大象传媒

I have it in my mind that Montefiore House Primary School was set up on an emergency basis during the war, although I cannot recall why I have that perception. It was certainly not built as a school, but resembled a large Victorain house with grounds, which had been adapted for use as a school by the then London County Council. It stood on the main road known as Stamford Hill - a few hundred yards down from the Hill itself (which was known simply as "The Hill" in those days - or rather "the 'ill"), about half way towards Stoke Newington railway station to the south. It was between the Grey-Green coach ('charabanc') garage and Holmleigh Road. In the evenings it was a boys club, and also where the cubs and scouts met.

I began there in 1944, at the age of five. All my street friends went there - Stanley Liebovitch, Tony Bernstein, Brian Silverman, and Irving Deal were kids I played with in the street and in Clissold Park.

It was what would now be exceptionally rare for an inner city school - a single form entry, with a total of not much more than a hundred children.

I was very fortunate in that by the time I started school I could already read quite well, count, perform simple sums, and tell the time. My sister Leila, who was five years older than me, had really taken me under her wing, and helped me enormously. I can't say I really appreciated it at the time, as we tended to quarrel quite a bit, to the extent that my mother had to keep us apart at meal-times! But she clearly had given me a great start at school work.

My first teacher was Mrs Davis (or perhaps it was Davies). Her main task was to teach us to read and write properly. I remember her copper-plate handwriting on the chalk blackboard, and still recall how she fashioned capital letters so elegantly. She had a lovely smile and soft voice. Quite soon after starting I was evacuated with my sister to escape the bombing of London and the doodlebugs. We went to stay in Blackpool, as I have described in another story in the 大象传媒 WW2 record (A8256675). On return, I again found myself in Mrs Davis's class - and I recall how much happier I was than in Blackpool.

Even after the end of the war, materials were very scarce. One sheet of lined writing paper and a pencil had to last a long time! It's astonishing to record that toilet paper was available only from the Headmaster, an imposing man named Mr Quinn - oh, the indignity of having to go to see him and ask for some toilet paper - and to be given only two sheets!

At 'break' we all lined up to get a spoonfull of malt - and there were only a few spoons available.... Later we each had a tiny bottle of milk. Dinner (who ever heard of 'lunch' in those days?) had to be taken in another place as there were no kitchens at Montefiore House. We were marched, crocodile style, up towards Stamford Hill to some place or other. The teachers used to stand over us making sure we ate every single scrap.

Assembly was in a hall which I suspect was (together with the cloakroom) an add-on to the original house in its conversion to be used as a school. We had to sit cross-legged on the wooden floor, which always seemed to be as cold as ice to bare legs and young bottoms! The vast majority of us were Jewish, although I don't think any of the teachers were, but the hymns were all chosen with great sensitivity and understanding, so we all sang and enjoyed ourselves - don't we all of that generation remember 'All Things Bright and Beautiful...'?

Other teachers I recall were Mrs Cooper, Mr Rowan and Mr Cousins. Special reference must be made of the last two mentioned. Mr Rowan was a large man who reminded me of Rupert Bear's father in the strip cartoon, except he also had a moustache, (unfortunately for the time, rather like Adolf Hitler's). But he remains firmly in my memory not for his appearance but for the fact that he encouraged us to tell stories. I don't mean to tell porkies(!), but to use our imagination and create stories told to the whole class. His method was to take each pupil in turn, over the course af several weeks, and get them to sit on their desktops, facing the class, and start a fictional story about anything they wished. Others had to continue the story in the same mode. It really did engage everyone. No-one was excused, but remarkably no-one tried to be excused. It was so very good for us - using our imaginations, communicating to peers, learning from others, engendering confidence, and so on. Mr Rowan also amused us by telling his own little ditties, and involving the class with them. I can't recall many of them all these years later, but in one he challenged the class with "Have you heard the news?", to which we all replied in chant: "What news?". He continued: "The old Squire's been fouly murdered!". "Fouly murdered?!", we would reply. "Yes, fouly murdered!". "Have they found the murderer?". "No, but the Boy Scouts are on his track!". It all seems trivial and unreal now, but these kind of methods were so engaging and stimulating to young eager minds.

Mr Rowan also encouraged us to learn poems by ourselves. At the time I had a couple of very battered (Nth hand!) volumes of Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia, and I selected the longest poems in them I could find and committed them to memory. One I still remember, from beginning to end is 'How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix' by Robert Browning. Another I came across in Stoke Newington library and learned by heart was 'Barbara Frietchie' by the American author John Greenleaf Whittier. [Years later I came across a book of Whittier's complete works when browsing around a second-hand bookshop in Leeds - what a find!] These poems still enthrall me, and give me great comfort in times of stress; I often recite them to myself during times of anxiety.

But Mr Rowan went further by converting poems to plays for the whole class act - in my year with him we all learned the whole of 'The Pied Piper of Hamlyn' by Robert Browning, and every child in the class had a part to play - often rotated from the previous week. I am sure I am not the only person from that school who still remembers every single word of it!

The second teacher who stands out from Montefiore House was Mr Cousins. He was our teacher for our last two years at the school. He was a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, and each year adapted and taught the top class one of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In my two years with him we performed 'Trial by Jury' and 'The Pirates of Penzance'. The astonishing thing was that he scribed all the words and music himself onto a duplicating device, which consisted of transparent sheets mounted one at a time onto a glass platform. The technique was to scratch the image on the transparent sheets, and transfer it using a thick black ink roller onto one sheet of paper at a time. It was a painstaking task, especially as he had very poor sight, but he succeeded in giving every child a full copy to learn in class and rehearse at home. Children were not initially selected for particular parts to play, so that by the end of the year the whole class knew the entire score and all the dialogue. Although I was a mere juror in 'Trial by Jury', I was elevated to the role of Pirate King in 'The Pirates of Penzance', but the remarkable thing is that I still remember large amounts of all the parts in both operas!

Then it was time to think about the dreaded 11-plus examination. We were given a book - which I still have - called 'Attainment Tests' by Haydn Perry, full of the kind of questions which we could expect in the 11+ exam, and worked our way through it over a period of about a year, including having to undertake some homework. Here is a selection of some of the questions:
(1) An egg dealer buys eggs at 5 for 7(1/2)d, and sells them at 1s 8d a dozen. How much profit does he make on a gross?
(2) 24 men wrecked on a desert island have provisions for 84 days. How long will the provisions last if 4 other castaways join the party?
(3) Find the cost of glazing a house with 100 panes of glass at 1s 6d per pane. Putty costs 4s 9d and the workman who is paid 2s 9d per hour takes 8 hours.
(4) Here are words that are usually seen in pairs, but they have been mixed up. Put them in their correct pairs: tried, go, nonsense, far, beck, sugar, touch, true, call, stuff, away, spice.
(5) These everyday words are really shortened forms of longer words. Write the words in full: exam., plane., photo., gym., pram., specs.
(6) Change into the possessive form by using the apostrophe: 'the tip of the arrow'; 'the bullets of the rifles'.
(7) Which of these orchestral instruments are woodwind instruments: flute, banjo, oboe, trumpet, bassoon, trombone, harp, piccolo?
(8) Study this example: "teacher is to pupil as doctor is to patient". Now complete the following:
(a) Nursery is to plants as incubator is to ...?
(b) Paddington is to trains as Croydon is to ...?
(c) Hangar is to planes as garage is to ...?
(d) Alps is to Switzerland as Himalayas are to ...?
(e) Columbus is to America as Captain Cook is to ...?
(f) Lawn-mower is to grass as sandpaper is to ...?

This all seems rather quaint now, and how things have changed!

So what has this to do with WW2 and why post these memories on the 大象传媒 website? Well, these were hugely formative experiences for children of my generation, those born at the beginning of the war. They give some insight into the communities in which we grew up, and the values which we had. Times were hard. I had a penny (that's 1d!) a day to buy an apple from the greengrocer on the way home from school as this would have to do until my mother came home from work. No special clothing for games; no school trips (except a bus ride to the Geoffrey Museum in Kingsland Road, Shoreditch); no library; no parties; few, simple presents for birthdays; no electronically-delivered entertainment - a trip to the Saturday morning pictures for 6d was a real treat. But we generated a wonderful sense of values and a work ethic which laid the foundations for our futures. We also acquired a love of language and literature, and facility with words and numbers which are sadly lacking in many young people today. I am sure we can all look back on our time at that school, and no doubt the many others of its kind, with huge gratitude and affection. Despite the war years and the hardships in the immediate post-war period, they were happy times and we all managed to work through the difficulties.

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