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Recordiad sain / Audio recording: Louise and Barry Fuller
Oral history recording with Louise and Barry Fuller collected as part of The Hineni Project, an insight into the life and stories of a Jewish community in all its diversity. Hineni was a collaborative project between Cardiff Reform Synagogue and Butetown History & Arts Centre.
I grew up in Rhodesia in the ‘50s, and had an amazing childhood among the wide open spaces. You never had to worry about anything, you could roam the streets. My father worked as part of a security system on the railways in the middle of a game reserve and it was absolutely fantastic. There was many a day we couldn’t go to school because a pride of lions had gone to sleep on our veranda so we couldn’t get out the house. I was very naughty and used to get into a lot of trouble, especially when we used to get elephants to charge and things like that. It was a good way of growing up. The only thing we didn’t like was the fact that when you went to bed in the evening you had to take your mosquito net because of malaria, and the nets would have to be tucked into your bed every night so the snakes couldn’t crawl up them. You couldn’t put your shoes on the floor because there was a possibility that you’d get up in the morning and there’d be a scorpion inside them. So although it was a very careful way that you were brought up, it was also very carefree. I’m very fortunate that I’ve got very good memories. I did my nursing and worked in a large hospital in Bulawayo, and it was in the pathology department that I met my husband Barry, a policeman. We moved to Johannesburg and apartheid was really very noticeable. We didn’t want our children to grow up against the colour bar and wanted them to make up their own minds without being indoctrinated. We decided to come to the UK, to Cardiff, where my father was. The first thing we noticed was how green everything was, and the smell of the fresh grass, because in Johannesburg everything was dry and dusty – we couldn’t get over it. We’ve been members of the Cardiff Reform Synagogue for a long time. There’s such a friendliness in the community and they just accept you. A lot of people have had hardship but they don’t talk about it, and certainly in our synagogue everybody makes the most of what they’ve got. I’ve got so much going on in the synagogue. I’m a council member. I also head the Care in the Community team, as well as caring for the elderly. I’m head of the chevra kadisha, and we make all of the shrouds by hand. I used to run the Judaica shop, and I’m also on the school visits team and have been on the catering team since the year dot. What I’m contributing to the Cardiff community, I like to think will put the next generation in good stead to carry on. When I want to go out and have an argument on my own with God, I’ll go and fly fish. And the surprising thing is, I can go and fish during the week and come back with maybe one or two, but the standing joke is: I fish on Friday and God provides for the Sabbath. I come back with maybe eight or nine trout, and half the community end up getting the proceeds because I just give the fish away. For me, Judaism is not just a religion, it’s a way of life; and it’s a way of life that I feel, and can understand, and it’s the way I want to live my life.
My family was from Somerset, and went to South Africa in 1820 as settlers and established in the South-East Cape. My father worked for the Cape Provincial Administration, and as he was being promoted or shifted around sideways, I had eleven primary schools before I got to high school. I grew up in the far more liberal part of South Africa, and regard Cape Town as my hometown because it’s the place where I spent most of my youth. Religiously, my upbringing had been very lax. Christian holidays, I suppose, would have been the most important times. I worked for the Rhodesian police force. I worked my way up and became an inspector. After my wife, Louise, and I moved to South Africa, I was concerned for my kids because of the overall worsening situation. The whole scenario was going wrong. Anywhere there’s weaponry, fighting, it’s not the place to bring kids up. The kids were no longer free to run and we never travelled at night. In our son’s first year of high school, he said that he would like to do medicine, and at that time South Africa’s idea was that any child wanting to go to university first had to complete two years of military service. Having already served in a combat situation myself, it was not a situation I would wish on any young person, and we decided to move to the UK (Newport) where my in-laws had already returned and settled down. The rain got to us a bit but weather wise I had no problems settling down. I didn’t find the winters particularly hard because in the Transvaal you could have some very cold days in the winter and nights as low as minus ten. When we came here, the first question we were asked in Wales was if we were English, and of course we were South African so that was alright, and none of us had any problems settling down culturally. I met Rabbi Elaina Rothman and that’s how we became involved with the community. I served one term on the council while I was doing security. Our community has got to be careful but it was never a panic situation. We just covered our options and got on with it, and the surrounding community have got used to us being there and haven’t bothered with us. Even on High Holidays there’s never been an issue. There are sections of the synagogue that do outreach work in making sure that we’re communicating with other groups and talking to different people, and I think that’s important. I think just as the tolerance from our side is going on, I think it is going on from other communities as well. I wouldn’t say I’ve withdrawn from the community, but you can only have one as heavily involved in the day-to-day work and Louise does that. I go to synagogue, not as regularly perhaps as I should do, but I do go. I like listening to sermons because I try to get the connections between the readings and the wanderings of a rabbi. I like the thought process and some of the arguments. I’ll spend some time up in my study, reading from time to time. Judaism is an identity; it’s a lifestyle that to me is also a belief style. You’re never too late and you’re never too old to come back into the fold, just like we did.