“He had always felt more Scottish than Jewish. For his Barmitvah he had learned the Hebrew texts. He had attended synagogue on high festivals, but generated paternal displeasure when he excused himself from more regular Sabbath visits to the prayer-hall in Salisbury Road.  His parents, Abram and Rose Franklin, the children of refugees from the Russian Pogroms of the 1880’s, had instilled in him traditions, not faith. Observance of dietary laws had been his only tangible, and transient, commitment to religion, and his medical training and wartime experiences had quickly eradicated any lingering belief in an omnipotent God.”

Extract from ‘Mrs Pickles’ – included in the showcase