I started keeping a diary in 1974 and I wrote my class timetable in that diary, as shown above.
Unfortunately, I wrote the 1973/74 timetable for 1S in the space where the 1974/75 timetable was supposed to go.
That was not a great start.
I must have spotted my error when the 1974/75 academic year began; I marked in purple and brackets my 2AK timetable.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I have tried to decode the 1S timetable as best as my memory can manage in December 2020, nearly 47 years after I first wrote it down. See below.
The only bit of code I struggled with was double GC (I think that’s what it says) on a Thursday afternoon. I think it might have stood for “General Class”, as I do recall doing fun stuff like drama, skits and the like with Mr Sandbrook that year and can’t work out when else we might have done that.
Someone out there might remember – I’m sure GC won’t have just been a 1S thing.
Specifically for 1S, though, I cannot recall who taught us what in several cases. My memory gets as far as (and there might be mistakes in my plugs):
English – Ian Sandbrook
PE & Games – Alan Berry (sometimes Harry Wale, sometimes Paul Sherlock)
Handicraft – Mr Evans and David Midgely
Maths – Mr McCartney
RE – ?
Music – Pop Kennard
History – ? [Rohan Candappa reckons Doggie Johnson & I think he’s right]
French – Trevor Tindale
Biology – Bernard Rothbart
Art – James Brew
Chemistry – John Clarke
Physics – ?
GC – well if I knew what it was…but I think Ian Sandbrook
Geography – ?
Of course this isn’t just a 1S thing – who taught what, to whom, when, might be a fun memory game for people regardless of which class/year we might talk about. But perhaps for now we can stick with people who taught us in our first year.
Anyway, point is, I’d like to engage the hive mind of our cohort on this problem, so I am posting this piece in early December 2020, a few days ahead of one of Rohan Candappa’s Virtual Buttery evenings.
It’s a bit like homework really, but without the risk of censure if you turn up without having done any.
I’ll update this posting once the hive mind has built its metaphorical honeycomb.
Sherlock surely could work out whodunnit? Paul Sherlock, Alan Berry & Tony King
I started keeping a diary in January 1974. So exhausting must have been the process for eleven-on-twelve-year-old me, I took a sabbatical between May and late November that year.
The 1970s diaries cover my secondary school years, at Alleyn’s School. I shall write them up fifty years after the event, in the same way as I have been writing up my Keele University years of the 1980s as a “Forty Years On” series.
The juvenile writing needs some interpretation, both in terms of deciphering the strange symbols that comprised my handwriting back then and in terms of matters stated and omitted. I’ll try to explain and interpret as best I can, fifty years after the event.
I apologise for my atrocious spelling back then. Spellcheck has spared my blushes incalculably often in the IT era that followed my school years, while also drumming in some improvement to my ability at spelling.
Here’s that first page in all its glory.
Tuesday 1 January 1974 – …”Dined At Schmidt’s”…
Dad was at home. Dined at Schmidt’s. Chocolate moose was nice. In evening watched a film. P.S. Traditional walk 6th year.
Schmidt’s was an extraordinary place on Charlotte Street. It was a German Restaurant trapped in time from the early part of the 20th century, operated by an aging gentleman named Frederick Schmidt and his moustached sister, Marie Schmidt. I knew them as Mr Schmidt and Miss Schmidt.
We ate there quite often, mostly when Grandma Anne was not with us, as she was kosher and Schmidt’s was quintessentially not so. I recall that Grandma would occasionally come there with us and eat fish there, while dad would choose his favourite dish, eisbein, a Berlin style of schweinshaxe, with dad pointedly asking for the “VEAL knuckle” as he pointed at eisbein on the menu. Naughty daddy.
I would almost certainly have gone for the liver and onions or the schnitzel as my main course. Both of those dishes came on a platter with some pease pudding and sauerkraut as well as potatoes and vegetables. More or less everything came on such a platter, now I come to think of it. The fact that I comment on the chocolate moose suggests that it might have been a new one to me, but whatever desert I chose there, I would insist on lashings of whipped cream, which, at Schmidt’s, was a highly aerated form of whipped cream which I absolutely loved, both in its look, its taste and its texture. Mum loved that stuff too, on her coffee.
We would sometimes see Esther Rantzen in the delicatessen section of the establishment, where we would usually spend some time after eating, perhaps choosing some delicacies to take home with us or just browsing. When I met Esther properly some 20 years later, I mentioned that I remembered seeing her in Schmidt’s several times and we had a joyous reminisce about that lost world.
The traditional walk was something I did with my dad over the festive season every year for many years – initially I suspect it was mum’s way of getting a bit of peace for an hour or so and giving us the chance to walk off all the food we’d eaten. I think of Boxing Day as the usual day for that event, but it seems it was held back until 1 January that season – perhaps a weather-related change.
Wednesday 2 January 1974 – …”bought 5 History Books”…
Uneventful yet bought 5 history books. I cannot quite reconcile those two phrases.
I can, however, identify the books. They were from the “Everyday Life” series. I still have them:
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that there are nine books from that series depicted above, but the diary entry reports me buying five books. The even-more-eagle-eyed amongst you might be able to spot that the five “Everyday Life” books to the right of the picture look considerably more thumbed than the four to the left, which I’m sure I purchased at a later date.
I suspect that I spent my own money on those books (I’d have been flush with Christmas money or Hanukkah gelt at that time of year). The list price of the five books I bought that day comes to the princely sum of £1.45, but I’d wager a good few bob that these books were discounted after Christmas and I might have scored the batch of five for around £1 in W H Smith. I loved those books, which is why I have not been able to part with them, even when I cleared out most of my childhood books.
I especially loved the two about life in the stone ages. These related to the period of history we were being taught that year at school.
In both of the Stone Age books, I have written:
Ian Harris 1.S.
If found please return to 1.S.
I must have been taking these books to school with me on history days – possibly leaving them at school overnight sometimes. Only those two have that inscription, but inside the one about Roman Times, I discovered…
…an ancient, small piece of blotting paper, with one quite large blot on it, marking the place between pages 64 and 65 which, judging by the spine of the book, is as far as I got with that one 50 years ago. This discovery felt like a bit of a Pompeii moment, my juvenile reading trapped within a moment of time many years ago, providing evidence of reading interrupted and never resumed. I feel a relentless desire now to finish reading the book, which I think, fifty years later, will require me to start again from the beginning. I’m guessing that I’ll be able to whizz through the 130 or so pages quite quickly. But again I have put off the task to another day. It won’t be another 50 years, that’s for sure.
…”Saw Tommy Cooper”…
The Tommy Cooper Hour will have been this one – Episode 3 – click here. It will have looked a bit like the vid below, an episode from the same series, shown a few months later:
Thursday 3 January 1974
Went to dentist. No fillings yet. Drawn darts match. 5p Kalooki. 2 Rons [The Two Ronnies] good.
The dentist will have been Harry Wachtel, a slightly eccentric Austrian-Jewish refugee dentist who practiced in Streatham for several decades.
How a darts match ends up drawn I have no idea. Neither do I know who I played in that drawn match. Can’t have been one of my parents (dad would have gone back to work and mum would never go near my dartboard…come to think of it, nor did dad). Possibly Andy Levinson came round. Ot possibly I had a game of my own devising which enabled me to play against myself and secure a draw.
Kalooki probably did involve my mum and it seems that I got lucky, skilful or both, making 5p (that’s a shilling in real money).
The Two Ronnies was this episode. Interesting that I was allowed to watch TV that late at that age – it was possibly my starting secondary school that got my bedtime shifted towards and beyond the watershed.
Friday 4 January 1974
1×2 + bull at darts. Saw Fantasia for a third time – it is great.
I’m guessing that Fantasia was not shown on TV that week, so it would have been a visit to the cinema. I don’t say who I went with, but that might have been with mum (she loved Fantasia too) as I think I would have named my companion if I had gone with a friend or even if I had gone with Grandma Jenny. Probably local, at the Streatham ABC or Odeon.
My burgeoning darts career tails off soon, at least in the matter of diary mentions. I suspect that the dart board was a new toy for Christmas 1973.
Saturday 5 January 1974
Mum bought coat £22 reduced to £9.95. Went to Lytton’s. Played Striker with dive goalies.
Striker with dive goalies. That sounds amazing. I have re-established contact with Steve Lytton in the 50 years since that epic event. I wonder whether he still has his Striker set and is up for a rematch.
I only kept my diary for the middle term of the formative year that was my first year at Alleyn’s School. I was given my first diary at the turn of 1974, after the first term. I lost interest in being a diarist after just four months. then I regained that interest and kept a diary constantly for the next 14 years.
Anyway.
One feature that pervades my diary during that second term of my secondary schooling is mentions of “drama” on Fridays. I clearly loved that class. My diary also shows that we had two English slots on a Friday morning, which I suspect encouraged Ian Sandbrook, our class and English teacher, to use that section of our English itinerary for the drama stuff.
Smart idea, giving us exciting stuff to do on a Friday morning; a slot that might otherwise be a graveyard slot. I never mentioned Mr McCarthey’s maths lessons, for example, in my Friday diary.
Some fellow 1S-istas might remember some aspects of those lessons. Mr Sandbrook might too. I’d love to hear about such memories. There are a few clues in my diary which I shall try to unpick as I go through the diaries. They might trigger some more memories from others.
But one aspect has stuck in my brain all of these 50 years. Just one couplet remains, but I know that, one week, Ian Sandbrook asked us to explore Greek myths as a source of drama and to write a short piece.
The Apple Of Discord, The Judgment Of Paris And The Drama Of 1S
I’m not sure whether Mr Sandbrook allocated us each a myth, or possibly got us all to explore the same myth, but my myth was the story of the “beauty contest” between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, triggered by an angry goddess of discord, Eris, setting a challenging question on an apple. The contest was judged by Paris of Troy.
Paris was a prince unsuited to such a role, having been raised by peasants in ignorance of his regal origins. The gods had to send Hermes out to the middle of nowhere to get Paris for the judging. The modern me wonders whether Hermes initially left a card at the peasant hut, “sorry we missed you – we tried to collect you but you weren’t in…”. But Hermes must have collected and delivered fairly promptly, as he did whisk Paris to the party in time to be the impromptu judge.
Hera offered Paris wealth and power if he voted for her. Athena offered him knowledge and warrior-status. Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful mortal woman. Guess what?
Helen Of Troy
The rest is history…or rather, the rest is Greek myth and saga.
My mum must have helped me to write my script. Of course almost all of it is lost in the mists of time and the late 1980s clear out of my juvenilia which my mum chose to implement without consulting me. I’m not yet over it.
But I remember one couplet from the piece, which has stuck in my head for these 50 years. It was a musical intro to the skit, set to the tune Eye Level by the Simon Park Orchestra, which was a big hit at the time. I suspect that this skit was probably a first term effort, because Eye Level was Number One in October 1973.
If you are Zeus or Hera or Ceres,
If you are Bacchus or Aphrodite;
If you are a Greek god,
Come dance with me.
A few things to unpick there, about which I was probably blissfully ignorant in 1973. Some interesting melisma on the words Ceres, Greek and god. Gives the thing a slightly ancient, plainchant-like quality. Almost certainly an accidental inclusion back then.
The names of a couple of Roman gods have got mixed up there with Greek ones. Ceres and Bacchus (Demeter and Dionysus respectively). I have no idea whether any of us in the Harris household knew or cared about that distinction. “Artistic licence” was my dad’s answer whenever some element of (in his case normally painting) work was called into that sort of question. I might have been very keen to have the word Bacchus in there, as we had visited the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek (Lebanon) just a few weeks earlier:
If you are struggling to remember the tune, struggle no more. Here’s a vid of the Simon Park Orchestra performing Eye Level on TOTP back then…against the will of many of the musicians, judging by the expressions on their faces, Simon Park and an enthusiastic-looking tambourine-player aside:
Apart from the couplet, I think “my” skit was basically a sketch and meant to be a comedy rendering of the story. I have no idea whether or not it worked. The fact that I remember the couplet suggests that it might have gone down very well…or very, very badly. Actually all that my recollection of the couplet proves is that my mum probably got me to rehearse that bit over and over again so it wouldn’t sound too bad.
Fifty Years Later…We Can (Sort Of) Reconstruct This Performance Piece
Now, here’s the thing.
The above godly couplet might well have been my first attempt (albeit assisted by my mum) at writing comedy lyrics to a well known tune.
But it was far from my last.
Let’s put aside some sophomoric attempts in the 1980s, but by the early 1990s (and for most of the rest of that decade) I was regularly writing such material for NewsRevue, the world’s longest running live comedy show. My canon of silly, mostly topical, lyrics extends to several hundred pieces, almost all of which are published here on Ogblog, if you care to delve.
But can I still cut it? I decided, in January 2024 to set myself the challenge of writing a single lyric to cover the entirety of the Apple Of Discord/Judgment of Paris story.
After all, if I could successfully summarise the Balkan Wars in a comedy lyric, Mad Frogs And Englishmen, the initiation of the Trojan War should be similarly manageable.
Early in that second term of my first year at Alleyn’s, Eye Level was long gone from the charts. January 1974’s big hit was Tiger Feet by Mud.
Using Tiger Feet did prove to be a real challenge. With all due respect to “Chinnichap” songs, hugely successful though they were, the lyrics were not exactly the central conceit. Think Blockbuster, Devil Gate Drive and Mickey. Far from the style of Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs And Englishmen – a patter song with loads of space.
Still, I’ve been more than 50 years in the parody lyrics business now, so I should be able to give it a go. My lyric is written from the point of view of that much maligned character, Paris. It is by necessity a little sparse on detail, but I think I have managed to summarise the whole story in two short verses and choruses.
VERSE ONE
All night long, you’ve been enjoying a fest,
While Hermes brought me here to judge your beauty contest;
I’m publishing this piece on Friday 12 January 2024, in the hope that it revives the Alleyn’s tradition of Drama Friday from 50-years ago, at least for one day.
I’ll send a copy to Sir (Ian Sandbrook), but it would be unfair to expect him to mark my homework and/or lead the class at such short notice.
But, as it happens, I am seeing my friend, John Random, a bit later in the day. He was the first NewsRevue director to use my material in the early 1990s and is now part English teacher, part thespian. I’ll ask John to mark my homework and I might even, eventually, let readers know how I got on.
John might say, “your lyric is too hot to Trotsky”…or perhaps he won’t.
Postscript: John Random Awarded The Lyric 10/10, While “Sir” (Ian Sandbrook) Marked My Homework That Very Day
Hi Ian – thought I should get back to you while it is still Friday… love the poem/song ! not sure how it would work as a piece of drama but I dare say IS would have made something impressive out if it. I am having some difficulty believing that we were so erudite back then. Happy new year. Best wishes, Ian”
I remember little about my first term at Alleyn’s School. I didn’t start writing my diaries until January 1974. The fragments of memory that I retain are part-true, part-false and part-plagiarised, in that conversations with friends from that era tends to dredge stuff from the memory that wouldn’t otherwise have been dredged.
But a review of the Top 50 charts from the week that my cohort started Alleyn’s has certainly recovered some earworms for me. In truth, nothing that really reminds me of those vital first few days, but certainly a few that remind me of the summer and build up to that first term and some that I do remember being “very much a thing” during those early weeks.
Me? I was actually listening mostly to classical music by the autumn of 1973. My “golden era” of listening to pop/chart music relentlessly had faded in the latter years of my primary school education, as my parents desperately encouraged me to listen to “proper” (i.e. classical) music – mostly middle-brow stuff.
I’ll write more on that separately when the mood takes me.
This article is about the charts in the first week of September 1973. Here’s the chart, with some comments and embedded files for you to see and hear:
Number 50, Snoopy Versus The Red Baron, Hotshots
Number 49, Angel, Aretha Franklin
Number 48, Gaye, Clifford T. Ward
Number 47, Nutbush City Limits, Ike And Tina Turner
In truth, this one is not an earworm from the late summer of 1973, but it is a truly wonderful record, so here it is, with a very 1973 vid:
Number 46, Natural High, Bloodstone
Number 45, Hypnosis, Mud
Number 44, Caroline, Status Quo
I definitely remember this Quo number stuck in my ear at that time…or was it a slightly different Quo song…or was it at a different time…
Number 43, Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree, Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando
Number 42, The Free Electric Band, Albert Hammond
Number 41, And I Love You So, Perry Como
Number 40, All The Way From Memphis Mott The Hoople
Number 39, Joybringer, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
Number 38, Skywriter, The Jackson 5
Number 37, All Right Now, Free
Number 36, Going Home, The Osmonds
Number 35, Bad Bad Boy, Nazareth
Number 34, Everything Will Turn Out Fine, Stealers Wheel
Number 33, Ying Tong Song, Goons
Number 32, Electric Lady, Geordie
Number 31, Our Last Song Together, Neil Sedaka
Number 30, Monster Mash, Bobby (Boris) Pickett And The Crypt-Kickers
This novelty record was for sure doing the round that first term. I have found a version with Pans People “dancing” to it…it wouldn’t be 1973 without Top Of The Pops and Pans People
Number 29, Life On Mars, David Bowie
In truth, this one is one of my main earworms from the summer before staring Alleyn’s. I remember Russell Holland (a friend from primary school) having a copy and we played it over and over one day when i visited his house that summer. I still think it is a truly great song:
Number 28, Alright, Alright, Alright, Mungo Jerry
Number 27, I Think Of You, Detroit Emeralds
Number 26, For The Good Times, Perry Como
Number 25, Touch Me In The Morning, Diana Ross
Number 24, I’ve Been Hurt, Guy Darrell
Number 23, 48 Crash, Suzi Quatro
Number 22, Oh No Not My Baby, Rod Stewart
Number 21, I’m Doing Fine Now , New York City
Number 20, I’m Free, Roger Daltrey, London Symphony Orchestra And Chamber Choir
Number 19, Fool, Elvis Presley
Number 18, Dear Elaine, Roy Wood
Number 17, I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am!), Gary Glitter
Number 16, Smarty Pants, First Choice
Number 15, Welcome Home, Peters And Lee
Number 14, The Dean And I, 10 C.C.
Number 13, Rising Sun, Medicine Head
Number 12, Say Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose, Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando
Number 11, Summer (The First Time), Bobby Goldsboro
Number 10, Pick Up The Pieces, Hudson-Ford
Number 09, Angie, The Rolling Stones
Number 08, Like Sister And Brother, The Drifters
Number 07, You Can Do Magic, Limmie And The Family Cookin’
Gosh – I’m not sure I have given this one much thought since that late summer/autumn of 1973, but it absolutely brings back sights, sounds and smells from those early days at Alleyn’s
Number 06, Rock On, David Essex
Number 05, Spanish Eyes, Al Martino
Why did someone give a tune named “Moon Over Naples” lyrics about “Spanish Eyes”? Had no-one heard of cultural appropriation back then? This was a rerelease from the late 1960s:
Number 04, Yesterday Once More, The Carpenters
I like this song. Yes it is a bit cheesy but that doesn’t stop it from being a good song:
Number 03, Angel Fingers, Wizzard
Roy Wood was off the scale weird. I only vaguely remember this one from that era:
Number 02, Dancing On A Saturday Night, Barry Blue
Why does Barry Blue sample Zorba’s Dance in the middle of this song, years before “sampling” was “a thing”?
Number 01, Young Love, Donny Osmond
It’s a shame that Nigel Godfrey didn’t start Alleyn’s the same year as us, as he would LOVE to be able to boast that Donny was Number One when he started, whereas the rest of us…
Tara pop-pickers, as that great man, Alan Freeman, used to say.
I graduated 50 years ago. Graduated from primary school, I mean. Writing in July 2023, it hardly seems possible that half-a-century has passed since then, but it has.
I hadn’t seen these photographs of the prize giving ceremony for a very long time. In truth, I found them recently while rummaging for something completely different.
Strangely, I can remember a surprising amount about the event and the names of many of my fellow pupils. Still, some of the memories are hazy and apologies if I have misremembered, spelt wrong or misidentified anyone. Feel free to get in touch and help me correct the record.
Looking at the headline photo, in which I seem to be picking up some sort of award on my own, I can see my mum on the far left of the picture (fourth mum along) looking a little pained. I recall that she had an attack of sciatica that day and nearly didn’t come to the event. I also recall that she found the seating in the nissen hut – where we held a pre-prize-giving performance – so uncomfortable that she stood at the back throughout the “show”.
I remember little about the show other than our class singing Que Sera Sera as a choir, which, I also recall, my mum told me had made her cry.
I suspect that a children’s choir rendition of Que Sera Sera in such circumstances was pretty standard fare back then.
Then outside for some element of outdoor performance ahead of the prize giving.
I’m pretty sure I can identify and name all five of these kids: Russell Holland, Deborah Horton, Alan Cooke, Julie Wheeler and Deborah Silverton
I’m still in touch with Alan. He might have some additional information about these pictures.
Russell and Deborah I must have befriended very early in my time at Rosemead, because they are there to be seen in the film of my fifth birthday party, six years before this prize giving event:
Returning to the 1973 Rosemead event, I have a few more pictures.
The lady in red is, I believe, Mrs Pavesi – behind her, David Pavesi with Nigel Palmer. I think the “back of a boy’s head” is Alan Cooke again.
Signor Pavesi was a restaurateur/chef if I recall correctly. David and Nigel were pals of mine.
My mum took issue with Nigel regularly being chosen to play Jesus in the school nativity plays. Mum felt that I probably bore a closer resemblance to the original Jesus than Nigel did; she oft threatened to challenge the school with cultural appropriation for that casting. Fortunately, mum was either joking or too timid to raise the matter, or both of those things.
There’s Nigel picking up a prize. Best Supporting Actor? Jesus is not a big part in nativity plays.I think this prize-winner is Christopher Stendall
Chris Stendall is one of three Rosemead alums who went on, with me, to Alleyn’s School, the other two being Alan Cooke (see above) and Jonathan Barnett (not depicted in these 1973 pictures, but who can be seen in the 1967 film).
Seems I collected several prizes that day. Ho hum – nobody really likes a smart-ass. In the upper picture, behind me, collecting is Russell Holland and behind him, I believe, Nazareen Ali.In the lower of the above two pictures, behind me looks like Mandy Goldberg.
My main memory of Mandy Goldberg was of Richard Dennis accidentally hitting her with a cricket bat in the playground, which resulted in cricket being banned at Rosemead by the headmistress, Miss Plumridge. I reported that event some years ago in a piece about my juvenile cricket, linked here or below:
Those seven pictures are all I could find from that event. But hopefully this piece will help track some people down who might have more memories and/or photos. If so, please do get in touch – I’d love to hear from you and/or add more material to this piece.
The pictures are all in Flickr at higher quality than above, along with a few other pictures from that era. Click here or the picture link below:
Rabbi Morris Davidson, Bolingbroke “Field Trip” To Camber Sands, early 1970s
I started keeping diaries at the start of 1974, at which time my diaries are peppered with many mentions of “classes”, on Sunday mornings, plus Tuesday and Thursday evenings. By that time, my religious instruction had been transferred to Brixton.
I shall write up those Brixton cheder diary extracts and stories soon.
But my memory retains a few impressionistic memories of my earliest experience of cheder (Jewish Sunday School), which was Sunday mornings only at my family’s synagogue, South-West London, otherwise known as Bolingbroke.
I attended cheder at Bolingbroke from quite a young age (perhaps age 5 or 6 onwards) until the cheder closed in the early 1970s and the handful of us who were still of cheder age transferred, mostly to Brixton but some, I think, to Streatham.
I am only in touch still with one or two people who shared that Bolingbroke cheder experience. Mark Phillips (and through Mark, perhaps also his older brother Simon). I also have a sneaking suspicion that Andrew (Andy) Levinson (and perhaps also Fiona) joined us, for a while, in a futile attempt to keep Bolingbroke cheder going by poaching friendly kids who would more naturally go to cheder at their parents’ own synagogues. I’m pretty sure Andy is with me in the cine film of our field trip to Camber Sands in the early 1970s, which is the only photographic relic I have of that era.
Two-and-a-half minutes of low-grade cinematography (not dad’s best day with the hand-held) but high-grade historic value follows:
Impressionistic Memories Of Bolingbroke Cheder
Here are my highly impressionistic memories of the cheder at Bolingbroke. I’m hoping that others might chime in with some additional memories in the comments or send me private messages to enable me to beef up this piece.
There was a senior and a junior class. The former I think was for kids over 10 (or perhaps 11) who were preparing for bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah – my cohort never made it to that senior class at Bolingbroke. If I recall correctly, Rabbi Davidson instructed the senior class himself. The junior class was for us little ‘uns;
Our teacher in the junior class was a bearded fellow named Mr Herman, imported from North London, solely for the purposes of our instruction on a Sunday.
Mr Herman looked a bit like this public domain image of cheder instruction, except my memory (perhaps false) recalls Mr Herman with red hair, a bit younger than the beardy depicted.
I remember wondering in my very young days whether the pop group Herman’s Hermits had something to do with our teacher, Mr Herman. I vaguely recall that Mr Herman had a northern accent and had some connection with Carmel College, as did Herman’s Hermits’ talent manager, Harvey Lisberg. So there might, coincidentally, have been something in my seemingly childish nonsense word association between the two…but probably not;
Rabbi Davidson was a kindly and gentle man. I looked forward to a time when I would receive direct instruction from him, but it was not to be, as classes at Bolingbroke folded before I got to his level;
When Mr Herman was unavailable and no relief teacher was sent as a direct replacement for him, which I think started to happen increasingly frequently towards the end of our time at Bolingbroke, our class was minded by the Rabbi’s son, Cyril Davidson;
I say “minded” rather than “taught”, because I don’t think Cyril was willing and/or able actually to teach us. He would set us tasks from our work books, which (in my impressionistic memory at least) tended to be quite trivial such as colouring in pictures from the Bible or working through simple alphabet/language exercises, while Cyril sat at the desk in front of us drinking coffee and reading The Observer. Frankly, my guess is that he was a reluctant child-minder in these circumstances and I have some sympathy with his stance. When I was in my 20s, all I wanted to do on a Sunday morning was drink coffee and read The Observer.
Nice one, Cyril
While researching this article on line I managed to trace Cyril and I hope he doesn’t mind my having grabbed his thumbnail picture from the public domain. I am certainly granting him the right of reply when I send him a link to this article. I also hope he might add some thoughts and insights of his own.
Update: Correspondence With Cyril Davidson Through Facebook
Cyril Davidson writes:
I totally reject your recollections of my teachings at SW cheder l was and always have been a conscious and serious teacher who received a distinction in my teacher’s certificates at the university of London Institute of Education I never read the Observer in my life
I responded:
I am sorry that our memories of the cheder are at such variance. We were very young and only there for a few years at the end of that cheder’s time. We must have mistaken the confident competence of your calm, relaxed demeanour (which was a relief when compared with the hard-scrabble educational method of some others) for indifference.
TRIGGER ALERT: HEALTH & SAFETY & SAFEGUARDING ENTHUSIASTS MIGHT FIND THE NEXT PARAGRAPH DISTURBING
I recall breaks being quite wild affairs. We were largely unsupervised and there was quite a sizeable area to explore and use for hide and seek type games. Further, there was a dumb waiter that connected the first floor kitchen with the downstairs public hall. Braver kids would liaise to use the dumb waiter as a mode of transport between the upstairs and downstairs. More timorous kids would be threatened with involuntary journeys in that device. I think the weaker of the timorous kids were occasionally transported against their will in that thing. From memory, I fell into the “timorous but sufficiently resistant” category, as I recall fearing getting inside the dumb waiter, but don’t recall having been encouraged/forced actually to do so.
Update: Subsequent Correspondence from Cyril Davidson After My Responses:
Having cleared up the misinformation earlier did enjoy reading about the South W Cheder and the kind References about my revered father Rabbi Morris Davidson I do remember pupils riding up and down the service lift in the hall and playtime in front area opposite the cemetery
I also remember having interesting chats with Mr Herman at play time
I had not seen the picture of my father at one of the great [Cheder] outings he used to arrange
Happy days
I have one other memory, from an event put on for the parents, when the older children performed a play. It was about Pesach (the Passover story) but it might have been performed at Purim time. One of the boys was very heavily made up to be afflicted with boils (one of the ten plagues) and I found this look so startling that I couldn’t watch that bit and took cover in the arms of my parents. Later, when the boy had removed his make up, my parents tried to help me overcome my fear by pointing out that the boy in question, whose look was no longer frightening me, was in fact the boy with the boils. Just the mention of “the boy with the boils” again spooked me, even though the sight of the actual boy, now boil-free, did not. For years, my parents would threaten me with “setting the boy with the boils on me” if I didn’t comply with their instructions.
More About Bolingbroke Generally
The Jewish Community Records site has a short tombstone piece (stub) for that long-defunct synagogue (it closed in 1997) – click here to see that stub.
The Harris family were members there for most of that synagogue’s life, from when the Harris family moved to Clapham Common North Side (c1930) to the bitter end.
I have written a fair bit previously about the Harris family’s shul/community in Soho, roughly 1916 to 1930 prior to moving to South-West London:
What I didn’t realise, before researching the current piece, is that the revered Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ferber, who instructed my father and Uncle Michael in their younger days, was the father-in-law of Rabbi Morris Davidson. That fact is there to be read in Rabbi Ferber’s Wikipedia entry if you bother to read that far.
I wonder whether this was a coincidence or whether there was a connection.
Did Rabbi Ferber possibly encourage the Harris family to move to a community where he knew that his son-in-law Rabbi was residing (or soon to reside). Or, if the South-West London community was looking for a new Rabbi soon after my family moved there, was it my family that connected Rabbi Ferber’s machaton with their new community?
Also interesting to me is to discover that Rabbi Ferber (and indeed Rabbi Davidson) subscribed to a movement known as the Musar Movement which, I paraphrase perhaps to a fault, focuses on contemplative and ethical matters, including commercial ethics, to a greater extent than theological absolutism and/or strict orthodoxy of practice.
Update: Further Correspondence With Cyril Davidson
I am fascinated to learn this about your family. My father was a great admirer of your Grandfather, Rabbi Ferber, who was revered at the West End Talmud Torah when my father was a small boy. I can see from the several Wikipedia articles on Rabbis Salanter and Ferber, and on the Mussar movement, that you are a direct descendant of the founder. I have added your comments to my piece in the interests of balance and to enable those interested to search further. One additional point that might interest you – in researching my family’s early years in the UK as part of the Soho community, I have acquired (but not yet read) a copy of your Uncle Chaim Lewis’s book “A Soho Address”. I am very much looking forward to reading it. With very best wishes to you and your family.
Although none of the religious stuff filtered through to me in adulthood, the ethical stuff most certainly did. That dynasty of Rabbis (Salanter, Ferber and Davidson) might have approved of my Gresham College Commercial Ethics lecture, for example, while probably not warming (or relating) to all the examples I used, nor to my extremely limited approach to religious observance.
Strangely, towards the end of researching this piece, I discovered a recent article on a Jewish website, ukjewshlife.com, about our old South-West London community – click here. If by any chance that site isn’t active once you get there, you could instead click here. That article has some lovely photographs of the old place including one of a wedding inside the shul. That wedding photo, if you look to the rear right of the shul, you can see the little block of four seats where the Harris family would sit. A place of honour but not prominence, I always considered it. In the early days, my grandfather and his four sons. Then just the four sons. Then Uncle Manny, Dad, Cousin Anthony and Me. Anthony until just before the place closed down, dad and I (once a year in my case) until the bitter end in 1997.
Memories from anyone else who shared these experiences would be most welcome through the comments section or private messages if you prefer.
Rabbi Morris Davidson, kindly and gentle as I remember him
