On 14th September we gathered in church for a final tribute to Rachel Nugee.. There were two moving and informative addresses, giving us a glimpse into the Rachel we perhaps hadn’t known and the Rachel we did remember. There isn’t room here to reprint them both in full so Andrew Nugee has kindly edited them for us.
Charlotte Monck (sister)
Rachel was a truly amazing woman, not just as a wife and mother but also as a sister.
My parents, John and Addie Makower, had 5 children, 4 girls and 1 boy. Rachel the eldest, was born in 1926. She went to Roedean before the war started and, on leaving, joined the Bletchley Park code breakers in 1944. She was chosen as it was felt the best way to maintain total secrecy was to involve families already working in intelligence and her father, John was in the Intelligence Corps. Her work at Bletchley involved trying to break the Japanese Fishing Fleet Code as they received instructions from the Japanese Navy as to where they could fish. The thinking was that if they broke the fishing fleet’s code it would be easier to break the Japanese Navy code. She never talked about her work at Bletchley, even within the family, and was very upset when everything became public knowledge. Relatively recently her work at Bletchley was recognised, and she was awarded a medal presented to her by Jack Straw when he was Home Secretary.
After the war ended she went up to Oxford to read Anglo Saxon English at Lady Margaret Hall. She was a highly intelligent woman and left Oxford with a good degree, then went on to do a Masters in Mathematics at Reading University.
She then got a job working for Mars which was based in Slough. I was simply thrilled as she was able to buy sweets that did not meet the required standard. This was shortly after the end of sweet rationing. When I was about 7, I remember waiting for her to come home on a Friday night in her red open-topped sports car. Mars Bars were definitely my favourites and if she had some, even though they were squashed and sticky, I felt my dreams had come true.
As a young woman Rachel was enormous fun, inventing games for all of us to play, helping Prue manage her boyfriends, the responsible one who could be relied on by her parents to organise the rest of us. Despite this, Rachel, like all of us, thoroughly enjoyed the Bad Manners Tea Party. We would all gather round the dining room table with a lovely white damask table cloth, and our father, John, would stand on his chair and drop jam into his cup of tea. Jam on biscuits (not normally allowed) drinking from the wrong side of the cup: anything was permissible – though I don’t remember anyone throwing food. The fun and laughter were fantastic. The tea party ended with us all singing – or rather shouting – ‘Who is the O’Reilly what keeps this hotel’ and with us banging on the table with clenched fists. The relationship between Rachel and her father was extremely close. She was the daughter who was most similar to him. She had his intelligence and sense of humour and they really enjoyed each other’s company.
Religion always meant a great deal to Rachel and she was a firm and committed believer in Judaism until she became a Christian on marrying Ted. When I was a teenager and young adult Ted and Rachel were incredibly generous, constantly having me to stay. When I left school I lived with them for about 2 years. She continued her hospitality, kindness and understanding to many people who came to stay with them throughout their marriage, especially to other young people including my daughter Scilla who stayed with them for about 9 months.
Rachel was more than just my sister. Apart from anything else she enabled me to escape from my parents and be myself. She totally accepted me for whom I was even though there was 20 years between us. She was someone I could talk to about anything from boyfriends and sex to my worries and fears. She was someone people trusted, who was independently minded and accepted people for who they were. I am going to miss her enormously.
Kenneth Stern (friend)
I was privileged to be an usher at Ted and Rachel’s wedding at the Temple church in late 1955. I remember little of the ceremony, but I do remember the lavish reception which Rachel’s father had arranged in spite of his distress at her marrying out. He seemed to have hired a great part of Claridge’s Hotel for the event. It was only afterwards that I really got to know Rachel Makower, now Nugee, but our friendship blossomed quickly.
The person whom I was to know for 60 years was a handsome, intelligent and lively young woman, who as you have heard had already had careers at Bletchley Park and at Mars. In the early years of marriage, while Ted was, like WS Gilbert’s young barrister, an ‘impecunious party’, Rachel cheerfully coped and provided him with a happy home in West Hampstead.
Ted’s fortunes soon changed for the better, the family grew and the move to Heath Hurst Road took place. Rachel was a devoted mother, but this was not enough to satisfy her intelligence and energy. So she sought additional occupations and found them particularly in two fields.
Her distinguished work for the Mothers’ Union, culminating in six years as world Central President, will be commemorated later in the year, so I will say no more about that now. However, equally fulfilling were her many years as a Justice of the Peace, firmly dispensing justice tempered by compassion and common sense, normally sitting at Thames magistrates’ court in the east end. There was, however, one notable occasion in the late seventies when Rachel presided over a court in the City of London where, as a rule, only Aldermen sat.
At two city dinners on the same evening, both catered by a prestigious firm, the guests had suffered severe food poisoning, some with long-term effects. Charges were brought against the firm. The problem then arose that most Aldermen had been at one or other of the dinners, so the authorities decided that it would not be proper for the case to be heard by any Alderman. Outside magistrates were therefore drafted in with Rachel presiding.
When the prosecution had presented its case counsel for the caterers pleaded guilty. After conferring with her colleagues Rachel imposed a fine of £20,000, at that time a substantial sum. Counsel then asked for time to pay. At this Rachel looked at him and said “at Thames court where I usually sit the defendants are mainly the poor of London’s East End. When they ask for time to pay their fines of ten or twenty pounds I grant them a week or two. Are you trying to tell me that your wealthy clients are in the same position? Application refused.” There was no further come-back!
So the years passed giving Rachel the satisfaction of seeing her sons’ academic and career successes and giving her the joy of numerous grandchildren. She also quietly performed deeds of generosity and thoughtfulness. Just one example was her invitation to a recently widowed friend, who was living in somewhat straitened circumstances, to join her on a Mediterranean cruise, in which Rachel herself had no great interest, on the pretext that she needed company. The ten days of change of scenery and comparative luxury left the friend much cheered.
In this of all churches there is no need to stress Rachel’s deep Christian commitment, which never wavered until the end. However, Rachel never denied her Jewish heritage and took pride in her connection with some great Anglo-Jewish families such as the Franklins and Samuels and Montefiores. More than that: as time went on she increasingly became the Jewish matriarch in the best sense of that term. She presided over her family, she gave wise counsel to the many who consulted her, she dispensed generous hospitality and she enjoyed a good party.
I want to leave one final thought with you: we are right to mourn the disappearance of this much loved mother, grandmother, sister and friend, but here is no cause for sadness. She had a long, well-filled life, but the last years were a burden. In the half-year since Ted’s death she had lost the main spring of her being and she was ready to move on. She has gone from our sight, but she is not lost to us. I believe that Ted and Rachel, now at peace together, remain my friends while memory lasts.
Rachel Nugee