GLAMOUR, GAMBLING, MYSTERY SOLVED

“In 2021 new stories about Sandra and I  popped up from people unheard of or seen for about 60 years. Also at that time other friends started re looking at photos from their families which stimulated me to sort and look again at photos of our mother and father. I created this collage with the characters, Ina and Joseph on a stage with me looking on, with the red curtains open for the performance to begin,’ Myrna.

Glamour

Whilst at the Royal College of Art, London in 1964, Myrna made paintings from memory of their mother, Ina drunk and naked. What a contrast to the elegant stylish woman in the photograph (collage), out for an evening with her husband Joe in the 1950s. You can see her love of jewellery and clothes. She is dressed with style: her shoulders powdered with talcum powder holding a cigarette in a holder. She is with her husband Joseph also smartly dressed.  There is another story not revealed in the image. Ina had left her family in Scotland came to Manchester and met and married Joseph a man from a different background to her. They remained together until Joseph died in 1961.
Myrna is in the collage taking a look at her past. 
Yet the collage omits another truth that only Sandra and Myrna experienced which they couldn't tell anyone about for who would listen to two young girls? The naked woman staring at her glamorous self is the the truth that Sandra and Myrna remembered of seeing Ina, their mother drunk, collapsed on the floor, often naked, in their house in Broughton Park, Cheetham Hill, Manchester.

Alcoholic woman looks at her glamorous self while her daughter looks on.

Glamorous outings with friends in a mixed relationship

Mum, Dad, Hatty & Issy Cohen

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"Mum, Dad and their best friends Issy, Israel Cohen and his wife? Florence, Florrie Hesketh / Cohen. The other couple are in a mixed relationship, outrageous at that time. Florrie wasn’t jewish and I don’t know whether she converted to Judaism in order to marry Issy.
Our parents were married for 20 years before Sandra and I came along. So, if Issy had any children or grandchildren they may have stories passed down about that time, about Ina and Joseph? Twenty years is a long time and so much must have happened," Myrna

Richard Casson as a great detective found this information. Florrie Hesketh did marry Issy Cohen.

Gambling, The Betting Shop and a conman

Joseph (our father) a weekend gambler loved to put money via the telephone on the horses or dogs (greyhound racing). Besides managing the family business with brother Morris he opened a betting shop around the Strangeways' area. This was an illegal enterprise at that time. It  was a tiny one roomed shop with windows covered so you couldn't see in. His business partner Mr Marks? was a jewish man who managed the shop whilst Joseph was busy.  They had to have runners, men who collected bets and were paid to warn when police were around, so that punters - customers could dash out and the shop could shut.

Probate for Joseph Horowitch , via Richard Casson

Joseph probably put most of the money into this venture trusted his business partner as both of them could benefit from the money they would make. Unbeknown to Joseph Mr Marks had been plotting and one day took off with all the money kept in the place and disappeared into the alleyways of Manchester. Joseph couldn't go to the police or have any hope of getting the money back as the betting shop was illegal. 
Joseph died a few months before betting became legalised in the UK.

The biggest change in the history of Gambling in the United Kingdom came in 1961 when Harold McMillian's government legalised betting shops under the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act. The early 1960's was a time for change, people demanded more freedom to do what they wanted, and placing a bet changed overnight from something you did at licenced tracks and in seedy back alleys to a national institution. https://www.onlinebetting.org.uk/betting-guides/history-of-gambling-and-bookmaking.html