At home, my parents would be in the tiny kitchen above the coal cellar, fashioning out concoctions of flour, chopped Onions, bits of fish, anything they could get their hands on.

It's lunchtime, so she's in the kitchen, making a sandwich out of tuna fish and pre-chopped celery and onion.

This is a very serious crime. In those days, the punishment was beheading — the convict was dragged out to a public place where everybody could watch and his head was chopped off with a big sword.