I grew up in shallow and stifling. It was a narrow minded one and rather intolerant. Most people had never travelled outside Egypt and were therefore quite insular, in spite of being au fait with the popular French culture and going to the theatre and the opera whenever touring companies performed in Cairo.

These rabbis exerted a formidable influence on the mores and lives of Egyptian Jews. They were known as Hakham, the honorific title for a rabbi. The Hakhamim were well respected in the community. The educated classes, as well as the impoverished ones who lived in the poorer areas, were all taught from an early age to revere them and defer to their judgment. When consulted in marital disputes, which was always the case, the rabbi would strongly encourage the couple to reconcile and remain together. Whilst there were a few divorces amongst the wealthier classes, it was still taboo and often cost one side of the family a fortune.

Money was never discussed, certainly amongst friends. It was considered vulgar and impolite. As children, all we knew about money were the couple of Egyptian piastres we were sometimes given to buy some candy after school. We didn’t need to know, as we had all we needed at home and everything was bought for us. That also meant that we did not understand the correlation between work and money, and never questioned how things got there.

Egyptian Jews were very hospitable. They opened their house to visitors and always offered them something to eat. If someone dropped in, even for a short visit, it was a selection of small pastries such as ma’amoul (date filled pastries), accompanied by a cup of Turkish coffee. The custom in Egypt was to serve a glass of iced water with the coffee. The lady of the house also served guests some of her homemade jams. There was always a certain rivalry between the ladies as to who made the best jams or the best pastries.

There always seemed to be a lot of shouting going on, but this was simply people talking loudly. They shouted at one another from balcony to balcony, from balcony into the street, and from one end of the house to the other. People in the Middle East generally, and Egyptian Jews in particular, speak in loud voices and are very animated, constantly gesticulating with their arms and hands. English people, my husband included, mistakenly think we are fighting, arguing or are angry, and it is difficult for them to understand that this is our normal way of talking. Shouting and gesturing was how we like to express ourselves. In Egypt, the fact that our conversation, mostly in French, was sprinkled with Arabic, Italian or Greek words made it even more expressive.

The street where we had lived when I was growing up had been a busy one, as it was in the city centre. Outside the building there had been an Egyptian café – these were nothing like their European equivalent. They were quite basic, consisting of tables and chairs and nothing more. They were frequented solely by men and it just was not done for an Egyptian woman to be seen in a café. The men played tawla, the game we called tric trac (backgammon), smoked the shisha and chatted. The old men spent hours watching the world go by. They wore a galabeya, the traditional Egyptian garment – it’s a loose, full length gown with wide sleeves, often decorated with embroidery on the hem and collar. Food played a huge part in our lives and we turned to it to mark and celebrate important events such as engagements, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, circumcisions, religious festivals, new arrivals, etc. Many occasions called for a particular dish or delicacy, and there was always pressure on the host to do the right thing, as criticism was very much feared. Parties, although lavish, tended to have the same dishes and the usual range of delicacies; no buffet table would have been complete without stuffed vine leaves, ma’amoul or baklava.

For Egyptian Jews, visiting friends and entertaining were popular activities and pastries had a very important place. Every household kept stocks of those and jars of fruit preserves, to be offered to guests who turned up unexpectedly and were always graciously received. Housewives were proud of the variety they could magically produce, along with the traditional small cup of Turkish coffee. Sometimes a cold syrup like almond milk or tamarind were also offered. Sweet things were a symbol of joy and happiness and at every Jewish holiday, wedding, engagements or any celebrations, a huge variety of pastries would always be displayed on the buffet table.

All kinds of fruit and vegetables could be grown in Cairo, thanks to the fertile Nile delta and the permanent sun. The best variety of melons was the Ismailia one, incredibly sweet and fragrant. Figs were abundant, in all colours and shapes – brown, black and green figs, round or oblong. Guavas were so fragrant that you could smell them as soon as you entered a room. I have found them in some Middle Eastern stores, but they are never as sweet as the ones we had in Egypt.

I would be hard pushed to name all the street vendors you could find walking the streets of Cairo and Alexandria. Everything and anything was sold – fresh fruit and vegetables, Egyptian bread, ful medames, falafel, ice cream and all sorts of pastries and sweetmeats. I always looked forward to buying semit from the vendor who stood outside the cinema at the end of the performance – it was shaped like a pretzel, but was softer and the top was covered with sesame seeds. You could also buy broiled corn on the cob, roasted peanuts (soudanis), and boiled yellow beans (termes). All sorts of beverages were sold – amongst them, liquorice and sugar cane juice. There were also many stationary vendors to tempt us outside the school gates.

In our community, French and Arabic were intermingled, almost creating a new language which we called Franco-Egyptian, only comprehensible to us. We rolled our r’s when we spoke, a little like the people of Marseilles. Our French was mixed with some Arab words and expressions and the result could be hilarious. To say that Thursday was laundry day, we would say that it was the day of the ghassala (laundry lady in Arabic). When we cooked a dish of sweet potatoes, we called it a dish of batata helwa (the Arabic word).

Life as we knew it came to a sudden and abrupt end in November 1956, following the Suez crisis. Nasser had declared all Jews enemies of the State and, as such, they were subject to expulsion from Egypt, along with British and French citizens. Soldiers with rifles knocked on our door one evening and delivered the fateful order. It was very frightening and a shock, even though we had been expecting this. I think my father had always hoped against hope that things would get better. How do you suddenly leave the country you were born in, everything you know and own, wondering if you will ever see your family again?

Although stateless, my father was allowed to travel with us. My parents were forced to sign a supposedly ‘voluntary’ form renouncing all claims, property and citizenship in Egypt. The declaration stated that they were ‘donating’ all their property to the Egyptian government. Upon leaving, my mother’s passport and my father’s laissez-passer were stamped with the words ‘ONE WAY NO RETURN’. My father’s ‘laissez-passer’ had the words ‘Apatride’ (stateless) stamped in large letters across one of the pages. I came across this document while I was clearing up his things after he had passed away. It was a stark reminder of my father’s status, or lack of it.

We were given two weeks to leave and only allowed to take clothes with us – a suitcase of maximum 20 kilos for each of us and twenty Egyptian pounds in total for the whole family, worth just under twenty British pounds at the time. No other money, jewellery or anything of value. If we were searched at the airport, these would have been confiscated or worse. Thankfully, we left Egypt unharmed. We had eyed the servants nervously, wondering whether they would turn on us. They and all the local people around us remained very courteous and loyal to the end. They seemed sympathetic to our plight and were upset that we were leaving. On the morning of our departure, they all lined up to say goodbye. Everyone was crying and it was very emotional.

The ride to the airport was sad and even the children understood the sheer magnitude of the moment. At the airport, we had to open all our suitcases for inspection. We knew there was nothing valuable inside them, but it was still a tense moment. Finally, we boarded and the plane took off. My parents must have felt overwhelmed or perhaps it was difficult to take in what was happening. There must have been so many mixed emotions – relief that we had left unharmed and were safe, anxiety about the future and sadness at being uprooted.

We left on 10 December 1956 on a KLM flight which stopped to refuel in Athens. We then flew to Sofia in Bulgaria and then on to Amsterdam, where we spent the night. The next morning we took a plane bound for England and landed in Heathrow on a cold and grey December morning. We were met by a government official, put on a bus and taken straightaway to what was to be our home for the next three months. We had no idea where we were going, but found out later it was Bridgend hostel in Stonehouse in Gloucestershire. It had been previously used during World War II, but not since then. The hostel consisted of pre-fabricated rows of pavilions and each family had their own accommodation. Our rooms were in blocks of eight with two toilets, a bathroom and a kitchenette where you could make yourself a coffee or tea. We had one room for my parents and one room for us girls, with a wardrobe.

There was a big building at the end of the compound, where the dining room was situated. It was more like a canteen and this is where we had our breakfast, lunch and dinner. The meals were adequate, but we found it difficult, as it was food we did not know and were not used to. There was also a TV room with a television set – something we had never seen before – and a games room with table tennis. We did not mix with the other children in the hostel and rarely went to the main building. I think they mixed more; perhaps they had belonged to the same community in Egypt, but for some reason we stayed apart from all the activities.

Breakfast consisted of cornflakes or a cooked one. We had never had cereal before and it tasted strange, more like cardboard. The thought of having something cooked for breakfast was totally alien to us, so we didn’t eat much. It was the same for lunch and dinner, the food was there but it was nothing like what we were used to. We couldn’t stomach the pork sausages, baked beans or boiled cabbage that were on offer on a daily basis and we were hungry most of the time. Nor were we used to drinking tea or instant coffee – in Egypt, tea would have been for medicinal purposes like chamomile and the coffee had been cafe au lait, with lots of milk. In the end, my mother bought some dried pasta and a tube of tomato purée from a local shop, which she managed to prepare on a tiny cooker we had in the room.

We were sent to school, my younger sisters to the local primary and me to the secondary school. To get there, we had to go through muddy fields in the middle of winter. My younger sisters walked together, always hand in hand and I had to walk on my own, as my school was on a separate site. I hated my school and felt completely lost. Cairo had been familiar and safe, and I had been used to the busy streets, the noise and the traffic. The hostel in Bridgend was not far from the school in nearby Stonehouse but, like my sisters, I had to walk through quiet fields and small lanes to get there. What’s more, it was the middle of winter and I was not used to the freezing cold. Once at school, it was another struggle as I didn’t understand a word of what was being said.

The hostel was full of refugees from Egypt like us. There were many Maltese families and other people we had never come across in Cairo. Under normal circumstances, we would not have had much in common with them, but these were different times. We had all experienced the trauma of having to leave Egypt very suddenly and the future was uncertain. We were also trying to cope with the cold weather and a different culture and language. My parents must have been scared and worried, but they never showed it in front of us.

As my father had worked for a British company in Cairo, he was offered a job in their Head Office in London, albeit a much lower position. We left the hostel in spring 1957 to start our new life in London.

Viviane Bowell