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A Blog From 1930s Berlin

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Marianna Hopkinson

The letters of a young English music student to her fianc?©, written in 1931 have been published online. Beyond the Maker's Mark: Paul de Lamerie Silver in the Cahn Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

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Panderjam, a website launched in August 2006 by two septuagenarians, Avril Lethbridge and George Locke - for the 'retired but not retiring' has launched a new section called ‚ÄòYour Story‚Äô, with a Blog from Berlin. The letters from Berlin were written by a young English music student studying in Berlin to her fianc?© back in the UK. This unique story is also available as an audio clip, read by voice-over artist Delia Corrie.

The Berlin Letters are from Marianna Hopkinson, grand-daughter of Alexander Siemens, and encapsulate the mood in Germany in the 1930’s.

“I had often thought it would be romantic to live abroad, starve in a garret and study music….”.

So starts Marianna’s account of her life in Berlin where she studies the flute.

These evocative and humorous letters, with their pithy observations and comment, illustrate the reality of life in the heart of German society as Marianna lived through the rise of the Third Reich and witnessed at first hand Hitler’s power and influence. They are a personal chronicle of one of the most challenging times in European history.

Marianna Woolley now 98 years old, explains how her father Bertram Hopkinson and her mother Mariana decided to have a baker’s dozen of boys.

"They started with two girls. Pause for thought. Then on May 17th a wet Sunday, I am told – I arrived Lina Marianna: after me there were four more girls – and that was the last of the baker’s dozen of boys."

"My father was killed in a flying accident at the end of August 1918. I intended to be an engineer – indeed I was very good at maths - but instead I decided to learn the flute and be a musician which caused a great deal of trouble with my mother who wanted me to be a nursery governess and look after her. But I was obstinate and went to the Royal Academy of Music in London for three years and then the Hochshule fur Musik in Berlin for two years."

"I came home to be married in 1933 to Russell Woolley then prospective Headmaster of Scarborough College and later in life ordained, so I spent the rest of my life having my own way! And bringing up my own seven children and the children of people billeted on us. I acquired lots of glorious grand children and right now I collect great grandchildren as other people collect stamps.”

You can read more of Marianna's story by visiting www.panderjam.com and clicking on Your Story.
 

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