GREAT BRITAIN
For an Englishman to arrive home to England after years in war and away from home must have been quite an experience, but for a Displaced Person like me to arrive for the first time to England was an indescribable shock. Quite apart from seeing my parents after a parting of over two years and noting that all the vehicles were travelling down the wrong (i.e. left) side of the street, it was the first time in my life that I was in a country where I did not understand what people were saying.
However, the greatest shock was democracy in practice. The first Sunday afternoon I was taken to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park and I was petrified that I would get into trouble just for standing around, while some soap box orator was berating Prime Minister Attlee and in the same breath declaring Mr Churchill to have been a traitor to his country. The girl who took me there on behalf of my Father, for the express purpose of showing me democracy, could not understand my panic of wanting to get away from the place, where I believed the police would soon make arrests of all who stood around. She was brought up in England and that is why she could not comprehend my fears.
Later that afternoon I learned more about democracy when a very casually dressed 17 years old Vera and 22 years old Steve decided that a cup of coffee would be acceptable and we bowled into a hotel, where maharajas, sultans and other notables were milling around and we asked for a cup of coffee and were most politely shown towards the area where it would be served. However, seeing the cost exceeding our budget, we did not stay and thus my first and probably only chance of having a meal at the Dorchester was thwarted.
That first week in England is one of my most cherished memories. My Mother arranged a couple of tickets for the closing ceremony of the London Olympics, and having been always interested in the Olympic idea, I could hardly believe that it was I who was in Wembley stadium watching the King of England standing while the Hungarian anthem was played in honour of a Hungarian gold medal winner of the 1948 Olympiad.
To welcome me into England my brother John and his wife, Gilly travelled from Scotland and spent the weekend with us. We all went into the Westend of London and visited the Top of The Town Theatre where Tommy Trinder managed to make me laugh, without my understanding a word he was saying. We went to Piccadilly Circus, where, it is said, if you wait long enough you would meet someone you know. Sure enough there were two meetings, I met a school mate of mine and he met me.
We had a cup of tea at the Regent Palace Hotel, where all musicians of the Palm Court Orchestra were ladies. While we were there, John went off to search for some cigarettes and found that a shop was selling handmade Piccadilly cigarettes for the outrageous sum of 3/1d for 25. I rushed out to buy a box, and we even talked Father into buying some for us. There was still quite a shortage of fags, - three years after the war!
On my last day in London, I decided that I wanted to see Hamlet with Laurence Olivier. Mother was less than interested and thus I stayed in town on my own and made my way to Leicester Square where I managed to buy a ticket for the next performance. When I realised that I would have to wait over two hours I sat down in the large cinema's lounge. The waitresses kept asking me if I would like something, so I succumbed and ordered a cup of tea. When the tea arrived I realised that there is a difference between a cup of tea and high tea and from then on was careful to ensure that others knew exactly what I meant. The cost was 8/-, which must be compared with the 2/9d my ticket for Hamlet cost. However, it was all worth it.
Soon I travelled to join Gilly and John in Scotland. The train journey took all day and was very civilised. I actually had a cushioned seat all the way, which would have been in itself exceptional for someone who was used to travel in cattle trucks or on hard slats in Europe, but to have a dining car, with food and waiters and no food coupons to hand over, was almost too good to be true.
Although there was food rationing in England until 1956, food was sufficient even during the war and there was never any rationing in restaurants. During the post-war years the British were better off than the Germans, however by 1950 the West Germans had no need for ration cards, while the poor old victors were still queuing for their miserly meat ration.
I went to Scotland to assist in putting into production my Father's hammer mill, which was to have been manufactured under license there. Although Father handed over the complete Hungarian drawings, in the course of these being re-dimensioned in inches, a few changes were made here and there and as a bye product of these changes the machine ceased to work in its re-designed form. In the end it was realised that it would have been better to leave the design without trying to improve it and when I arrived, the first of the machines in its original form were ready for testing.
My Labour Permit allowed me to work as a Development and Outside Demonstration Engineer at the Ayr factory of the Scottish Mechanical Light Industries Ltd. The Works Manager was my brother and the Technical Director was Paul Sandor, whose brother was the Managing Director and owner, Dr. Bela Sandor. Under the circumstances it would not have been surprising if some of the employees of ScotMec would have been less than enthusiastic at the arrival of another good example of nepotism. However, at no time did I ever encounter anything but kindness and my colleagues went out of their way to be as helpful as they could.
At the same time my brother was trying to ensure not to be accused of favouring me and I was banished to develop and demonstrate and test hammer mills in a lean-to shed beside the factory building. After all I was an "Outside Engineer", and therefore would not mind having to cart hammer mills between the shed and the factory. Although it was mostly raining, in August this was quite acceptable, but when the chilly winds of November made Scotland into a good copy of Siberia, even my fellow Scottish workers were feeling sorry for me huddling in my outside shed. I was invited to have my morning and afternoon cups of tea in the toolroom and that is where I learned most of my conversational English.
The factory foreman was Sandy McPherson, a friendly smiling man who bred and raced greyhounds. I never heard of such a sport and could not envisage trained dogs chasing an artificial hare and that grown men should be interested in this. I just had to see this. Sandy suggested that I come to the race course, but he warned me not to bet on his dog because he was going to "feed" the dog before the race, making sure that he does not win. When I got to the race venue that evening I could hardly believe my eyes.
There were hundreds of people milling about, a large totalisator board was showing the total bets and likely winnings and long queues were forming in front of the betting windows. I decided to bet half a crown and in my halting English asked for a two and six pence ticket, but before I could say on which dog I already got my ticket for a combination of dogs No 2 and 6, the latter being Sandy's dog. I started to explain that I wanted 2/6d and not 2 and 6, and my bets were for numbers 4 and 5 as tipped for me by Sandy, but there was a crowd behind me and I was too embarrassed at my bad English, so I took my ticket and left.
Needless to say No. 2 romped home, closely followed by Sandy's dog. They were both outsiders and I collected 5 guineas (105 shillings) for my 2 shillings and sixpence. This was 4 shillings more than my weekly wages of 5 pounds and one shilling (101 shillings). I decided that dog racing was a capital idea.
Next week I went to the dogs again and this time I was hoping that I get the wrong ticket. Sure enough, I collected almost 9 pounds on the first race and I left immediately to buy myself a hat, two shirts, a suit and a pair of shoes and take home a bottle of sherry, all for my 9 quid!
When John heard of my beginner's luck he explained how to make money on the dogs and I was looking forward to my third visit and some more easy money. Something appeared to be wrong with his system, because I lost all my weekly wages on the dogs and from that evening on I have never bet on a dog again, although I been to the race course a few more times.
Not being a proper tradesman I had no handtools of my own and had to rely on Sandy to lend me the tools I required in the course of my work and on one occasion I needed a cold chisel, the English word for which I did not know. Sandy was willing to lend it to me, if only I could tell him what I wanted. Finally I demonstrated it to him and he decided that what I wanted was a hammer.
"No, not a hammer", said I and proceeded to draw it.
"Och Aye, you need a screwdriver?" and so we went through quite a pantomime before I got my chisel.
Overlooking all this was Jock Taylor, a not too bright giant of a labourer, who used to help me in lifting hammer mills. When I left with my chisel, he turned to Sandy and said:
"Don't nobody tell me that he is a bloody engineer, if he doesn't even know what a f...ing chisel is."
No amount of explanation by Sandy and others helped Jock to understand that my ignorance was due to a language problem.
We must have been a fairly cosmopolitan factory because in addition to the four Hungarians, we had a Canadian and an ex-RAF Pole. The two standard questions by any Scot on meeting a foreigner was firstly:
"How do you like our country?, followed by :
"What do you think of our weather?"
Ben Carlin, always answered the second question in his Canadian drawl:
"Your weather is just the same as at home, we have summer, fall, winter and spring, but in Canada it comes in this order and over one year, here we get it all in one day and you never know which comes next."
Mr. Nitupski was a bachelor and had a motor bike, which he allowed me to drive on the disused airfield of Turnbury, where we sometimes went to see the sea. He used to go for a drink after work on payday with Sandy McPherson and the tool room foreman and one day I was invited to join them. It was carefully explained to me that it is very important to buy a drink to everybody who bought you one and at that point I should have made some excuse and left to go home. Having drunk ample German beer with absolutely no alcohol content, it never occurred to me that I cannot cope with 4 pints of beer. As it happened, the 4 pints of beer were just the chasers, the real drinks were double nips of whiskies, four of them.
I have been drunk before and (once more) since, but never to that extent. I was put onto the bus in Ayr and the conductor was told to put me off the bus at Prestwick. He probably did. How I got to Boydfield Avenue, where I lived with John and Gilly, I do not know. All I know is what I was subsequently told by Gilly, who, seeing my state, sent me upstairs to bed. I got up to the landing, turned round to say good night, collapsed and rolled all the way down. Gilly was on her own, covered me up and left me there. I could not understand next morning, why I was still dressed and why I was sleeping on the floor.
John and Gilly had a semidetached house in Boydfield Ave, Prestwick, which was famous in Britain for being the only place where they never have fog. Consequently, a big airport was built there during the war and Prestwick became an all important stop for the planes which were ferried from USA. After the war it was still important because most of the planes from Europe stopped there prior to flying to Newfoundland and hence to Canada or New York.
Father was in London and went into partnership with an old established company of millers and grain merchants to manufacture and market some of his agricultural machinery. Almost nightly he was ringing us asking John to join him in his business. John was not too keen because he knew that it would mean the end of his independence.
On the other hand Father did need someone to assist him. He spoke no English then, nor did he do so in later years. Yet he managed to establish a business with the help of two people whose sole contribution was that they interpreted for him. Seeing that Father made considerable progress, John finally decided to sell the house in Scotland and move to London and work in the City where the offices of Mitchell, Colman & Co. were.
I moved to our next door neighbours, Mr and Mrs C. Brown. What their name was I might have known, but never used during the 6 months I lived with them and their two children. The children were young, but old enough to be taken to Sunday School, during which Mr & Mrs Brown stayed in seclusion in their bedroom and were never disturbed. Sunday morning occurred with the same regularity as did Friday night, when Mr. Brown came home after work to change and then left for the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr, where he and his 7 or 8 friends saw the same performance sitting in the same box every week for four or five weeks until the new month brought a different troop, but the same type of vaudeville acts. Two or three times, when somebody was to be absent from the group, I was invited to attend and I enjoyed the typical Scottish variety, but I would have refused to see it more than once.
I went to London for Christmas 1948 and had the interesting experience of having had too much money. What happened was that I saved money for my holidays and just before travelling to London I asked the bank to send me to the factory 25 pounds from my account. They did so, but instead of giving me Bank of England notes they gave me just one note for 25 pounds, issued by some obscure Scottish bank. It was a huge piece of parchment on which the denomination was hand written and signed personally by the Governor of the Bank who issued the note.
Luckily I already had my ticket and I had some change as well so that I made it in the overnight train to London without trouble, but there I could not find anybody who was prepared to change it. Finally I found a bank where they gave me real money for my Promissory Note, albeit I had to pay something like a shilling for the privilege.
Paul Sandor, who was a Director of the company I worked for and I became quite friendly and when his marriage broke up he suggested that I move into his house in Ayr as a lodger. We worked in the same factory and we cooked for ourselves, we went to the movies frequently and we were courting two Finnish girls who worked in the same school. Surprisingly, we did not go on each other's nerves. He had two children and while, during the week they boarded in a school, I assisted with them during the weekend.
Around mid-1949 I had to undergo an operation. Britain has just recently introduced the National Health Service, which meant free medicine and health care always provided you were healthy enough to be able to wait for it. I was in pain, which was insufficient grounds to jump the queue and eventually my parents suggested that I should go to London, where they knew a doctor who worked in a hospital. I did so and had the operation, after which I became interested in leaving Scotland and joining the rest of the family in London.
I left Scotland with mixed feelings. I was looking forward to what London and England would offer and at the same time I was sorry to leave my mates, who made me so welcome and who made my transition from a stateless DP to a resident of Robie Burns' town of Ayr so much easier. Contrary to their own propaganda, the Scots are generous to a fault and have a better sense of humour than they admit. I continued to think of Scotland and the Scots with a great deal of affection and I was grateful to have had the opportunity to commence my British life in Scotland.
Living with my parents in Richmond, I travelled to the City every morning with crowds of people carrying umbrellas and wearing bowler hats and with Father who spoke business to me on the train right upto to Bank Station. Since none of the other passenger spoke Hungarian, we were given a few looks, which never disturbed Father. He, John, Mr. George Rudolfer and Miss Sari Ignotus and I were the full staff of Mitchell, Colman & Co. Ltd and we were the foreigners in the midst of a large office, where Pyke and Sons Ltd. conducted their old established business importing and exporting grain. Our English colleagues, who sat only feet away from us in the communal office, quietly buying tons of wheat in Canada and selling it over the phone in Japan, must have been quite surprised at the antics of Father, who was screaming in Hungarian at his sons and his two other Hungarian victims. This caused us a great deal of embarrassment and there was nothing we could do to cause Father to turn down the volume.
He often insisted that his sons accompany him to business luncheons, where his Hungarian eating habits of slurping soup were most disturbing to us, but caused no sign of being noticed by the polite Englishmen with us. We tried to tell him, that there is no soup on the menu, but he could spot another diner having some and triumphantly ordered soup for himself.
Another habit of his was to tell a joke in Hungarian and suggesting that we translate it to the Englishman who sat there, understanding not one word, while Father was killing himself laughing at his own story. Usually it was an un-translatable joke on words and when we told him that, he simply started the story in his English and when he got one-third through it, and found it impossible to finish it, he shouted at us in Hungarian, that we should continue it for him. After a while we became quite expert at inventing endings to his jokes.
Soon after I went to London, Father imported a German gentleman who was a grain drying expert. He was accommodated in the Strand Palace Hotel and in his room, I was to have helped him to draw up the design of what became known as the Dryvent System. It turned out that Herr Gronert was not the expert we thought he was and there were large gaps in his knowledge and experience. He was becoming more and more homesick for his secretary, whose every action in bed was described to me daily in preference to grain drying by ventilation. Eventually he left and I remained the sole expert in the United Kingdom of an art, which was not as yet invented nor proven.
However, with Father realising a genuine need for grain drying in England, he was pushing ahead regardless and I was young enough not to see the dangers of my being unskilled and inexperienced in the then rather inexact art of grain drying. We sold our first installation to a Mr John Warburton in Shillingford in Oxfordshire, who was a well known identity and had confidence in those crazy Hungarians. The problem was that my Father and John also had confidence in my knowing what I was doing in calculating the size of the fan, the loading of the heater, the amount of air required and the maximum height the grain should be before it rots or catches fire due to spontaneous combustion.
I am afraid, I did not share their confidence, but there was nothing I could do, but set up the trunkings on the floor of the warehouse, connect the fan and wait for the trucks to deliver the grain. This they did and I watched with a heavy heart as the 200 tons of grain piled onto the trunkings of the very first Dryvent System. At the time a ton of wheat cost 33 pounds and I could see a claim for damages for at least 6600 pounds at a time when the expensive Landrover I was driving cost 450 pounds!
I did not give the impression of being scared out of my wits when, after starting up the fan and heaters, I accepted Mr & Mrs Warburton's invitation for dinner. I said good night to them after dinner and having a last nonchalant look at the grain, left in my car. However, unbeknown to them I travelled but a mile or two and stopped, waited till darkness and than quietly tiptoed back into the warehouse to check my installation and take the temperature of the grain throughout the night, - snatching a few minutes of sleep in a corner of the warehouse. In the morning I disappeared, washed my face in a pub and returned to the Warburton's asking them casually if they knew how the drying of the grain was progressing.
I must say that all was well with this first and subsequent installations, (except one in Ireland, where the farmer decided to save electricity by not switching on the fan and was surprised when the grain did not get drier), and if the Dryvent System did not become the success it deserved, it was because once again Father was too early with one of his ideas and much too early in giving it up. The method of drying with the aid of ventilation became the standard throughout the World and the method I devised then, and the book of instructions and explanation of the Dryvent System I wrote in 1950 is still as true as it ever was.
Later that year I commenced studying agriculture at the Harper Adams Agricultural College in Newport, Shropshire. I was interested in the subjects, especially because I was not required to sit for exams at the end of my shortened course of one year. Yet I learned sufficient to be able to understand farming practices and connect these sciences to the agricultural engineering I learned at Universities in Hungary and Germany and through my Father and his incessant reading of trade papers.
It was not possible for me stay at College and therefore I lived in one of the many pubs of the village. Many years later I read in a booklet my Mother-in-Law wrote about the origins of her family, that my future wife's Huguenot forebear was the vicar of the church I overlooked from my window in the tiny village of Newport.
While I was there, we celebrated the 100th jubilee of the College and Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen came to visit the place. There were a lot of preparations leading to the visit and it was suggested to Mr Price, the Principal that he should introduce some foreign students to the Princess. There was only one student who actually came from overseas to attend the college, Mohammed Nemjoo, a middle aged Iranian and so they remembered me, who was at least born in foreign lands. When the Princess came past us, the Principal introduced us as "the foreign students" and Mohammed had a little discussion with H.R.H., who turned to me and asked me:
"And where do you come from?" expecting that I would tell her about some exotic place, but she was totally flabbergasted, when I replied:
"From Richmond, Surrey, Mam" which proves that if you are given a role to play, prepare yourself for all eventualities. For the rest of my life, and probably beyond, I will regret that I did not say that I came specially to the College from Katmandu, Alaska or at least Hungary.
While I was in College during the week, Father met me for the weekends in Grantham, where in cahoots with Dick Bates, we were designing a forage harvester. It was an interesting idea and with a lot of ingenuity and the use of some outlandish improvisations, it actually worked. A combine harvester, designed to thrash dry grain grown on dry stalks was to be converted at the end of the harvesting season into a forage harvester, capable of chopping up wet, clinging grass and kale and other gooey matter which felt and looked as if they would have been created for the sole purpose of clogging up everything they were in touch with.
It did work in a reasonable fashion and in fact was good enough to be entered in the International Forage Harvester Competition against such great organisations as John Deer, International Harvester and Massey-Harris, etc. Unbelievable as it may sound, it won first price in the Prototype Section and was certainly the peak of my achievements as a designer of agricultural machinery.
The forage harvester was not the only design in which I was involved. There were such machines as the Strobust, an adaptation of the old Robust chopper which in Admiral Horthy's farm used to have the name of Robur. As the name may suggest the Strobust was used to chop up straw. Its choice of name was better than the product, but it worked. It was made in a Kingston-on-Thames factory and when after 3 months of work, it was wheeled out into a neighbouring lot and started to pick up the straw strewn specially for the occasion, one of the onlookers, who must have been taking bets that it would not work, threw down a handful of money and exclaimed:
"Good God, the bastard works."
In 1950 Father was 58 years old and had a tremendous drive. While he was frustrated because of his inability to make himself understood, he did not allow this to slow him down. The fact that he could not understand what others told him, was his eventual downfall. The fact that he was told in Hungarian what problems there were, was of no interest to him, because the information came from his sons and employees, who, according to him, did not have his experience and therefore could not know.
The Company was so busy searching for new items to make, believing that the next novelty would finally take off and be a goldmine, that only the accountants noticed that the meagre sales were not sufficient to keep paying for the ever increasing staff and for the development costs. As the accountant could not speak Hungarian and in any case used to be employed by the partners, Father could and would not listen to him and he regarded him as a superfluous panic merchant.
When the crunch came, the partners allowed the major supplier to take a small portion of the shares in the Company in exchange for outstanding invoices. Later the capital was increased and Father was invited to either put in his proportion of the money or accept a smaller share of the total or failing this the Company would be bankrupted. Father could not raise any money and the threat of "his" Company being made bankrupt could not even be considered by him. In this fashion he lost his interest in the Company, although he obtained an agreement according to which the new owners of Mitchell, Colman were to pay in his own or his wife's lifetime a percentage on the Company's turnover.
John was invited to stay on as the Marketing Director and he and the Company moved to Manchester. Father was receiving his commission payments and he continued to negotiate on behalf of the Company with overseas suppliers. I was the only one who was without a job and started to read the Positions Vacant ads in the papers. I was looking forward to obtaining a proper job as I had not been paid a salary or wages during the many months I worked for the Company. It never occurred to either me or Father that I should be on the payroll and at the age of 24, working for him, I had to fight for every gift of pocket money I was given. On the other hand I was quite used to this, because from the age of 17, whenever I worked for my Father, I was expected to do so in the interest of the family and not for money. In fairness, I was always given pocket money, albeit never without being told that I should spend less!
Getting a job was not as easy as I imagined. I wrote to all the major manufacturers of agricultural machinery and offered my services. Having been involved in the design of the price winning forage harvester and other well publicised implements I was sure that the recipients of my letter will try to beat each other in obtaining my services. Indeed, I was invited to quite a number of manufacturers between Dagenham, Kent and Kilmarnock in Scotland, with such people as Ford, Massey-Ferguson and International Harvester all wishing to interview me and offering a job. However I always managed to talk myself out of getting the job, - I either insisted that I get more salary than they offered or I felt that I should start at a higher position than they wished to place me.
Suddenly I realised that I ran out of big manufacturers and it was time to lower my sights. I went to see the Labour Exchange in Richmond and they sent me to the specialised executive office in the City, where they could only offer me the dole payment until such time as they found a vacancy for me. I returned to Richmond where, after completing a few forms they gave me my first dole payment of 37/6d.
Once I walked out of the Labour Exchange I realised the mistake I made in accepting the money. At the time I was in England just three years and although after three years I was allowed to change jobs without first obtaining the approval of the Home Office, I was still not free of their control and I was certainly not a British citizen or even a resident. I feared that when I apply for citizenship I might be handicapped because I became a burden to the taxpayer and of course I came to Britain with a Labour Permit to work and not to draw the dole.
Within minutes I returned to the Labour Exchange and asked to see the man, who so kindly arranged my dole payment during the past hour. I asked him to accept the return of my money. In the true spirit of the public service he first tried to talk me out of my rash action, then explained matters to the Manager, who came to ask me to be sensible and please go away with the money.
Next they spent an hour or so on the telephone enquiring as to what course of action they are to take and finally drew up a document which I signed, the cashier accepted the money, gave me a receipt for it and members of that Labour Exchange presumably dined out on the story of having had the first ever dole payment repaid in the history of the British Isles.
Next day the Richmond Labour Exchange rang me and offered me a job in Surbiton in a tractor factory. I accepted. I was to be a fitter's mate, i.e. an unskilled labourer in a large workshop where they assembled imported Allis Chalmers tractors and bulldozers. Here, but for a careless crane driver I would still be, but he put a two ton engine on my index finger, causing my very welcome retirement from becoming a professional assembler of bulldozers.