Elizabeth goes to Singapore

Elizabeth May Hicks was born into a financially comfortable Jewish family in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in England, 10 years after the beginning of the last century.

Her father made his money by buying and selling cloth throughout the country. He travelled a great deal leaving his wife, Janet, at home to take care of their four children, 3 boys and Elizabeth being the only girl. Needless to say, Elizabeth grew up as a tomboy, but that was until she met a boy much to her liking, but not to her parents because he wasn’t Jewish. It was when she bumped into Rupert at her school as a teenager that she began to wear her hair longer and to the amusement of her parents, discovered what it was to wear a dress.

As her father, William, was in the clothing business, there was never any shortage of cloth with which she got dresses made. Her father ribbed her that she was eating into the business profits and that he would have to limit the amount of cloth she could get for free. The local tailor, who was the only one for a hundred miles, had the latest Singer sowing machine and looked forward to Elizabeth running into his shop when she wasn’t at school. Invariably she would be holding a page she had ripped out of one of her mother’s fashion magazines showing the dress she wanted made, and he did. After all, it was his son, Rupert, that Elizabeth had her eye on.

At first, Elizabeth’s parents weren’t very keen on the relationship but decided not to make a fuss just in case it increased their interest in each other. A year later Elizabeth and Rupert had gone in different directions. Rupert had joined the army and Elizabeth wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do with her life.

“How about becoming a teacher?” her mother asked, “there are lots of teachers in the family.” Elizabeth scrunched up her nose and replied in her own way, “that’s why I don’t want to be a teacher. Too many in the family.” Her mother knew when to leave her daughter alone and that was one of those times.

Three years later when Elizabeth was 22 years old, they proudly attended her graduation from the local teaching college, St Agatha. But now that she had her teaching degree, it was time for her to decided where it was she was going to teach. And Elizabeth wouldn’t be Elizabeth if she had replied when asked, “the nearest school that will have me,” instead, she horrified her entire family when they heard the answer to their question, “Singapore!”

“Why Singapore?” asked her father who didn’t know exactly where it was on the map, but knew it was a long way from home. Once he pulled down an atlas and looked it up, his first question was, “do they have a Jewish community there?”

But of course, Elizabeth being Elizabeth, she had never considered that and even if she had, that would not be the deciding factor. Her mother came to her rescue. “William,” she said putting down her knitting for a moment, “there are Jews everywhere in the world, even in China.”

“Why don’t you go to China then Elizabeth? They have Jews there.”

Elizabeth laughed at that suggestion. “Dad,” she replied curtly, “I’m not going somewhere just because they have Jews there.”
“Then why Singapore?” he asked a little confused by his daughter’s reply, though that shouldn’t have been a surprise to him.

“Because it sounds like fun,” she hesitated for a moment and then added, “plus they speak English there and not Chinese.” Her eldest brother, Stephen, who had just walked in from his little trip to London, he had joined his father’s business as had the other boys, caught the tail end of the discussion and debated whether to enter it or not. Elizabeth was his favourite sister, though he was constantly reminded that she had no competition, she was the only sister he had. Usually, his father would want to be updated with the results of his trip, but his only daughter’s future, which he felt was going in the wrong direction, took priority.

“Dad,” Stephen said flopping down in a plush chair next to his mother who rubbed his unruly hair, “Singapore is where life is being lived at its best.”

His father looked surprised that his son, who barely finished high school, would know anything about Singapore many thousands of miles away. Stephen needed to expand on his answer, and he did so with a question, “isn’t that where Raffles built his hotel?”

Well, that was news to everyone and the father not wishing to look silly asked his eldest son, “but do they have Jews there?”

“Yes, they do, dad,” he replied, “there are Jews everywhere in the world.”

“Including China,” added Elizabeth and their father knew it was time to give up. He took a deep breath, looked at his son who was grinning from ear to ear because it wasn’t often he was able to get one over on his father and beckoned him to come with him into the office.

Once they had gone, Janet picked up her knitting and looked at her daughter and shook her head. “I have this horrible feeling that if you do go to Singapore, we will never see you again.” “Not true,” replied Elizabeth feeling her parents were beginning to relent and that Singapore wherever that was, was now in her future.

“Promise me one thing,” her mother asked as Elizabeth got up from where she was sitting and headed towards the door, “promise me that you will only marry a nice Jewish boy.” If that was the only condition she thought to herself, well that was an easy one.

“Yes mama, I promise.” And with that, Elizabeth ran outside to meet her friends. “Guess where I’m going to teach?” she shouted to Emily her best friend.

“London,” she replied.

“Oh no, why would I go there?” she asked surprised at her guess.

“Why not?” she answered, “there are a lot of Jewish boys there.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t want to go there, too many Jews.”

“Mongolia!” shouted Rachel emboldened by Elizabeth’s reply and then added, “there aren’t any Jews there.”

“There aren’t?” asked Elizabeth a little surprised, “I thought there were Jews everywhere.”

“Well,” replied Rachel, “if there are, then there aren’t enough to form a minyan.”

Elizabeth stopped for a second to think. Singapore sounded so much more civilised than Mongolia. “Oh no, I’m going to Singapore!” she enlightened them.

“Singapore!” they both shouted in unison.

“Because that’s where Raffles built his hotel.”
“You mean to tell me you’re going to Singapore because of a hotel?”

“What about Jewish boys? I don’t think Raffles was Jewish.”

“I’m not going somewhere just because of Jewish boys.”

“But you’re going somewhere just because someone built a hotel,” said Emily sounding the most intelligent of the group.

Elizabeth sighed. “I just want to go somewhere and teach English and I think Singapore sounds like just the place.”

“You know what Elizabeth?” said Rachel stopping for a second and grabbing her hands, “if you go to Singapore, we will never see you again.”

Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief. That was what all her family and friends could think about. “Yes, you will,” she laughed and they all walked away to sit by the river.