Casgliadau Arlein

Oral history recording with Harold Cairns 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 was born Harold Cohen in 1925, and my father had a medical practice in Treorchy, in the Rhondda Valley. My father was an important person in the community but it was a jolly hard life. As the only doctor in Treorchy, he was on call twenty-four hours a day. My mother died when I was ten days old and my father remarried when I was four, so the only mother I’ve ever known was my stepmother. By the time I was six, I went off to boarding school and stayed there ‘til I was about ten. I was allowed to come home after my father opened a practice in Cardiff, and I went to the Cardiff High School for Boys, a very good school. As far as I’m aware, there were no other Jewish people in Treorchy, and our nearest synagogue was in Cardiff, so we didn’t go when we lived there. But in Cardiff my grandfather was a life president of the Orthodox synagogue on Windsor Place, and my father would go there on high days and holidays. I went most Saturdays and attended cheder at least three evenings a week. My school ran lessons on Saturday mornings, and because I was Jewish, I was always excused. After high school, I went to Barts Medical School in London in 1942. I met my wife, Yvonne, who was working as a dress designer, and we were married in London in 1950 and had two daughters. I qualified in 1951 and worked at Bethnal Green Hospital as a resident casualty officer until I did my National Service in Egypt, where I worked as an army surgeon. When I got my call-up papers my wife said, “I’m not having you going to the Middle East with the name of Cohen – they’ll kill you.” So we changed our surname to Cairns. I was discharged from the army in 1955 and joined my father’s practice in Cardiff, where I was a GP for thirty-two years. During my career as a doctor in Cardiff, I’ve been involved in various medical councils and was chairman of a number of committees, including the local medical committee and the Family Practitioner Committee. When we first came to Cardiff, my wife and I contacted Rabbi Graf because I was familiar with the Reform movement in London and friendly with some of its leaders like Lionel Blue. My wife and I became very active members. I was soon appointed to the synagogue council and used to take a turn at leading services. My wife was involved with the Ladies Guild, and both of us used to go to various national meetings on behalf of the community, and were on the committee of the annual garden party, whose events I filmed for many years. I also started the business of schoolchildren coming to the synagogue to learn about Judaism. When Rabbi Graf retired we didn’t have a rabbi for a period, and I became a surrogate rabbi in a way. Because I was a doctor, people often came to me as they’d been going to the rabbi with their little problems and wanted counselling. I’ve been a warden for twenty years, which has involved arranging services and taking many of them, including funeral services. Over the years I’ve done about twenty or thirty funeral services because there hasn’t been a rabbi available to do that, so I feel I’m an elder of this community. Of course I am because I’m old, but also because I feel I’ve done a lot of service to the community.