IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH FASHION Manny Silverman Interviewed by Anna Dyke C1046/11 IMPORTANT Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB United Kingdom +44 [0]20 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators. BRITISH LIBRARY NATIONAL LIFE STORIES INTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEET Title Page Ref. No.: C1046/011 Wav files Refs.: C1046-011-0001.WAV to 0022.WAV Collection title: An Oral History of British Fashion Interviewee’s surname: Silverman Title: Mr Interviewee’s forenames: Manny Sex: Male Occupation: Fashion consultant/expert Date of birth: 2nd January 1932 witness Mother’s occupation: Housewife Father’s occupation: Tailor Date(s) of recording and tracks (from – to): 29/07/05: (track 1-3); 3/8/05: (track 4-7); 16/8/05: (track 8-11); 6/9/05: (track 12-15); 22/09/05: (track 16-18); 20/10/05: (track 19- 22); 15/11/05: (track 23-26); 14/12/05 (CF1775 track 27). Location of interview: British Library, except 14/12/05 at interviewee’s home Name of interviewer: Anna Dyke Type of recorder: Marantz PMD660 Total no. of tracks: 27 Reading Format: Wav 16bit 48kHz Mono or stereo: Stereo Burned to DVD: ???? Duration: 13 hours 5 minutes Additional material: Selection of press clippings regarding Mr Silverman’s employment at Moss Bros Ltd. 3 ring bound folders of press clippings regarding Mr Silverman’s takeover of Norman Hartnell Ltd. Copyright/Clearance: Interview completed, clearance form received (5 year embargo) Interviewer’s comments: Manny Silverman Page 1 C1046/011 Track 1 [Track 1] Date today is the twenty-ninth. Right, interview with Manny Silverman on twenty-ninth of July 2005. And I’m going to ask you first of all, how are you feeling? Jaded, but that’s how I normally feel. But no, looking forward to this very much indeed. I’m pleased it’s going to take place over a number of sessions because what I find normally – not with this sort of thing because I’ve not done this before – but in anything that requires a certain amount of going back, sometimes if you’re doing it in a number of sessions, you finish a session and you suddenly remember, oh well, I should have mentioned that for the next session. Or, you know, that’s something that, you know, how did I not mention that. So I think that’s one of the great advantages of doing this over a number of sessions. Yeah. And you can reflect in the meantime and… Oh, I reflect like no-one ever reflected [laughing]. Known as an aged narcissist. Ah. [laughing] This’ll be good. Right. Okay, so can we have your full name? My full name is Emmanuel Silverman. I’m known far and wide as Manny Silverman. And why is that? I don’t know why, Manny is an abbreviation of Emmanuel and somehow it has always been with me it would seem. I think I can remember the early days of what little schooling I had, I was called Emmanuel, but I don’t when it actually happened, but at some stage it started to be Manny and Manny it’s been ever since. Causes a certain amount of confusion because – particularly for things like passports. I have been travelling, not all my life, but the last few years been travelling fairly extensively and in these days of sort of much stronger controls on passports, you know, you’ve got Manny down here but the passport Manny Silverman Page 2 C1046/011 Track 1 says Emmanuel. So I’ve been getting back to a mindset of Emmanuel but I won’t answer to Emmanuel. [laughs] [laughs] And did your parents at any stage start to call you Manny? I think they may well have done. I think going back neither of my parents spoke English when they came to this country, which was shortly before I was born, and I think that until I actually started school I never actually spoke English, I spoke Yiddish. And occasionally, they were from Lithuania, and I do believe – again, it’s all a long, long time ago Anna – I do believe that when there were things that they didn’t want me to understand, they then said them in Lithuanian. [laughs] So, you didn’t learn Lithuanian yourself? I didn’t learn Lithuanian, no. But I have recently been back to Lithuania. And how was that? Traumatic. It’s one of those things that you feel you want to do and you talk about doing, and the years go by and still you talk, and we came to the conclusion last year, that this coming year we would do it. And what was particularly helpful is I have a nephew who’s a Professor of Social Science out in Australia and he was able to do a great deal of research and we actually were able to go and visit the little village about a hundred miles north east of Vilnius where certainly my mother, rest her soul, came from and then we visited where we think my father, rest his soul, came from. We also unfortunately, drove deep into a forest and actually saw the pits where the local Jewish community were all slaughtered, where there is a memorial. No big hang-up about this thing, but I do believe, yes it was traumatic at the time. Didn’t… sort of added to the day the fact that there was just this torrential downpour for about twelve hours when we did it there. But I can’t say that it’s made any fundamental difference in my attitude to life or what have you, but it’s something that I felt we had to do. But when you go to somewhere like Lithuania, which, member of the EU now and I think sort of has modernised rapidly, it’s still very, not primitive, very basic I think is a better word, once you get out of the centre. And when Manny Silverman Page 3 C1046/011 Track 1 you think how the devil did people make their way from these remote villages and find their way to a seaport somewhere to take them to somewhere where they didn’t speak a language to find their way there. But, they did it and I suppose the one thing that one reflects on now is that I suppose – again, without wishing to sound maudlin or anything like it – but had they not made the journey, we wouldn’t have been talking. [laughs] That’s the reality. Were there any stories about how they did manage that journey? Not really. No, not really. We – my sister and I – never thought to ask and my father died when I was sort of relatively young, when I was thirteen and a bit, and never thought to ask. You know, until you reach a certain age and stage in your life, and until you actually go out and see it, it doesn’t become, not an issue, but it doesn’t become something that you even want to think, or you necessarily think about. You know, they may have just jumped on a tube and it took them to wherever it was and all was well. But it’s only when you actually get out there that you, that it really focuses the mind. And why did it take you so long to make that trip? Interesting point. I think we, the thought never really appealed. It wasn’t something that one wanted to do, I think if it’s something you want to do, you do it. If it’s something you feel you ought to do, not necessarily a duty because you’re not serving any person or serving any purpose, but if it’s something that you feel you should do, it’s one of those things that well, we’ll get round to later, we’ll get round to later, but my sister and I talked about it, my nephew had done a lot of work, a lot of research, there had been a very large tome on the Jews of Lithuania been written by someone, it had taken her twenty years to do, we’d seen a copy of this and our family were included. And it was a combination of factors and suddenly we realised that time was passing by quickly. And you know, things just gather pace and a cousin of mine who’s in Israeli, their family, that side of the family went to Palestine, as it was in those days, back in the twenties, we’ve all stayed in touch one way or another. And you know, she’d expressed interest to go, so you know, suddenly I said, okay come on, enough is enough, I’m gonna start, see if we can get something going. And we were all able to meet out there. My son – not my son, my son didn’t come Manny Silverman Page 4 C1046/011 Track 1 with us, my wife did – my nephew was a lecturer, it was at the time of the March of the Living, the Auschwitz thing and my nephew was lecturing both in Berlin and in Poland so it was convenient for him because he lives out in Australia, it was convenient for him.