My name is Catherine car and this is season three of relatively
let me have my go first. Okay, but because I'm sat in Kate's basement,
the podcast all about potentially the longest relationships of your life
you're wanted, okay, I'm just ministering to the cat.
I'll be bringing siblings together to talk about the connections they have as adults, as well as what it was like growing up together. This week we're talking to Dame Esther Ranson and her little sister Scilla Taylor,
she's on my side. I'm on her side, aren't we? We are,
but I'll also talk to them separately to get a more private take on the relationship.
She is a shy extrovert, if she's going somewhere like to an occasion. She really likes to have someone with her. And she was the same, then and she's the same now. She's Esther
seller and I will love each other. Whatever happens to us. We will always love each other.
And in a new twist, I'll be delving a little further back with the help of our sponsors find my past the family history experts.
Maybe she is the the answer to the Enigma as to why our mother and our aunts had such strong views about helping others and the confidence to do it.
Brothers and sisters are never straightforward. Estha and Scilla grew up in London and briefly in New York to where their engineer dad worked on simultaneous translation services for the UN. Bright and ambitious The pair were encouraged to pursue careers by their anarchist mum, since the 80s. settlers lived in Australia, a fact which leaves a gap in both of their lives, although technology helps enormously. We talk about all that about life in the limelight unconditional love, and using your little sister like a canary down in mine, all in a conversation in which I felt at times a little like a bystander. But Esther started by remembering a three month stint she spent in hospital when both she and Silla were very small.
Well, yes, I mean, it was a kidney infection that went to my ear. I was pretty ill.
I remember that to this very day as a traumatic thing. She was dreadfully ill. And she was in hospital for three months. And it was the days when they didn't let people visit their children in hospital more than once a week. Yeah, because it upset the children. What they knew about it then
they were visiting hours. I think it was probably two days a week they were allowed to come for an hour in the afternoon, maybe something like that. Ward 42 in University College Hospital, I fell in love with a Scottish doctor.
I remember fussing and saying I was going to forget what Esther looked like and this they took me to visit her so they did
oh, what was visiting her like, can you remember the scene?
Well, slightly, I can because poor little thing. She was so traumatised, among other primitive things. They had reusable hypodermic syringes. There's a disadvantage to them being reusable, which is they do sort of gradually blunt and she had poor little thing. She had bruises all up and down her legs. And she showed us
it was quite funny because it lights up time I used to tell the other stories from the Bible. Now this really disconnected the nurses because they didn't feel they could tell us to be quiet because here I was with all the stories I knew from the Old Testament, telling them all that's a
very clever sort of cheeky rebellion. I like it.
I'm not sure I realised that. Actually, I just thought they were very good stories which they are particularly may I say, the story of Esther, Queen Esther.
What sorts of a little sister was Silla
but she was the perfect person to play games with. To have imaginative stories with she was adorable. I always
loved her. I am Esther's younger sister by two and three quarter years.
Three is the two and three quarter years important.
Think it is yes, it is.
Some of the childcare books say three years is a good gap because it gives the elder one a little chance to be you know, an only child and develop their own independence and not get in the way of the younger child. So they say
they say so can you remember when she arrived in
trying to think think I was given a doll called Susie joy that might have happened when Scylla was born
as a kind of, you're not the only child anymore but have adult sort of thing?
Well, what we do in our family as we say it's a present from the new arrival. So We feel very pleased that she's arrived which I was then and still am.
We got on famously, I can't remember us quarrelling, although I do know that there was one occasion when I flew out with my nails out and she held me off at arm's length roaring with laughter.
I asked about whether you ever fought as children and Sylar said she can't really remember you arguing although she did remember one instance.
No, I can't remember I can remember. The time I got angriest is when she was being bullied by some orcs on holiday. I hate bullies. And I suppose I felt protective. And I don't know what I felt. But I remember losing it, but I don't remember remember ever losing it with her.
There's a sort of strange, like visceral anger in the back of your throat isn't there when someone bullies? somebody you love it? Strange sort of rage?
Yeah, yeah. When she was being bullied. It was only after I flew at the bullies, and shouted at them and took her away that I realised I was standing there wearing a bikini. We were both both on holiday together.
I do remember that. But she's done that sort of thing many times. Do you remember that little boy on the bike? As in Long Island? I remind me it's clear. We're walking down IV way and he was riding his bike at us. Yes, I do. Remember. And I said that in front of a kid. You did? Yes. I reminded us and looked unflinching and then when he gone away. You said to me. That hurt.
Yeah, I talked about a bit. Yes, I do. I do recall that now.
So you actually put yourself in the past of a speeding bicycle for your sister.
The small speeding mind. You did send me first on to the mud wallow.
Oh, yes. That was very funny. That was hysterical. We were wandering around the new forest where I am now this minute. And then um, now there are bulky bits. They're quite deep. Actually. Rumour has it that a tank on manoeuvres actually sank into a bog completely and disappeared anyway. So it was not in tank. She was a little personal about six or seven. I suspected the bit ahead of us was a bit baggy. So I said, if she was lighter than me, would you like to run across there? And she started to run and lost a shoe ran back. I mean, I just sank in the middle, a sort of agent farmer forester arrived and bless its heart. All I remember was he had a very long droopy moustache. Anyway, he had a stick and he managed to hike the shoe out of the bog was very convinced. So
you weren't always so noble Esther is that is the lesson behind that.
Well, yeah, I did test things out on silver. Oh, she was there. And I always thought you just hadn't thought it through. Well, yes, there is that too? Well, no, I know. I'm not giving you that. I thought you were lighter than me. And I was more likely to sink so I thought I'd try you out on it.
Failure of logic there.
Tell me a little bit about your mum and dad and what sort of household and childhood you had when you were little.
My mother was quite a funny woman, mostly on purpose.
Mom was an anarchist, posing as a respectable lady. You know, she looked like a respectable conventional suburban lady. And she wasn't.
And Father was told the most wonderful stories. Oh, yeah. He had a temper on him. Did she have a temper? Yes, she did.
She was Naughty and mischievous and funny. And that continue right into her old age. And I don't think any of us changed very much except we get become more of what we always have been. So that was her.
When you say she was an anarchist. How did you know? Where did it sort of escape out peep out her anarchy. But she was never
like my school friends moms who brought out the chocolate biscuits and the doilies when we went there for tea. You know, she was like, much more. I don't know. It was sort of lateral thinker.
She thought she was doing the right and expected thing most of the time.
Yeah. Which isn't to say she didn't say the right and expected thing. She made us laugh. Oh, she did.
Did she ever embarrass you if you were expected if you were sort of brought up in amongst people whose parents were doing the chocolate biscuits on doilies thing did you ever feel a bit like all mum, could you just be a bit more standard? Or did you like her twinkle?
I think we liked it, didn't we?
I can't remember chocolate biscuits on doilies. I think feel I must have missed out on those.
No, they were my school friends. When one went to two with them, you see everybody went to great trouble to be to make it lovely and be polite and our mum didn't
and if she thought people would come to Our house and overstayed their welcome. She would get out the vacuum cleaner if you remember. I do around their feet. Absolutely.
I remember I want to actually met Annamma kissed and his wife and they came to tea I think and when the only kids didn't get up when my mom came in the room, she tipped him out of his chair. It was the biter bit that always amused me. I knew that she wanted both of us to have careers, which I suppose was quite groundbreaking, really, because I was born in 1940. And Mum herself had never had what you might call a career though she had a job before she got married. I think it was quite frustrating for her because she would have been a really good businesswoman. Like her father, but it was not to be because she was not that generation.
And do you think there's a little bit of her not, you know, that was not yet not envious or jealous, that's probably too much, but a little bit wistful.
There was a bit of frustration that she never had that opportunity. So yeah, but she, she didn't envy either Priscilla or me. But it was a sort of wish fulfilment for her that we should be able to do the kinds of things that she wasn't able to do. Yeah. Father was also an original thinker, very, very bright. I would say the brightest person I ever knew. He was a scientist. He was an electrical engineer who worked in the BBC as head of lines and designs. absent minded, very focused on his intellectual life. They were very interesting. Very different.
What sort of games? Can you remember playing?
Well, that's a good question. Um, we pretended we had ponies. I do not want ponies. And we were town children. We were London children. So we had a dog and a cat. But we never had a pony. So we used to pretend we had one, that sort of thing.
You were town children in London. And then you were town children in New York. Can you tell me what that experience was like for you?
In New York? Yeah. Well, I was very, very happy there. The journey there was pretty horrendous because there was a hurricane. And the ship tossed and bucked and I got very sick. I remember that. But when we arrived, Our father was waiting for us. And we drove out to Port Washington on Long Island, this lovely white clap Ward house with a nice garden. And we went to a lovely school actually, Buckley Country Day School, which doesn't exist anymore.
I loved it. I loved it. And I think Esther enjoyed it. You'd have to ask her I remember her playing Alice in Wonderland in the school play. And I remember me doing rather well in the spelling bee.
I had a long blonde wig. I think somewhere I've got a picture of it and this long blonde wig. And I was trained not to use the English Oh, so I had to learn to say not,
but it was fun. Can you remember any of your lines or any of your songs?
Certainly not. Wait a minute, I might. Now I do know the words of the Walt Disney. Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit song I'm late. I'm late for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye. When they do. I'm late. I'm late. I'm late. And when I wait, I lose the time I save by fuzzy ears and whiskers took me too much time to shave. I think Sylar probably knows all the words to that too.
What's it been like having a sister in the limelight in the way that Esther has been? Has it been strange or joy? How would you describe it?
It's in her nature. So it's not that it's surprised one in any way. I mean, she was in the limelight. When she was at Oxford. She was she's you know she's a Limelight he's sort of a person. So one knows that about her and I'm a not Limelight he sort of a person and that's fine. faintly irritating when an old colleague of mine took me around the Childline office in the very early days and introduced me as as the sister and I said to him, dearest, we have known each other for decades. I've got a name which you know perfectly well give me my name. So he apologised and did you know it? She just she's just that's Esther and she has done great things with the limelight.
She hasn't really? Yeah, she has. She says she did very well in the spelling bee. That's her kind of highlight of your time in New York.
Well, well done her she was then and is now extremely bright.
I was going to ask about her sort of character and personality. What would you describe it as? Apart from being bright?
She is quite left of centre politically always sides with the underdog. She's very perceptive, and she helped me a great deal with Childline gave me all sorts of insights, because I didn't know why. But we were brought up that if I was on the art side, which I clearly was because my maths was terrible, she would probably be on the science side. I don't know why anyone thought that but she was guided that way. I'm not sure it is her natural instinct. I think she's really sociology was very much her bag, which she ended up doing a postgraduate degree and, of course,
I am incredibly bright. She's She's no slouch either. But I think I shuffled myself towards maths and science because I A, I liked it. And b I didn't want to go in as the shadow and she was terribly good at arts and languages.
Yeah, but you could do them you see, I couldn't do them. That bit of my brain doesn't work.
I drive people potty I have the theory that numbers are your friend. And it really irritates people when I say that.
I don't agree with you at all numbers are not my friend.
I it isn't at all irritating. And actually my grandson. And indeed my son I now realise also agrees with you that numbers are their friends. So she's intelligent, sensitive, empathetic, caring sides with the underdog, fantastic. Parent, fantastic grandparent fantastic sister. Fantastic. Aren't all those things.
This season a relatively is sponsored by find my past the online home of the 1921 census in 1921. Life in England and Wales could be tough, but there are lots of examples of humour in the census records. Constance Bernhard Fitz Hammond listed her three young children's occupations as getting into mischief and getting into more mischief. And for her 11 month old baby occupying feeding bottles. Did your grandparents add a quirky note when they completed the census? View the record itself at Find my past.co.uk to find out? Good ringtone Scylla Hello, darling. Hi.
I hobbled downstairs for you.
The picture of Sadie is wondrous. Who Sadie Am
I allowed to ask
my granddaughter Esther's great niece is she and she has a will of iron. And she's three.
It's an interesting age. Right? Well, it's
an excellent. She's
always going to be yes. Age. Yes.
She is the way she's going to be.
What was it like when you guys meet each other on teas?
Well, it was very kind of her. She's got lovely children. And I was extremely grateful to you. So I'm not sure I've ever thanked you adequately. You probably haven't. And I think you should. I'm sorry. Consider yourself thanked. I will.
I'm kind of getting the humour now makes you feel a little bit silly when you're not a renter. And I was wondering what it was like when you were made an anti silicone you remember?
I definitely can remember our I remember em being born and having your hands. So do you remember?
I absolutely do. I remember our son in the hospital. And you were extremely helpful, extremely helpful, because in those days, you know, I was demand feeding against the better judgement of all the midwives who tried to stop me and tell me that it was really bad for me to breastfeed if I was eating grapes. And Sylar face was absolutely picture.
Don't eat stone fruit, mother.
Yes, absolutely. If you're breastfeeding. And do
you know when I had Kate, they had just stopped issuing Guinness to new mothers. Yeah, because it was high and be 12 I missed out on that. Yeah,
I think I was probably good. Yeah,
I think so. Would have cheered things up a bit. Anyway. Certainly. Which one needs at that stage?
What's gonna stick? And how would you describe Esther's character? Is it the same as when she was little or has it changed?
Yes, it's the same as when she was little in that she is a shy extrovert are all extrovert shy? Do you think a lot of them are? So she that if she was going somewhere like to an occasion? She really likes to have someone with her. And then she will fling herself into it in a cheerful way. And she was the same then and she's the same now. She's Esther.
Yeah, I suppose that is true. In not many people see underneath the extraversion but she has known me longer and better. And I suppose she knows about the bits before and after. So. So I told you she has huge insight. Yeah. When you say she
knows the bit It's before. That's something that comes up on this podcast a lot that you know, you can be returned to yourself by your siblings, they remember who you were before you are who you are, if you see what I mean, why is that important?
Well, it's, it's the point about the world is that they can be very fickle. They can love you one moment and hate you, the next, you can be up, you can be down. And it's quite interesting. When you're down, you discover new things about the people you thought were your friends. And it's possible to be misled when you're up into thinking that other people do care about you, which they don't most of them. So to have that constant, unconditional love, seller, and I will love each other, whatever happens to us, we will always love each other. Having that as a source of support. It's a sort of its physical, emotional, intellectual support that you know that this person you love will always love you.
It's amazing, really, isn't it? And so when you were little were you kind of her Touchstone then like she takes someone to a drinks party to be her safe port of call, would that have been used sometimes?
Well, I don't think I've went to a lot of drinks pub.
Well, you know, children's party. I mean,
I mean, our family was fun, but it wasn't. When we were sort of big enough to be going to parties, ourselves sort of teenagers, we would go together, and occasionally would mix and occasionally we'd sit together, round the wall and commentate on the other people there.
So after you came back here, then Esther went off to Oxford, how did you cope? Being separate? Because that's been a big story of your sister relationship really, hasn't it? But it must have started when she left home for university.
We I think we've always accepted that we each do our own thing. And and then rather enjoyed chatting about it while we're doing it.
And is that the same now you're in Australia, I don't know when you moved there. But that's quite a big separation.
We moved here in 1981 for two years. So there's a fair bit of maths in that shouldn't bother doing. Well, of course, we miss each other. It's odd to be quite so far apart, because we're not quite sure how we're going to see each other again, under the present circumstances. I mean, the great thing now is technology, isn't it?
It was awful decision that she took to move 12,000 miles away. That was very tough for everyone. My parents used to spend, I think something like three months of the year with her. And I visited her as often as I could. And now we talk every day. So we stay in touch, but it's not the same.
And what do you miss most about her physically?
Physically?
Like, would you like to sit on the sofa with her? Would you like to give her a big hug? Would you like to go shopping with her?
Do you know? We're really not terribly huggy? Oh, we have hugged on occasion. But we're not terribly huggy. But we do sit on sofa, sofas together and chat away. But we've had in a similar way, with a bit of technology in our hands.
I asked her what she sort of missed physically about having you round. I wonder what you would say? Why don't
you just the bumbling around the house and looking at the garden and watching Judge Judy and those things? You know, it's it's actually it's the nonverbal stuff, you know, that you miss? No, I It's the big gap in my life, perhaps and has to.
I think that's a really interesting point. I don't think anyone has made that in all of the chats I've had about the pandemic, that when you do a zoom or WhatsApp call, then you have to talk but actually what you often miss is just being
Yeah, absolutely. Someone defined loneliness as having plenty of people to do something with but nobody to do nothing with. And Silla and I do nothing together very, very well.
Yeah. And you fit together don't use sisters, you can kind of waltz around without bumping into each other because you know each other so intimately.
Yes, yes. If it's a good relationship, it's a it's a wonderful relationship.
And after you lost your husband, did that become more important that unconditional person in the world?
Well, no one replaces Desmond very different relationship. You're at every level. But I think after I lost my parents Scylla basically is my grown up family. She's, she's the family member that's known me longest. And I think losing our parents probably has meant that our relationship has become even more important.
I was going to say something about you describing her as a lover of, you know, someone who looks out for the underdogs, but that's really you as well, isn't it? If you look at what the the sort of greatest strands of your life's work, perhaps silverline and Childline. That's, that's about the underdog to? Yes, I
think I have sometimes said it's a great advantage to belong to a minority. As we're Jews, we know about the importance of having people who are in power people who are in the majority who are tolerant and give you the opportunities and I respect you and allow you the freedom you need to be an individual within your own culture. And I think being that sort of social underdog is very helpful because you don't just always side with the majority, you do tend to pick up the rock in front of you and see whether there are people underneath who are suffering.
But we ended the discussion with Esther talking about looking after the underdog, which she says you do Silla, but she sort of said that comes partly from being a member of minority and that your Jewishness in some way has informed your worldviews. I wonder what you think about that?
Yes, well, I think that's true. I but I think that that was true of our mother and all of our aunts, her sisters as well, then you
our mother and her sisters, or did caring staff didn't. Now where did they get that from? Interesting, isn't it? I
think and I have thought about this actually. It was a thing that nice young, middle class women did. They did did good works, didn't they? They did
good works. But think about it aren't Jane, my godmother when the Second World War happened, went to the Quakers and said I want to join Quaker relief. And they said but you're Jewish, and she said so. So in the end, they let her drive an ambulance for them and she drove it into Belson. They were the first civilian party to open up Belson and she wrote about it for the Jewish Chronicle. I mean, she was absolutely remarked. They were all remarkable that they were all Romana. None of them were sort of Lady bountiful. They actually spent a lot of time didn't they? I mean, think of mum. She was a trustee of a of a Children's Day Nursery in the East End of London in her 90s
Oh my goodness. They work like Bill. Yeah, all of them.
So you come from a lot, a long line of strong and ambitious women who took every opportunity they were given it sounds to me like matriarchy. Yeah. It sounds like that to me and your daughters must and maybe Sadie maybe Sadie's the next. So this, you know podcast and you've segwayed into it beautifully is about the nuclear family and their stories. But also, this season is sponsored by find my past where the family history experts, they provide a lot of research for programmes like who do you think you are? Which I know you've been on, Esther. And so I know that you know, a little or maybe a lot about your great grandfather Montague Richard Leveson. What do you know about him?
Naughty Monty I think he was great. He was fabulous. He could also be completely wrong. And as a rather boring he bought a lot of his contemporaries. He was passionate about his beliefs, which were things like he was an early anti Vaxxer.
Oh was it was the original anti Vaxxer
said Louis Pasteur had got it all wrong.
When he did quite well on that because he lived to 91. And in the 1921 census, the records show that he was residing in the Springfield nursing home in Dorset, a retired physician born in Westminster. Now he was my foot. He was accused of fraud. This is right, isn't it that was talked about and who do you think you are? But there's a few
Oh, I think he was accused of theft. And by his wife, he was ex wife he was accused of attempted murder
was accused of fraud. So
find my past have access to the whole British Newspaper Archive at the British Library. So in the illustrated times on the second of March 1867 There's a few more bits of flesh to put on the bones of this fraud allegation the action against Montague Leveson as When was brought by Mr. Hall, a solicitor, the accusations were slander, libel and malicious prosecution. It alleged the Montague absconded and there was an outstanding reward. Then there was an advert for this reward in the newspaper in 1867. And another article on the 25th of February in the Morning Herald published in London as well. So there is a couple of articles, maybe I could send you, but I hope it would have something new for you about naughty Monty. And I wanted to finish them, if you don't mind me, I was talking to Esther about the role of sisters in life, which is kind of a broad subject I know. But the fact that they are constant, and they knew you before you were kind of out doing your thing in the world. And I wonder what you sort of think about the sister relationship and you're specifically?
Absolutely constant support amusement, where it's appropriate, whatever you're looking for, and really, your best friend? I agree.
I agree. Absolutely agree. And, you know, we're, she's on my side, I'm on her side. If, however, there are sides in an argument or a or a situation, you know, where there aren't we? We are, and we're not identical, and we don't mind that we're not identical. No, and we have different views. We, when we express our differing views, we don't take them to the point of rage. And, you know, we sort of tiptoe up to it, and then tiptoe back and make space
for it. And that's right.
And you know, when you'll see her again, given the horrors of the pandemic and the trickiness of flying now, tomorrow morning, online,
online, absolutely. Yes, every day.
Thank you to Esther and Silla and thank you too. For listening. Let's just see what happens. Hello, hi.
I'd also like to say a huge thank you to our sponsors for this season of relatively find my past for digging into their extraordinary records and uncovering surprising and often revelatory family stories, some of which you've heard today, find my past is the only place online where you can access the 1921 census. So if you want to start your family tree or add colour to what you know already, then find my past or co.uk is the place to do it. You can see some very sweet pictures of Esther and Stella and find out more about the podcast at relatively podcast.com You can also catch up on old episodes from series one and two with people like Gok, one Chris Packham and Johnny Flynn. Please do rate and review the show or even better if you enjoyed it, share it with a brother or a sister. thank you to Tony to take him for letting us use her amazing song. This is a pocket Production and Sound Design is by Nick Carter at MC sonics.com
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