Open Writing

1932 - 1940 at 35 Knights Hill, West Norwood, SE 27

The shop at 35 Knights Hill was a proper hairdressing shop with four cubicles for the lady customers and two for the gentlemen. There were two front display windows in which, besides advertising materials, various goods for the passers by to purchase were displayed, such as creams and lotions for the hair and the equipment for their application, as well as costume jewellery and other giftware.

It was a popular shop with several assistants, and my mother and father were kept busy. In the early years as a young child, I was not so involved but, as I grew up, I was of use on Saturdays during busy periods in sorting out and tidying up the boxes of materials which held the equipment used to assist in beautifying the lady customers, as well as sweeping up in cubicles after their departure. The place buzzed and I loved the various smells of the lotions and creams used by the assistants. However, one customer on asking my father if I would be learning the hairdressing trade when I grew up, was firmly told no. My mother and father had ambitious plans for me.

Directly opposite the shop was the local cinema. It was a very small and intimate place called The Cosy. It was known locally as the fleapit and, in fact, was a bit of a dump. Soon after we moved in, in the era before we had a car, I remember my father speaking to someone on our telephone (Streatham 3400) telling that person that we could always go there if we were at a loss for something to do. It would show two films Monday to Wednesday, change the programme for Thursday to Saturday with another change on the Sunday. Children’s films were shown on Saturday mornings, which were usually cowboy films with a cartoon or two.

The living accommodation above the shop consisted of two living rooms, one of which was designated the front room with the ‘good’ furniture, and the other the living room. There was in addition a kitchen with a toilet off of it. There was no bathroom on the premises however. But this was soon rectified when one of the four bedrooms on the two upper floors was converted into one, with a large bath with a huge gas water heater geyser over it. It was always necessary to run the water first before turning on the gas to heat the water, which was ignited by inserting a lit match into the appropriate aperture. And of course to always turn off the gas before turning off the water. However, on one dreadful occasion I was nearly the cause of a major disaster when I turned off the water and entirely forgot about the gas. It was only when I was going down the stairs to my bedroom beneath the bathroom, and could hear the geyser making all kinds of weird creaking and groaning noises that, without realising the dangerous thing I was doing, I returned to the bathroom and turned off the gas. In my ignorance, I did not realise I was preventing an explosion that could have wrecked the whole building. I was perhaps seven or eight years of age. Was I being brave or stupid? Probably a bit of each!

From 1932 to 1937 I went to a local school for boys and girls, the entrance of which was quite nearby, almost opposite our shop. It was called the Jewish Orphanage. I went there not because I was an orphan, but because it was officially a London County Council school to which all local Jewish and non-Jewish boys and girls were expected to attend. When I first went in April 1932 at the age of five, I was placed in the infant’s section in its Gabriel House. I was not too happy there at first, somehow feeling out of place and bigger than most of the other children. But when I became six in July, and I was sent to ‘the big school’ (the main building,) at the start of the new term, I soon felt at home and began to enjoy myself and make a few friends. There were of course all the usual subjects, arithmetic, reading and writing etc as well others to fill the scholastic day such as the learning of Hebrew, for which the non-Jewish students were not expected to participate, who filled their time by playing in the main hall during that lesson. There were also some physical activities under Sergeant Warren and a certain Captain Pease who, soon after I arrived, apparently disgraced himself by embezzling the pocket money of the boarders that had been given to him to safeguard.

I became very friendly with several of the boys and, at my mother’s instigation, would invite two or three around for lemonade, cakes and a bit of play on a Saturday morning. One of these boys was Reginald Freeson, who became a member of parliament and a Minister in a Labour Government in the post-war years and, when I met him one day in the 1970’s, said he remembered me and those visits, and the jam doughnuts my mother introduced him to, and thought I had lived over a cake shop!

Several of the teachers came into my parents shop. There was Miss Reynolds, Mr Kaye (the Headmaster until 1935 and Mr Content his replacement), Mr Taylor, Mr Solomons, Mr Hough, Mr Rosenthal and Mr Holtz. Mr Holtz was always a bit severe in class and kept a nasty thick ruler on display on his desk to use when he felt it was necessary. However, it was Mr Holtz who was employed by my father to teach me to swim. I wasn’t too keen at first, never being that happy in water. However, every Friday afternoon after school finished at 3.00 pm, we would make the journey by train from West Norwood to East Dulwich, to the public swimming baths there where he would try to instil some confidence in my ability not to sink. After some time, I found I was getting the hang of it and was able to do the breast-stroke well enough – as long as he held on to the straps of my swim suit. On one fateful occasion when I was enjoying myself, knowing I was secure in the water, I happened to look up and see Mr Holtz in his allotted position alongside me in the water, but with his hands on his hips! I immediately panicked, stopped swimming and, of course, sank like a stone. I refused to go with him again and Mr Holtz lost his little extra school activity for which my father was paying him five shillings and six pence (twenty-seven and a half new pence) per week. And, in consequence, I still cannot swim and have no confidence in my ability to ever do so.

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If you wish to make a donation to the Elsa Benedyk Memorial Fund, set up by her friends and colleagues entirely without Raymon’s knowledge to provide funds to support the children's ward of the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem to commemorate her life of work with children in her nursery schools, it would be most gratefully received. The amount that you give will not be revealed to Raymon. He is not a trustee of the fund. Your cheque, payable to the Fund, should be sent to the fund's Treasurer Mrs I Dokelman, 14 Charville Court, 30/32 Gayton Road, Harrow, Middx HA1 2HT.