Hella Pick CBE came to Britain from Vienna on a Kindertransport in 1939 & went to school in Cumbria:

The other pupils must have known I was a refugee. I became a Girl Guide & we were performing something in a local church & I was an African chief who got converted to Christianity. I was painted all brown, with dark liquid stockings, which is what people did when there were no real stockings in the war.

There were several other refugees living in the Lake District during the war. Three or four musicians formed a little chamber orchestra. My mother took me to these concerts, which was lovely. I don’t think that I had any sort of either special pro or anti Jewish treatment or anything. And not too much curiosity about my origins either.

Hella's mother came to Britain on a domestic service visa.

She found this job with a family who were very comfortably off. Had a lovely house. But treated her throughout the war as their cook. I had to go into the house by the back door. And if I wanted to swim in the lake, I had to make sure than nobody else was using the garden or was swimming, this sort of thing.

It made it hard for me to bring my school friends. Only the very closest friends could be told just the circumstances that I was living in. Which, you know, created- well, I don’t- I don’t know how much a problem it was. I had 2 or 3 very close friends who certainly did come.

But it was a curious life for a small child. Going to a school where most of the children came from well-off established families and then going home through their back door. We were ranked as enemy aliens.

I went a lot to a lovely village called Grasmere & became friends with one of the Lake artists called Heaton Cooper & his wife, a sculptress. They became my anchor. They were members of ‘Moral Re-Armament’. I used to sit with them while they listened to God & things like that.

I loved going to Grasmere Church. I dragged my mother to the church on Sunday evenings. I knew every single hymn. And absolutely loved going to Grasmere Church. [laughs] I dragged her along & she came. So that was the most religious period of my life. I wanted to fit in.

Hella Pick CBE

Memories

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