Who Do You Think You Are - Marianne Faithfull 18th Sep

[Olde Crone]

I did wonder a bit whether they bigged up her mother's career as a serious dancer. To me (who knows nothing about artistic dance!) it all looked a tad sleazy.

OC

[Rick]

I enjoyed that. Cut off the opening and closing credits and ignore the overly-familiar voiceover and you've got an absorbing documentary with little to do with WDYTYA.

This series really doesn't know where it's going, other than to steer away from the reality of genealogical research. Maybe they have realised that everyone's doing it themselves now and hence the ready-made trees in every episode. I'm trying not to be irritated that the format has moved even further from what we enjoy doing, but it's heartening they can still produce a decent piece of TV - a rarity in this series.

[Guinevere]

I've just watched it and I thought it was wonderful. I've always been fascinated by Berlin before the war since reading Christopher Isherwood's books. Cabaret is my favourite musical.

Not genealogy but my favourite so far.

I've always like Marianne but prefer her post addiction work to her early poppy stuff.

Only slighty on topic here, but I've just visited Coolgardie Cemetery in West Australia. It is an old gold mining outside the better known Kalgoorlie. A section of the cemetery has a Jewish section, a historian told me that the graves are marked with two dates one dates from Christ (Gregorian) and the other from Abraham. From what I could see, if I was looking at the right graves (there are also Afghan graves there) it looked like it was written in Hebrew. This is not the Pioneer Cemetery as while there are 1000s buried there only 3 headstones survive. I am wondering if this is common with Jewish people, to use a calendar from the time of Abraham, which would be 3000 years earlier? Julie

[Piwacket]

Originally Posted by Guinevere

I've just watched it and I thought it was wonderful. I've always been fascinated by Berlin before the war since reading Christopher Isherwood's books. Cabaret is my favourite musical.

I'm the same, absolutely fascinated, bit like the last days of the Roman Empire (from what I've read of that) and I too regard Cabaret as one of my favourites. ''Goodbye to Berlin'' which I read many years ago gave such a contemporary insight into that period and to me went some way to understanding how the Nazis gained such overwhelming support, but even so is almost unbelievable! A total breakdown of Morals and morale was taking place and in a horrifically twisted way Hitler and his henchmen seemed, in simplistic terms, to offer hope of a better way of life. But we see that power like that is corrupt and evil and inhumane and is a lesson that hopefully is taught in all schools...

... in that way the Producers of this episode gave a timely reminder of a situation that millions lived through and should never ever be repeated. If it's got people talking of the horror of those years which geneaologically will have affected many families then that's probably a good result.

[Olde Crone]

Julie

Yes, Jewish life events are always recorded by the date on the Jewish calendar. This can lead to a bit of confusion when they are translated into the western calendar, by people whose common reference is the Jewish calendar!

This current year (2013) is something like 5750 (an inaccurate guess by me, too lazy to look it up!).

Dorothy - yes, I agree, anything which reminds us of the unbelievable insanity of the Nazi regime is never wasted. Although we are all aware of the atrocities of the holocaust, it is still nevertheless shocking to see evidence that a human being was seriously classified as a mongrel.

OC

[kiterunner]

Eva's friend Hede Mehrmann has an entry on IMDb; she was in a film in 1934:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1675837/

I'm not sure if they mentioned this on the programme?

[Shona]

Brazier's Park where Marianne grew up when her parents were together.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braziers_Park

[Piwacket]

Interesting Shona and this

Baroness Eva Erisso, a former ballerina. Their daughter, the singer and actress Marianne Faithfull, spent some of her early life in the community. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones came to stay with Marianne Faithfull at Braziers Park after his release from prison in 1967 as her then boyfriend. In her autobiography she described Braziers Park as a “mixture of high utopian thoughts and randy sex”.


rather conflicts with her statement that both her mother and her hated men and the inference that I understood from her speaking of her early life, that the 'palace' was part of her mother's family.

[Shona]

Marianne's father was rather absent from the episode, although she wrote about him (and her mother) in Dreams and Reflections (published 2008). This may be because he remarried. His second wife and their children are alive.

Some info on Marianne's father.

Faithfull, (Robert) Glynn (1912-1998)

Son of Theodore Faithfull. An OWC activist and a student helper at Grith Fyrd in 1932-3 before teaching at his father’s school. Norman Glaister and Glynn Faithfull formed the Braziers School of Integrative Social Research after the Second World War.

Faithfull, Theodore James (1885-1973)
Born Theodore James Faithfull Davies in Eastbourne. Took surname Faithfull-Davies and then Faithfull. Trained as a veterinary surgeon, becoming a Major in Veterinary Corps. Pioneer of psychoanalytical ideas and inventor of the Frigidity Box - designed to liberate the libido. Set up Priory Gate School and Hazeleigh School. Became psychotherapist in Hampstead. Died in Birmingham. Described by John Bowlby as an 'inspired manic-depressive'.

Marianne's father, known as Glynn, was multi-lingual and worked behind enemy lines for M16 during WW2. It was this work which brought him into contact with the Sacher-Masoch family when they lived in the Hungarian embassy in Vienna.

Glynn and Eva lived first in Ormskirk (he was completing his doctorate at Liverpool University) and then Braziers Park. Eva disliked the uncoventional commune lifestyle.

Glynn had two brothers and sisters. One sister was the wife of the second Baron McNair.