We dedicate this book to our four grandsons, in the hope that they may now fully understand the depths of love and betrayal felt by their grandparents.
‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is, to have a thankless child’ –
SHAKESPEARE, KING LEAR: ACT I, SCENE IV
Contents
1 Title Page
2 Dedication
3 Epigraph
4 Why This Story Needs to be Told
5 Acknowledgements
6 Preface
7 1. Manny’s Story, 1931–58
8 2. Brigitta’s Story, 1936–58: Was I Born Lucky?
9 3. The Early Years
10 4. The Trust
11 5. Our Children Marry
12 6. Lyegrove
13 7. The Beginning of the End
14 8. Monaco
15 9. A Family Destroyed
16 Epilogue
17 Postscript
18 Plates
19 Copyright
Why This Story Needs to be Told
This is one of the most unusual projects I have ever been involved with because it is a story the authors never wanted to write.
It is also a story that, whenever I talk about it to friends and associates, leaves people shaking their heads in disbelief.
Manny and Brigitta Davidson are one of the most remarkable couples I have had the privilege to meet. They built a business empire from nothing, having survived the terrible Blitz on London during the Second World War. Their parents strived to keep their heads above water and gave their children a future in which to prosper.
Manny and Brigitta’s two children have lived altogether different lives. Charmed lives, some might say.
The Davidsons’ business did so well that their offspring went to the finest schools, enjoyed luxury holidays and lived in beautiful homes here and abroad.
The Davidsons set up a trust fund for their two children with two purposes. Firstly, to provide generous incomes for them, and it is currently delivering approximately £20 million a year.
The second purpose was to protect the family’s wealth for future benefit, not only for their children and further generations, but also for those less fortunate than themselves.
Sadly, their children could not wait any longer before laying claim to all that which their parents had provided, and they seized control in a cruel and punishing way.
How could they do this? You don’t believe it? Read on...
JOHN BLAKE, PUBLISHER
This book cannot go to print without us acknowledging the wonderful support that we have received from our friends. It may embarrass them to be named, so suffice it to say they consist of loyal people who have worked for us during many years; people from our lives in London, Lyegrove, Villefranche, and of course from our office and many people with whom we have had business dealings.
We now have a new family of friends and never were truer words said than you can choose your friends but not your family.
Thankfully, we chose well with our friends.
Lyegrove.
Did our mistakes begin with Lyegrove, that beautiful residence in Gloucestershire, the family home on which we lavished twenty years of love? That glorious Jacobean house which we filled with carefully chosen works of art and turned into an idyll of peace in the English countryside for our family to enjoy.
Or did they begin in the South of France, in the exquisite villa where we spent so many happy family holidays? The expensive educations we gave our children? The luxury lifestyle we provided?
What did we do, we ask ourselves, to make our children look at these riches and decide that they could wait no longer before gaining complete control of them? What did we do wrong, that they should decide to get their parents out of the way, despite all the love, care and support we have lavished upon them over the years?
As we write this book, a terrible tragedy has recently occurred. Zookeeper Rosa King was killed by the tiger she loved and fed. That the animal in her care should repay her by attacking her has a resonance with our own sad history for in a way we too have been killed off by our children. And our hope is that by the time you reach the end of our story, you will understand why we are puzzled. Puzzled as to how two such loved and cared-for children could turn against their parents in such a way. Puzzled as to what we have done to deserve this treatment.
These are the questions that so many people who know of our situation have asked us, and which we ask ourselves almost every waking hour. The pages that follow are our attempt, if not to answer those questions, then to lay out the facts so that the reader may come to his or her own conclusion as to where the rights and wrongs lie.
This is not an autobiography in the usual sense. It does not recount every detail of our lives, nor would we want it to. But it does start with the story of how our parents escaped the Latvian pogroms and the Nazi persecution of Polish Jews, how we survived the ordeals of the Second World War and how we subsequently built a life – and a fortune – from almost nothing. Our hope is to show the very great difference between our own upbringings and those of our children. To show that perhaps our greatest mistake was failing to teach our children the true value of the wealth they enjoyed. Did we fall into the trap of giving them too much, rather than teaching them to fend for themselves? Did we, like Othello, love not wisely, but too well? If we did, then much of the blame for what follows must fall on us.
At heart our story is a simple one. It is the story of two loving parents who built up an enormous fortune for their children, only for their children to cut all ties when they could wait no longer to have full control of these riches. But it is a cautionary tale. A warning to others who might be tempted to make the great mistake we made of giving too much, and trusting too much. If we had not done that, we are quite certain that our family would be whole. We would be surrounded by our grandchildren. We would be living out the remainder of our days in the bosom of our family, in the house that we love, surrounded by affection and beautiful things.
Instead, we are removed and alone, divorced from our children and grandchildren, our loving family unit destroyed.
We know we will be criticised for writing this book, but we have no compunction in writing down the facts of our terrible family estrangement, if only as a warning to others. If, by setting out the facts as they are, we can stop people making the same mistakes that we did, then our purpose in writing this book will have been achieved.
As the Duke of Wellington said: publish and be damned. We have lost our children, our family and our homes. We have nothing left to lose.