The Revival of the Crystal Palace Outing

Among the memories of schooldays recalled by “China Green” were those of the wheelbarrow used for peaceful purposes. A ride on a barrow appeared to be the greatest travel experience a boy could hope for in those days, those far off days. To travel in a real train was something to boast about. The Crystal Palace seemed as far away as Timbuctoo, and although it is today something of an eyesore to Sydenham and Norwood residents, a trip to the fabled Crystal Palace had the status now enjoyed by a trip to, let us say, Hollywood. The sights seen on the train ride were subjects for classroom gossip – and also the classroom cane – for days, although these consisted mainly of the railway stations passed on the journey, among which honourable mention was accorded to Honor Oak Park, ingeniously tricked out in white pebbles, but all of which, without exception, echoed and re-echoed to the words “Good luck to the engine driver” sung loudly and enthusiastically to the tune of “For he’s a jolly good fellow”. No wonder there was competition for window-seats, - which gave rise to many sparring dates in Cox’s Square some of which overflowed into nearby Cobb Street. China Green lost no time in cashing in on his powerful, if reminiscent, appeal, which had been supported by many other speakers.

Accompanied by Old Shaer and Morris Finger, Green took me next morning to Tatersall’s. Betting is legalised in South Africa, and all bets have to be made at appointed places where licensed bookmakers may legally ply their profession. These places are known at Tatersall’s. By far the largest Tatersall’s in South Africa is the Johannesburg one. The huge hall presented a most striking spectacle when we entered. It was crowded almost to overflowing. A vast number of bookies were busily engaged in taking bets. A ceaseless stream of clients, each of whom left immediately after he had placed his bet, added movement, colour and variety to the spectacle. China Green spied the Chairman of Tatersall’s, Mr Fisher, in a corner of the hall. We all made our way to Mr Fisher. I at once recognised Mr Fisher as a contemporary of mine in the top class of the JFS Green introduced me to Mr Fisher, and asked if I could be allowed to address any old JFS boys who might be present. Mr Fisher, learning of my identity, at once rang a bell, thus temporarily suspending business and calling all Tatersall’s members to order. There was an immediate hush. In the silence Mr Fisher’s loud voice boomed out: “The Headmaster of the Jews’ Free School, London is here. He wishes to speak to all Tatersall members who are old JFS boys. Will all those members who are old JFS boys come to this corner”.

The scene that followed was astounding and almost beyond belief. The whole vast crowd began moving at once towards me. Every single bookie in South Africa’s largest Tatersall’s was an old JFS boy. The betting public, suddenly left standing, looked on at the spectacle with wonder. I wondered, too! I gazed at the big crowd of bookies surrounding me, and marvelled at this unique power wielded by old boys of the JFS in South Africa. They controlled the bookmaking industry, which, outside gold-mining, is South Africa’s major industry. I briefly announced that I had come from the JFS with a special mission. I wished to revive the Crystal Palace outing they had all enjoyed in their boyhood – and I briefly appealed for their support. Mr Fisher made another announcement, accompanied by a dramatic gesture. High aloft he held up a bank-note. “I’ll start with this,” he loudly declared, as he handed me a ten pound note. The Jew’s Free School Outing Fund was in being.

It was arranged that I should visit Bulawayo, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London; with return visits to Johannesburg and Cape Town. There was a sort of Victory Celebration at the return visit in Johannesburg. It was held at the Langham Hotel, owned by a JFS Old Boy. A country-wide campaign had in the meantime been conducted by Johannesburg Old Boys. Widespread interest had been aroused by the campaign. A tremendous crowd of JFS former pupils, both ladies and gentlemen, attended the reception at the Langham Hotel. It was perhaps the happiest function I have attended in my life. At that function, the Secretary of Tatersall’s Mr S. Bernstein, son-in-law of Mr Fisher, announced the wonderful news that a hundred pounds had been subscribed there by South African old boys to the JFS Outing Fund.

When I returned to London, I wrote a fourth book to complete the set of three books I had already written for the use of our boys in learning Hebrew by a self-study method. This book is a Hebrew reading primer. It is called, simply but in Hebrew, “Pupils’ Reading Primer.” I have sent a copy to the JFS Association. The dedication I have printed on its fly leaf reads as follows: “DEDICATED to the OLD BOYS OF THE JEWS’ FREE SCHOOL in SOUTH AFRICA, whose SPLENDID LOYALTY and SERVICE to their COUNTRY and to THEIR FAITH are an INSPIRATION to JEWS all the WORLD over”. I presented a copy of this Reading Primer to every South African JFS Old Boy who had contributed to the Fund.

Before proceeding to narrate the inception of the revived Annual Outing, I would like to complete the record of the South African visit. The hospitality accorded was worthy of the great-hearted fraternity of JFS old boys’ in Johannesburg. Most noteworthy was that generously given by Morris Finger, who gave up much valuable business time to drive me round the fascinating country surrounding Johannesburg, with further drives in the world-famous Rand, the premier gold-mining country in the world. The labour in the gold mines is supplied by various native tribes among whom Zulus predominate. Great occasions are celebrated by tribal war dances.

I was fortunate to be able to witness one of these tribal celebrations. This remarkable function was held on the campus of the University of Witswaterand. I brought along as guests some who had been prominent in helping the Outing Appeal; these included Mr Shaer and his family, Mr and Mrs Morris Finger, Mr S.H. Dainow, editor of the “Zionist Record”, the Secretary of the South African Zionist Federation, Mr S. Alexander and Mr Maurice Lewis, now living in London. To the contemporary eye, this convocation of tribal dances resembled some vast “rock ‘n roll” display. But there were mighty differences. Every single one of the thousands of native dancers was no rioting teenage phoney dancer but an expert dancer, selected by his own tribe for his superb skill. Further, each tribe gave a performance of its own special dances. These were actual war dances, traditionally performed before engaging in bloody battle. Each one of the many thousands of dancers appeared in full war paint, accoutred and armed as when entering battle. There was no Elvis-the-Pelvis Presley or Bill Haley to supply the utterly unreal music. There was, instead, a mass orchestra of native musicians. These performers had made their own instruments. These were large-size xylophones, constructed of wooden slats in place of metal bars and tubes, and supported on empty petrol cans. The rhythm of these native musicians was something utterly unique. It was not Camberwell or Old Trafford. It was the authentic jungle. As for the dancing, any resemblance between these native war dances and the rock ‘n roll of the Tottenham Court Road or the Elephant and Castle, was not even coincidental; it just did not exist. Each dancer was an artist: his function was not to incite teenagers to break up the furniture, but to incite his fellow warriors to break the bones of the bodies of their enemies. And none of us failed to perceive the grimness and reality that pervaded this glimpse into jungle life and death.

My itinerary took me next to what is considered universally as the most remarkable national park in the world, the Kruger National Park. America possesses the wonderful Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Giant Cedars of the Muir Woods, Niagara and Jasper National Parks among many others, all conserving incomparable physical features. The Kruger Park has a different aim, - the conservation of animal life. Every animal inhabiting South Africa is represented in this National Park. Strict enforcement of laws protects the animals against their universal enemy – man. Tourists must keep to the fixed routes provided in the Park. No one may leave their car under any circumstances. No arms may be carried. At night all tourists must stay in one of two official rest camps. As a result, wild animals are everywhere in evidence, for they are free of the fear that man brings in his train. The rhinoceros, the giraffe, the hippopotamus, are some of the hundreds of species that are visible as one drives through the Park.

But the greatest attraction of all is provided by the lions. Their haunt is within easy car drive of the chief rest camp. The spectacle of cars driving at leisure through country inhabited by lions is one of the strangest imaginable. In my own case I was keen on photographing the lions. One lion actually approached our car. But I lost my nerve when he stuck his nose into our care and I tried hard to make out I wasn’t there. He sniffed at all four in our party and soon decided we were school teacher. Apparently teachers were too unappetising; for his fastidious taste anyhow: so he moved on. My courage became revived, and called on our party to hold fast onto my legs, I leaned out of the car and got a fine picture – of the tail of the lion.

With this tale of the lion, I’ll pass on to the greatest sight it has very been fortunate to see: the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi River in Southern Rhodesia. All waterfalls are impressive by their very nature, but the Victoria Falls captivate by their sheer beauty. The beauty is heightened by the romantic location. The Falls are planted right in the heart of Nature; primitive, peaceful, unspoilt. A great cloud of locusts were already descending when we arrived, and they brought the realisation that here was one of the great, empty spaces awaiting conquest by man. The only sign of man’s handiwork is the modest Falls Hotel where the guests are waited upon by Zulus, very charmingly boy-like in the natty white vests and shorts; bloody-minded though they can be – as their savage war exploits remind us. Although the Falls are a short ten minutes’ walk from the hotel, a tiny railway is operated where neither engines nor trains are to be seen. Travellers who find the ten minutes’ walk too exacting, can be wheeled to the Falls in four-seater, push-cars, secure in the knowledge that the leisurely pushing of the pushful natives will never allow the accident rate to pass the zero mark. There was a tropical full moon when we arrived and I persuaded some visitors to pay a midnight visit to the Falls. Unlike the Niagara, the whole majestic sweep of the Victoria Falls can be taken in at a glimpse, as the Zambesi River makes a turn at the Falls. I led our party down the slope of the Zambesi River’s bank to the foot of the Falls, and we sat on a ridge on the opposite bank, with a full view of the Falls before us. The Falls have an immense breadth, but the far narrower width of Niagara causes a great concentration of water there which gives rise to the roar which is so impressive at Niagara.

We sat watching the vast spread of falling waters, towering three hundred feet above us. The moon was now behind us, lighting up the Falls with its translucent, ghostly light. Suddenly a huge rainbow appeared. The magnificent arch of light stretched from one side of the Falls to the other, curving across the middle of the Falls, but pale, subdued, ethereal. Our party was spellbound. There we were, seated deep in the gorge of the Zambesi, absolutely alone, with not a sound to break the perfect silence, and with this lovely, ghostly rainbow of the moon before our eyes, exquisitely satisfying. It was the most beautiful sight we had ever seen. And yet, what is beauty? That question is as old as man. The Greeks shaped their lives around beauty. Plato built his philosophy upon it. The keenest intellects have wrestled with the problem. And the answer eludes us still. Nor will this humble writer venture at a guess. But this I will say. With all the beauty of our world ever before us in some one of its protean forms – sunrise, sunset, the star-set firmament, the changing terrestrial scene on land and sea, the mountain forms and the valley depths decked out in their colour, the harmony of sounds, and the heavenly choir of the rainbow and the aurora, with all the beauty that man can create with his hands in all the media of the arts, or with his inspiration in poetry and philosophy – there is yet one universal beauty that is compelling upon us all: the beauty of human life. The response to the beauty of character is immediate, for this response is part of our human king. And it is everywhere. I have seen this beauty of character at its very best in poorest homes in the East of London where I have lived my life. In the wizened and wrinkled features of poverty-stricken old folk, yet rich in the very essence of human beauty – kindness! Each one of you has been bathed in this influence in your own home, for its very source and spring is there, in the supreme creation of mother. All this I’ve written is relevant to my theme, for kindness makes the world go round, and kindness made that JFS outing effort obtain its being, and continue in its short life. So I’ll go on to tell now of the London sequel. There I went round among large numbers of old boys, and with the help most notably of the late Henry Woolf and his friends, I raised over £300.

Thursday, June 13th, 1935, was a red letter day for the School. The Crystal Palace outing had come back to the School. I tried to make the revived outing as alike as was practicable to the outing we had known before it had lapsed 21 years before. The East London Railway specially opened their long-closed station near Pedley Street in Brick Lane so as to enable our boys to make exactly the same journey to the Crystal Palace that their fathers, their grandfathers and great grandfathers, too, had made in the fifty years during which the outing had flourished. Each boy was given a railway ticket specially printed by the East London Railway. “Available for the day of issue only” this ticket said, and “for a juvenile under 16 years, Third Class, for journey from Shoreditch to Crystal Palace, including admission, via New Cross Gate.” I asked the policeman, allocated for this duty by Commercial Street Police Station, to shepherd our boys through the Lane and across Commercial Street, through Wentworth Street and Brick Lane, thus following the route that had been traditionally used. The procession to the station was greatly enlarged by mothers anxious to see their offspring spring off safely. The boys were sent off with an abundance of kisses, and a superabundance of provisions that might have served equally well for a distant sea-trip.

Each boy was provided with a little set of tickets printed by our boys in the printing room newly established by the late Mr S.M. Rich. He had just completed a sort of lunch-hour apprenticeship to the printer, Deaner, of High Street, Shoreditch and to the JFS, where Mr Rich got such expert instruction, that his old schoolmaster must have turned out to be one of the best apprentices in Deaner’s establishment. He was well rewarded for this fine act, for the boys were able to enjoy with these tickets ice cream, a glass of lemonade and a self-chosen modicum of the fun-of-the-fair amusement Crystal Palace had to offer. So I’ll offer very hearty thanks to this splendid JFS old boy whose generous tuition provided the Boys’ School with innumerable services to the highest kind. The “Jewish Chronicle” took a very fine picture of our youngest boys, with the Crystal Palace forming a striking background, and presented us with a fine enlargement, which I still possess. An interesting feature of this picture is the large number of the little fellows who are wearily resting their tired heads on the shoulders of an obliging and sympathetic neighbour. All the bulging haversacks, so conspicuous in the trip to the railway station, are completely empty in the picture, testifying that a good time was had by all, both inside and outside.

The high spot of the outing was, as it had always been, the TEA: and the same friendly rivalry for the record number of cups of tea drunk, that was so important a feature in the earlier outings, was well maintained. The Chairman of the JFS Committee, Mr Hyman Isaacs, and the Treasurer, the late Mr George A. Cohen, honoured us by their presence. Among the large number of visitors, were ten of our former colleagues, who included Mr Dan Michaels and the late Mr Michael Davis, former Vice-Master, and Messrs. Harry Green and Sol Polak and six other colleagues who have since passed away. I have a picture I took of these former colleagues which I value as a precious memento of this occasion. After tea there was a new and very welcome feature; the Crystal Palace management provided us with a very fine entertainment. This ended with yet another welcome innovation; the General Manager of the Crystal Palace, Sir Henry Buckland, gave our boys a congratulatory address; it ended with: “You are a set of thorough little gentlemen,” – praise indeed from one who is constantly harassed by riotous parties.

And still one more innovation: I sent a telegram to the late King George V, who was celebrating his Silver Jubilee at this time. And at ten I was able to read his reply to our boys: “To the Headmaster, Jews’ Free Boys School: The message of good wishes contained in your telegram was much appreciated by the King, whose sincere thanks I am commanded to convey to you and all who joined in those congratulations. Clive Wingram, Sandringham.” Sir Henry Buckland confirmed his praise in a letter he sent later. He wrote: “We would like to congratulate you and all concerned on the very excellent behaviour of your boys. We have never had a more orderly and considerate party and it was a real pleasure to us to have them here. Our experiences are not always so happy, as too often we find that parties of children are a heavy liability instead of an asset.” And then back to Shoreditch Station. And so to bed. With dreams of the first, and hopes for more, which surely came.

A few months after the second outing to the Crystal Palace, November 30th 1936, the great disaster of the destruction by fire occurred. I was met next morning by a big crowd of anxious looking boys at the Bell Lane Gate, all holding newspapers bearing illustrations of the burnt-out shell of Crystal Palace. I told them that the JFS in its long history had overcome very many difficulties. And we’d surely overcome this one. With even bigger and better outings! And so it turned out. My dear friend Jack Rose and myself did some prospecting, and the Coronation Outing, in celebration of the coronation of the late King George VI’ s accession, took the form of a visit to Whipsnade, followed by a coach trip to Boxmoor for tea and fun, which included the inauguration of the Jews’ Free School Light Headed Calvary Brigade, as so many of the donkeys treated our boys like long-lost brothers, and toddled happily along, without needing the usual hard thumping on their hindquarters. After a repetition of this outing in 1938 we had an outing in 1939, to the delightful Burnham Beeches. Then came World War II, and the destruction of our beloved School. But our happy memories are still with us. At all our five outings, the whole of our 1,300 children of the Boys’, Girls’ and Central Schools participated. The 1938 outing was conducted entirely by coach, 45 coaches being hired to take all out boys and girls to Whipsnade, and then to Boxmoor, and the same number of coaches being hired in 1939 for the Burnham Beeches outing, which proved an ideal finale for the annual outing of the Jews’ Free School.

The late Mrs Boss Price gave her bounteous aid, giving a tea at the Grosvenor Hotel to promote the fund at which I spoke. In later years, Mr Charles Wolfson of the Great Universal Store was our great good angel. In 1939 I used to be taken round London pubs by one of our finest helpers, Mr S. Stander. In every pub I was hailed with: “Here comes A.R.P.” When I pointed out that I did not belong to the A.R.P., I was overruled. I was told that I had well earned this uncomplimentary title, for A.R.P. stood for “’Anging Round Pubs.” But I didn’t mind what compliments were handed out, so long as the money was handed out too, and over 1,300 children got their outing and some spending money! Yet by one of those extraordinary coincidence that happen to all of us, I actually engaged in a considerable amount of A.R.P. work in Ely, in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon and in neighbouring counties. All A.R.P. posts were kept well informed by the Government of developments in fire-prevention, rescue work, handling unexploded bombs and much else. Films were constantly being received by A.R.P. posts, and never a week passed without my receiving an urgent call, often quite late at night, to proceed to some remote posts, to show a Government film to an A.R.P. audience, many of whom had been hauled out of bed for the important film. I had the greatest difficulty in turning down often offered payment. Mr Colville, a leading citizen of Ely, Chairman of the Ely Urban District Council, publicly thanked me for my A.R.P. work, and A.T.C. work, too. I have taken you all on a random sort of ramble. I’ll conclude now with a section devoted to our teachers and our work.