Brian Davis
‘I am a chartered accountant and my wife, Judy, and I have lived in Harpenden since 1967. My father, William “Woolfy” Wolfowitch, worked in the shoe business, where he was known as the fastest “clicker” to cut leather round the shoe template. My mother’s family came from Poland. She was called Rebecca, but known as Betty. She had a hairdressing shop on the Commercial Road in London’s East End.’
‘This is my grandfather’s naturalisation certificate. It is signed on the back by Winston Churchill as Secretary of State and gives my grandfather’s name as Davis Woolfowitch from Russia, born in 1875, and his profession as a boot and shoe manufacturer. It shows that he had four children, including my father, who was four years old at the time.’
'This portrait of my grandfather Davis Woolfovitch was taken in Herne Bay, Kent, in around 1936. He was born in Girtegoli in the county of Kovno in Russia, now Kaunas in Lithuania. He worked as a boot and shoe manufacturer in London. Although he died when I was 17, I remember him as being a real character.’
