By Josie Delap
My Jewish grandparents adopted many local traditions when they fled to Britain from Vienna in 1938. They became members of the Women’s Institute and Rotary Club, attended an Anglican church – and they ate a proper Christmas dinner. Christmas Eve is the main event in Austria and the meal centres on fish. But to insist on celebrating this way would have marked them out as different. Even for newly arrived refugees it was immediately obvious what you should eat on Christmas day: roast chicken (then a luxury, and more appropriate for a family of four than a vast turkey), roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts and gravy.