“RANDOM
REMINISCENCES
of a
JFS OLD BOY”

By

Dr E. Bernstein
B.A., B.Sc, Ph.D. F.R.G.S







REMINISCENCES OF A JFS OLD BOY

BY

DR E. BERNSTEIN

Former Headmaster of the Jew’s Free Boy’s School.





COMPLETE TEXT

(copyright by the Author; all rights of reproduction reserved)

of a paper read by Mr J.H. Taylor, B.A., President,
at a meeting of the JFS Association,
held at Woburn House, on
Tuesday, September 17th, 1957.





PRODUCED BY: Messrs. Gestetner Ltd. and The St. Stephen’s Secretariat.




TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword 1
The School’s links with Hitler, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare and John Milton 2
A Night Adventure in the Cohen Hall and its Sequel 3
The School’s Beginnings in Harrow Alley and Bell Lane 5
The Great Names in the School’s Two Hundred Years’ History 6
The Pottery Workshop and the Lobbos Ware 7
The Model House, The Electric Lift, Middlesex and Bell Lane Railway, and Printing Room 9
The Rock Garden, Rock Pool, Fountain and Cascade 9
The Water Speedway 9
The Planetarium, The Playground Railway 10
The Aviary and the Playground Love Nest 10
The School Magazine 10
The Pierrot Troupe 11
The Six Inch Reflecting Telescope and “Dr Einstein” 12
The Great Lord Rothschild 13
The Cascade of Gold 15
Peter the Painter 16
The “Scythia” Adventure 18
The Three Little Orphan Refugees 20
Rebeccah, Mother of Israel, and the Establishment of the Ely Jewish Boys’ Home 22
The Vision 24
The Insane Boy and the Mourner Brothers 25
The River Ritual 27
A Near Miracle 28
Mr Lane of High Street, Ely, and his Model Aeroplane Class 31
Lustig’s Cap and the Winning Goal 32
The Story of the Dean of Ely 33
Coffee and Beigel 34
Ely and London Meet 36
JFS Old Boys in World War I: Littman, Robbins, Jack Lever, Harry Green 38
World War II Stories: J.R. Martin and R. Barnes 41
Morrie Robbins’ Rescue 42
Old Boys’ Achievements in all Spheres 43
Dr Hyman Yarrow, and Mr Hyman Segal, R.B.A. of St. Ives 44
King George V and a JFS Old Boy 45
The JFS Old Boys’ Club: and some of its outstanding players 46
The Seven Ages of Man 49
My Sad Sports Career 51
Sam Klein 53
The South Africa Story 53
The Revival of the Crystal Palace Outing 58
Verse Teaching by Mr S.M. Rich 65
The Man with the Golden Voice: Mr J. Myers 65
The Work of the School: The Science Room and the Model House 66
Jewish Religious Work and the Cohen Hall Assembly Work 67
Thanks to the Staff and to Mr J.H. Taylor, Mr M. Robbins 72
Appreciation of the Vice President of the JFS: Mr M. Hyman Isaacs 74


Foreword

This paper was originally written for the JFS Association in connection with the scheme of “Get Together” Functions. It was given a successful reading by the President, Mr J.H. Taylor, B.A., but limitations of time necessarily caused omissions. In this copy the complete text, as written by the Author, is given. This fuller text has been made possible by the generous interest of Messrs. Gestetner, Ltd., who presented the large amount of paper required for this full edition of these “Reminiscences”, and carried out the duplication of the stencils prepared by the St. Stephen’s Secretariat. Our heartfelt thanks are accorded to both organisations for the production of these copies; also to Mr Alfred Sampson for the illustration, and to Mr Dave Fisherton for the binding.

All donations received in return for the supply of these copies will be transmitted to the Appeal Fund for the JFS Secondary School, Camden Town; and to all prospective donors we tender our heartiest thanks.




E. BERNSTEIN
H. YARROW
M. ROBBINS













The School’s links with Hitler, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare and John Milton

Ladies and Gentlemen of the JFS Association:

It is with great pleasure that I make this small contribution to the praiseworthy plan of the JFS Association “get together” gatherings. It may well be that your own pleasure in receiving this contribution may not be so great. I hope, at least, that its effect will be to help to keep you all together, rather than to keep you all away. For, as I’ve mentioned at the last Annual Reunion, at no time in its long history has the JFS so greatly needed its old boys, and its former lady pupils. As the old song declares: “The more we are together, the perrier we shall be”. And with very good reason. For we shall be serving the JFS in the finest; the more old boys and old girls there are in the JFS Association, the more help will there be available for the new JFS to meet its greatest need – namely, its pupils.

Julius Caesar starts his Commentary on the Gallic War by stating that “Gaul is divided into three parts”. I’ll follow his example by starting these random reminiscences with the statement that the JFS was divided into three parts: the School, the children, and the teachers – and of each, I’ll have something to say. Taking the building first. There are famous buildings all over the world that profoundly impress us by their imposing structure; the JFS profoundly moves us by its imposing destruction. An old boy living in Johannesburg, recently wrote to me: “When I was in London five years ago, I went to Middlesex Street. I stood for an hour gazing at the ruins of the famous old School which had been blighted by the blitz of Hitler’s bombs. There were tears in my heart at the sight”. There are few buildings in the world of which it could be said that their bricks and mortar reduced one to tears. Yet there must be many in this audience who have had this very experience so simply described by this South African old boy. I can only say that when, on that fatal morning in February, 1941, I stood on the heap of rubble in our playground (all that was left of the finest part of our School), I felt a grief that was past all expression. That wonderful building, that was so surely built to endure, was scattered all over the playgrounds of the Boys’ and Girls’ Schools.

Many in the audience may remember a fine head of Julius Caesar that long graced the Central School Hall, modelled by our art teacher. It had been blown right to the extreme end of the Girls’ playground, and lay there, pathetically staring up at the sky. A few weeks later, all debris had been carted away. On enquiry, I was told that all the rubble from blitzed buildings was taken to processing factories, where it was ground into dust and was converted into briquettes. Some of these very briquettes were used for building the walls, when temporary repairs to the damaged School were carried out a little later. When I would gaze at these walls, I used to wonder if that little statuette of Julius Caesar had gone to make one of those bricks. Just as Shakespeare himself says in those famous lines in ‘Hamlet’:

“Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole, to keep the wind away”.

It is worth recalling that Shakespeare himself lived quite near the School, soon after he came to London. He lodged at a house in Bishopsgate, opposite Houndsditch. At that time, there were several inns where his plays were acted. One was in New Goulston Street, and another in Aldgate, at the top end of Middlesex Street, and a third in Whitechapel at George Yard, close to where the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Public Library now stand. All, of course, have long since vanished. But it is quite romantic to think that the supreme poet of England often passed through Middlesex Street to supervise his own plays, being produced at these taverns. And even more romantic to wonder if that prophecy in those lines of his, uttered by Hamlet, had come true at last, in our great School in Middlesex Street. And it is romantic, too, to think that perhaps John Milton, who lived not far away in Cripplegate, may have wandered in Middlesex Street; maybe to derive inspiration for his great poems on Paradise.

Manasseh ben Israel had already successfully interceded with Oliver Cromwell, and Jews were not trickling into London from Holland. Their descendants live to this day in the Tenter Ground and the close neighbourhood of the School. So perhaps Petticoat Lane had its initial beginnings then. John Milton had become blind by that time, but I daresay he could strike a bargain there, for I am told on good authority, that most people who pick up bargains in Middlesex Street on Sundays are also blind – and some are dumb, too. Perhaps it is as well that neither Shakespeare nor Milton lived to see the great store of Cordelle’s usurp our great School at 102 Middlesex Street, the sad even we have all been fated to witness.