Snapshot: Great-uncle Rudolf’s selfie, taken in 1888
This selfie of Rudolf Moos, my great-uncle, with four pretty young ladies, was lost for about 70 years before a researcher at the Albert Einstein archives in Jerusalem sent it to me for identification in 2008.
Rudolf Moos, the son of a shoemaker from Buchau, was an enterprising young man who invented the Salamander brand of shoes in Germany.
The photo was taken at his uncle’s house in Hechingen, and three of the women are Rudolf’s cousins: Hermine, Paula and Elsa Einstein. I can’t prove that a camera with a shutter delay was used, but look at Rudolf’s expression of pride in his new technological toy, and his leg stretched out as he rushed to the back of the group.
The fourth young lady is my late grandmother, Luise, Rudolf’s little sister, who was a friend and contemporary of Elsa Einstein, Albert Einstein’s second wife.
Rudolf’s visit to Hechingen is documented in his memoirs, translated from the German and was published in 2010 by his American grandson, Rudolf Hugo Moos.
Eva Lawrence
Playlist: Play it again, Dad – while her brother hid
Have I Told You Lately by Rod Stewart
“Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness / Ease my troubles, that’s what you do”
Rod Stewart’s song conjures up very happy memories of living in Prague – a beautiful, cultured and safe city to live and work in. We arrived from the UK with our two children, Matthew, nine, and Sophie, seven, in 2002, not really knowing what to expect. In the Czech Republic, this was a time of transition after the fall of communism but before entry to the EU.
Many shops still didn’t sell very much: the toilet paper resembled sandpaper, the language was impossible and every three months we had to drive 100 miles to Dresden to renew our visa. But we loved it straight away. Sophie and Matt went to a school originally set up in 1948 as the American embassy school, which by our arrival was attended by kids from more than 60 countries. We had long, proper snowy winters and very hot summers. We came for three years and stayed for more than eight.
Neither Sophie nor I can recall when this became our special song. We would often play music together on Saturday afternoons with her clinging to my waist as we waltzed around the lounge. I was regularly away, travelling, so this was father/daughter quality time, with the lyrics just perfect for the occasion.
However, what really raised the song’s status in Sophie’s eyes was that her brother hated it, possibly for two reasons – when it was played the attention wasn’t on him and he probably had better musical taste!
The more he hated it, the more she persuaded her naive, unsuspecting father to play it. Whenever Matt heard Rod’s gravelly opening words, he would be off like a bullet, shouting over it until out of earshot. This boringly predictable reaction only added to Sophie’s delight.
Once in Cyprus having dinner in a restaurant, the resident crooner opened his second set with this song. Matt made a beeline for the toilet, tripped over the speaker wire and plunged the whole place into darkness. The crooner went home and the diners had to finish their meals by candlelight. Matt locked himself in the loo for over an hour and remained in the bad books for days. Sophie’s satisfied smile, however, lasted much longer! Happy days.
Ian Dickson
We love to eat: Eggs Cavendish, our favourite breakfast
Ingredients (for two)
Two muffins (plain, or the ones with cheese and black pepper are good)
Four eggs
Smoked salmon
Spinach
Bring a small pan of water to the boil, crack the eggs into a small jug or tumbler, slip them gently into the boiling water and turn the heat right down. Simmer just below boiling for five minutes. Toast two muffins. Wilt a panful of spinach and spread on to the muffins. Arrange the smoked salmon on top of the spinach. Create a little hollow in the salmon with the back of a spoon. Drain the eggs and slide one carefully on to each salmon-topped muffin. Serve with freshly ground black pepper, black coffee and orange juice.
A few months after meeting a nice girl called Rosie, I was away working in Canterbury. One morning I had eggs benedict for breakfast at the hotel and didn’t like it very much. I’ve been disappointed with eggs florentine too: it never seems filling enough. I wondered whether I could come up with something better, avoiding hollandaise sauce, which is often too plentiful, sticky and sweet. But eggs and salmon are a great combination; so are eggs and spinach. Why not make a breakfast that combines all three?
Keen to impress, I tried out this recipe on Rosie. It must have worked well because she’s now my wife!
I was living on a road called Cavendish Grove at the time, so we christened it Eggs Cavendish.
We’ve made it for lots of friends and family and it always seems to go down well. We hope our one-year-old daughter will grow up loving it too.
Alex Wardle
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