When Gerald Grant was a young lad he was a Shabat Boy. Shabat is the expression for the Jewish Sabbath, which lasts from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday (more commonly known to some as the Jewish Sunday).

Shabat is a Hebrew or Yiddish term, and ‘Yiddish’ is a mixture of the German and Hebrew language. A Shabat Boy would be non-Jewish and was employed for a few pence to perform the menial tasks in the house whilst the Jewish family sat at the table saying their prayers.

Gerald’s duties as a Shabat Boy would involve fetching and carrying coal to put on a coal burning fire, clearing the grate of ash and clinker and answering the door.

During Saturday afternoon Gerald would make sure that the fish stew was simmering away merrily on the hob, ready for the family’s Saturday evening meal.

Very often Gerald was hungry and to ease the pangs he would test the simmering fish stew with a spoon to see if it was the right temperature!

Shabat Boy Gerald Grant came from a family of mixed religious beliefs with his father being a Baptist and his mother a Catholic. Gerald, his father, mother and sister lived harmoniously next door to a Russian immigrant Jewish family who had been forced to flee Odessa in 1912. The head of the family was Kalman Davidoff and he and his wife Rochell had two daughters and one son named Hyman, who later became a Rabbi in the City of Hull.

The two families of very differing religious beliefs lived near each other for about 20 years. Gerald’s mother also helped the family and did all their clerical work, such as reading and writing letters and filling out forms etc.

Chicken and fish meals were the Davidoff family’s main diet and Gerald recalled one of the benefits of the close association was a free chicken occasionally. He also said that their bream stew was ‘out of this world’. The family would purchase a chicken, slit the gizzard or crop, and check for any ‘foreign bodies’ such as nails or bits of wire which were regarded as ‘not Kosher’ or permitted food. If the chicken was not acceptable then the Grant family had an unexpected treat that evening because the Davidoffs would pass it to them.

Gerald admitted that he had very fond memories of these practices.