Hasmo Legends V: Back to Melchett . . . and to Me (Caribbean Trip: Week 3)

My beach reading this past week, Coming back to me, cricketer Marcus Trescothick’s frank account of his battle with depression – which obviously proved an extremely therapeutic exercise for the former England batsman – far from depressing me, has caused me to become increasingly pleased with myself. And not because of my Hasmo Legends posts in themselves . . . but because they have served as the catalyst for online therapy for so many ex-pupils.

The trigger for the series was my realisation that the subject – and the many wild and wonderful Hasmo characters and stories – had, somewhat surprisingly, not been documented elsewhere. If anyone had predicted, however, when I published Hasmo Legends I, that the series would regularly be topping a thousand ‘hits’ a day, and soon a thousand comments, I would have said that they were suffering from a touch of the “King Paleys”. I have been reasonably successful in journalism and law, but making online self-help available to so many ex-Hasmo boys has given me a great (though not smug) sense of personal satisfaction.

Just a fun madhouse?

I shared my Hasmo experiences with boys who are still my closest friends today, nearly a quarter of a century after we left. And my memories of the institution were largely positive – of a fun madhouse, if you like – but I have been given cause to revisit them by the emotional depth and honesty of some of the comments to Hasmo Legends, which have taken the series to another dimension. And some of the more serious issues which have surfaced have taken me by surprise.

But should they have?

I certainly experienced my fair share of indiscriminate pinches, raps on the knuckles, slaps across the face, and even the dreaded plimsoll. The funny – or, perhaps, worrying – thing, however, is that, until now, I never really questioned such experiences . . .

• Rabbi Abrahams used to patrol the classroom with his arms at ninety degrees and the palms of his hands open and facing downwards, ready for action. I vividly recall the regular, generous slappings – to face and/or legs (he would move down there when one covered one’s face) – which he administered to me and my classmates, none of whose behaviour could ever be described as anything more than mildly mischievous.
• And Rabbi Greenberg most definitely was a sadist. On one occasion, the man nicknamed “Penguin” (and no less grotesque than the Batman villain) confiscated a Hebrew/English dictionary – not dissimilar from one of those long paint-colour card indexes – from me. He proceeded to bash me on the knuckles with it . . . so hard, that it exploded all over the floor. And, yes, he would look you in the eyes after every hit, to see if you were breaking. The c*nt.
• Even Mr. Johnson, who usually seemed the most placid of souls, once administered a particularly vicious beating – the worst I ever witnessed at Hasmonean – to our most gentle classmate, the late Ephraim Amini. Perhaps it followed one of those lunchtime visits to the pub, that other commenters recall.

It is so easy to chuckle now at Steve Posen’s eccentricities (the red shirt on Rosh Chodesh [a New Moon], for example), but wasn’t he rather too plimsoll happy to have been allowed anywhere near 11-year old backsides? And should Rabbi Angel’s chosen instrument for beatings – a thick wooden plank, which we nicknamed “Wacko” – really have been such a laughing matter? While such methods and tools may indeed have been a “sign of the times”, as some on melchett mike have suggested, they should have been no more acceptable then than they would be today.

More than any physical abuse, however, my own most painful memory of Hasmonean was the unkind (not to say unprofessional) attitude of Posen’s fellow biology teacher – and, later, deputy headmaster – Mr. Joughin, while I was working through my own teenage issues. Rehashing the details here, however, would serve no useful purpose.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I bear no grudge against any of the assorted misfits who taught at Hasmonean. And I don’t have the inclination, or the understanding of such matters, to analyse the causes of their abusive behaviour (various commenters to melchett mike have undertaken that task most eloquently). I would drink a beer (or cherry brandy) with any of them (except perhaps DJ, who I would throw one over). At the same time, however, I recognise that commenters’ experiences, and their effects on them, will differ from mine.

On Friday, I attended Kabbalat Shabbat (evening service) at Barbados’s Nidchei Yisroel (“The Dispersed of Israel”) synagogue, the second oldest in the western hemisphere. Founded in 1654, it was sold by the island’s then last remaining Jew in 1929. It reopened in 1987, following a beautiful restoration managed by the grandchild of Moses Altman, the first of a new wave of Jews to arrive here in the 1930s.

With Hasmonean so much on my mind at the moment– due to my need to moderate commenters’ occasional excesses (and the Fourth Test prompting even cricket fanatics to question how they ever liked the sport) – I couldn’t help but think how, in spite of its obvious importance for the many Jewish visitors to Barbados, our former Jewish Studies teachers would no doubt disapprove of the congregation: it has mixed seating, females count towards a minyan (quorum) and can recite kaddish (the mourner’s prayer), parts of the service are in English, and the syngaogue’s location means that congregants have no option but to drive there . . . oh yes, and they don’t forbid recalcitrant ex-Hasmo boys from taking photographs.

But Nidchei Yisroel, and its adjoining cemetery and museum, chronicling the fascinating history of Bajan Jewry, served as a welcome reminder of the many positives in our wonderful religion . . . something that the small-minded tyrants entrusted with our spiritual education – but who, instead, turned so many Hasmo boys against it – could never comprehend (never mind accept).

On a personal note, while I still experience a certain lack of focus from being the product of a ‘mixed’ marriage, it was also my good fortune. My sceptic Litvak (of Lithuanian origin) late father counterbalanced the unquestioning belief of my mother, of Chassidic Galician stock, so that our Passover Seder (meal) would always feature Reiss assertions of the God-inspired miracle of the State of Israel, with an Isaacson riposte of “So where was God at Auschwitz then?”

The line between a healthy (as I see it) scepticism, however, and cynicism can be a thin one. However ludicrous it might seem to me today, I was always petrified that more religious school friends who visited our home might witness my father transgress (however ‘mildly’) the Sabbath. On our walk home from syngagogue, one Saturday morning, with my classmate Jonny Finn – from Golders Green, but visiting relatives in Hendon – a short distance behind us, I begged my father not to ring the doorbell . . . to which he replied, “What do you think that they do when no one is looking?”

Whilst, thanks to my mother, therefore, I can never forget the importance of our tradition, my father ensured that the perversions of Hasmonean’s Rabbis had little chance of taking hold.

The Hasmo ‘religious’ experience, however, and its excesses, meant that children from more homogenous households than mine were either, in the case of Yids (see Hasmo Legends II), less likely to ever expand their Jewish horizons in a more enlightened direction, or, in that of Yoks, so completely turned off by Orthodoxy that not even ‘born again’ movements (such as Aish HaTorah) could ever ‘rescue’ them.

On a rather different note, I have received a few emails from readers of melchett mike expressing concern at the issue of defamation. I don’t intend to provide a summary of English libel law here (Google it), but if what you write is factually true (or a reasonable opinion based on such facts), you have nothing to worry about, and no need to hide. For that reason, while I have no problem with anonymous comments to other posts on melchett mike, I will not permit them on Hasmo Legends, to protect the people being written about. The series and comments thereon, more than others on melchett mike, operate on a basis of trust and personal responsibility, which would otherwise be too open to abuse.

I have added a disclaimer/comments policy to the About this Blog page. Please take the time to read it. If you are unhappy with anything you have written thus far, please contact me and I will amend or delete it. The bottom line is this – if you would not be prepared to back up your comments in a court of law (however unlikely that it would ever come to that), just read melchett mike . . . don’t comment to it (though that would be a shame).

There is no malice behind Hasmo Legends, merely a desire to tell the truth. The question should be not why I – or, rather, we – are doing so, but, instead, why the supposed ‘professionals’ entrusted with our education and growth did the things that they did.

Hasmo Legends is open to everyone. Some individuals have commented more than others. And some comments have been rather ‘heavier’ than others. But please don’t be deterred. As long as you are telling the truth, or expressing your reasonable opinions based on it, feel free to share your experiences, good or bad, funny or sad.

And, if you visit Israel, please do look me up. Why more of you haven’t taken the plunge, but chosen instead to remain in the ‘ghettos’ of North-West London, is a source of continuing bewilderment to me. As my old Hasmo mate, Joey Garfinkel, always reminds his apikores (heretic) friend, “Every arbah amos (roughly, four steps) that you walk in Eretz Yisroel (Israel) is a mitzvah (good deed)” (which is just as well for me).

My next post in the series, on a Legend named “Sid”, is reddening nicely – like a pinched cheek, in fact – in the melchett mike ‘oven’; but I just felt the need for a little introspection and stocktaking . . . until it is fully-browned.

[If anyone is in possession of a  photograph of the great man, I’d be willing to offer a soya roll for it . . . or half (i.e., “one half”) of a chocolate rice crispies. In fact, I would be grateful for any good snaps – of the asylum, its staff or inmates – as I could then dedicate a complete Hasmo Legends post to a “pictorial history”.]

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part VI: Rabbi “Sid” Cooper – The Pinching Preacher

Hasmo Legends IV: Sick in the Head – Mr. Chishios

“Uh-sack-sohn . . . you spastic! You sick . . . you sick in the head!”

This, apparently, is the traditional Greek Cypriot method of encouraging, and instilling a sense of self-worth and confidence in, a boy. Or it is, at least, the Chich method.

Jewish children are not cut out for Physical Education. True, many like playing football, the more sophisticated might try their hand at cricket, while the self-reliant tend to enjoy tennis. Others, however, prefer merely to be spectators. And the rigid discipline of P.E. is most definitely “not for us”. So, in joining Hasmonean, Mr. Chishios (inset, and middle row, fifth from left, in the staff photograph in Hasmo Legends I), obviously hadn’t done his homework.

“Chich”, as we branded him, was in sole charge of P.E. at Hasmo, which he ran from the fiefdom of his gymnasium. He was assisted, on a part-time basis, by a likeable black-cab driver, Mr. Hackett (back row, furthest left).

A coarse, short-tempered and politically incorrect (politically wrong would be a more accurate description) immigrant from Greek Cyprus, Chich would throw around the “spastic” insult as uncontrollably as, err . . . well, as, err . . . a spastic. And, with similar gay abandon, he would bring his favourite Dunlop trainer to bear on, admittedly cheeky, young Jewish backsides.

I don’t recall Chich himself having any particular sporting ability to speak of (though that would have made him no different from the vast majority of his Hasmo colleagues, in their respective fields). I remember, too, being contemptuous of the basketball moves which he would proudly demonstrate to us, prancing towards the net and pivoting like a swarthy Mediterranean “fairy” (in fact, if Chich had been the first male Shirley Valentine had met on her holiday, she would have been on the first flight back to Liverpool). Anyway, showing a Jewish kid a “lay-up shot” is about as useful as showing a black one a profit and loss account.

For someone who, when out of his trademark tracksuit, sported an offensive – even by early 1980s standards – purple suit, Chich placed a strange importance on dress codes, forever insisting on the wearing of jockstraps and “wahsocks” (white socks). I don’t (as others do) recall him checking for the former by peering down at “me crown jewels”, but, so obsessed was he, I wouldn’t have put it past him.

Aside from his favoured terms of abuse, Chich was also famous for his beloved minibus and multi-gym. Considering the relative affluence of most Hasmo pupils’ parents, the minibus seemed to take an Age to finance. And Chich greeted the arrival of the multi-gym like a gift from the Greek gods. Most pupils also viewed it as extraterrestrial, venturing nowhere near the uninviting mass of metal and pulleys.

I will most remember Chich, however, for his “cross-country” runs through the graveyards and golf courses of North Hendon. With the inevitability of Phil Taylor in the “arrers”, Nachshon would always come in first, with Melnick not far behind (making a nonsense of Chich’s oft-articulated view that Hasmo’s Yids were bigger “spastics” than its Yoks). There would then be an almighty gap to everyone else, especially to the sizeable group of stragglers (including yours truly) at the very back, who – as soon as Chich was out of sight – would start walking. The danger in such a course, however, was that Chich had the unerring, and unnerving, ability to appear from absolutely bloody nowhere, yelling “Spastic!” and slippering backsides with the deranged excitement of an escaped paedophile suddenly finding himself at a bar mitzvah party.

My favourite Chich story relates to the occasion on which we were patiently sitting in rows in the gym, waiting for him to emerge from his office. His young son George (which Chich pronounced, with soft French Js, “Joj”) – an annoying little runt who always seemed to be around (he had probably been expelled from his own school for continually calling other kids “spastics”) – was again present; and, on this occasion, Elbaz thought he could get a laugh by telling him that his dad was a c*nt. And he certainly did get a laugh. A big one. Though it was one which soon turned to stunned silence, as we watched George, as if in slow motion, wander off to his dad’s office, from where we heard him say, in his pre-pubescent voice (reminiscent of Dick Emery’s “Dad, I think I did it wrong again” character): “Da-ad, Elbaz says you’re a c*nt.” If Greek Cypriots had displayed as much resolve and fury in staving off the Turks as Chich did in emerging from that office, his country would never have been divided.

Due in no way whatsoever to Chich, our year, at least, had a decent football team, beating, inter alia, JFS (incidentally, featuring new signing Elbaz [“free transfer” might be a more accurate description] . . . though I believe JFS has since tightened up its admissions policy).

There were four “Houses” at Hasmonean – Carmel, Hermon, Jordan, and Sharon – and I recall experiencing a strange sense of pride on pulling on the green of Jordan (though I have absolutely no idea why).

School Sports Days, however, held at Copthall Athletics Stadium, were particularly farcical (even by Hasmo standards). At various such Sports Days, I participated in the discus, javelin and shot putt events . . . even though the relevant Sports Day was the first time that I actually set eyes on these objects, never mind attempted to project them. I ended up stabbing the javelin into the ground (in order to register one valid throw), and put my back out trying to putt the shot.

Notwithstanding all of the above, and even his questionable attitude towards Jews – he once, on a minibus ride, attempted to explain his intense dislike of crooner Frankie Vaughan to me (and it had nothing to do with his voice) – I found Mr. Chishios curiously likeable, or, at least, not objectionable in the DJ/Gerber mould. In fact, I think I was so embarrassed by the behaviour and nonsense of most of Hasmo’s Jewish teachers, that I attempted to disassociate myself from them by fraternising with the non-Jewish ones.

Jews are more adept at exercising their self-deprecating sense of humour than their bodies. As Woody Allen has observed, “Swimming is not a sport. It’s what you do to stop yourself drowning.” And I can still picture Baum, a rather rotund boy, heroically trying to complete a long-distance race on Sports Day, while my classmate, Paul Kaufman, followed him around the inside of the track, tormenting him with an open packet of Golden Wonder.

Mr. Chishios can, therefore, perhaps be forgiven his excesses, and even pitied, after unwittingly stumbling across a culture – both sporting and otherwise – so very alien to his own.

[Even if you have already related Chich stories (in earlier comments), please “cut and paste” them here. And, if you have a photograph of him, please let me know.]

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part V: Back to Melchett . . . and to Me (Caribbean Trip: Week 3)

Hasmo Legends III: Cyril, aka Mr. Bloomberg

Arguably the greatest Hasmo Legend is the school’s former French master, Mr. Alan Bloomberg, known to all merely as “Cyril”. So numerous and wonderful are the stories surrounding this man that thousands of North West Londoners who never even attended Hasmonean are familiar with the nickname. I have never heard a definitive explanation of its origins – in fact, the only one I have heard relates to the Nice one, Cyril record, inspired by the former Tottenham Hotspur left-back Cyril Knowles – but it fit the slight, eccentric Swansean perfectly, and stuck (though, of course, no one dared call him it to his face).

The large majority of teachers at Hasmonean could be divided into eccentrics, sadists and downright lunatics. That Cyril fits into the first category is a testament to a humanity and humour, however weird, not displayed by too many of his staffroom colleagues. As a result, while Cyril’s eccentricities might have been ridiculed, he was not disliked.

Bring together two or more thirty to fifty-something ex-Hasmo boys, and they will soon regale you with the most wonderfully entertaining stories pertaining to Cyril and his French lessons. I can vividly recall desperately trying to get to sleep every Monday evening, to hasten the arrival, on Tuesday afternoons, of double French, an hour and a half of unbridled hilarity. And I can honestly say that, if I could choose to revisit any ninety minutes of my life, I would not select a memorable “conquest” or a game of football (even my beloved Leeds United effectively clinching the First Division Championship at Bramall Lane in 1992), but just one of Cyril’s French lessons.

Cyril was meticulous to a fault. If we had overpowered him, pinned him to the floor, and forcibly measured the length of each bristle of his trademark pencil-thin moustache, I am certain that we would have found a range differential of no more than a tenth of a millimetre. He kept immaculate records of attendance and test results. And, if he made a mistake, he would pull out a tiny penknife from his inside pocket and scrape the infringing ink off the paper.

My personal favourite Cyril story – and, no doubt, that of most of my former Form 1BK classmates (see photograph below, a year later, with Cyril, our Form 2AB form master) – actually dates back to our first ever lesson with him, in Room 13, in our first week at Hasmonean, circa September 1978 . . .

Cyril compiled his register for the coming year by going through the alphabet and asking boys to raise their hands when he called the letter matching their surname. A hapless Israeli, with very poor English, put his hand up when Cyril called “A”. “Yes,” he said eagerly, “Amnon”. Then, some half an hour later, when Cyril had reached “Z”, Amnon put his hand up yet again. “Zakaim,” he said, rather more gingerly this time, the penny having dropped. Cyril went absolutely mental, his brand new register ruined on the very first day of the new school year. He probably spent that entire evening scraping through thirty-odd names (Zakaim left the school shortly afterwards, probably delighted to get back to the relative normality of Israel, never to be heard from again . . . though he will remain forever in our hearts).

Form 2AB (circa 1979) Front row: Gittelmon, Whitefield, Nachshon, Winer, Reiss. 2nd row: Kenley, Frank, Elbaz, Cohen A, Alexander, Amini (z”l), Cohen J. 3rd row: Bolour, Melcer, Yarrow, Israel D, Israel A, Hakimian, Schneider (who Cyril would later, when he first laid eyes on the developed photograph, absolutely bollock for wearing Reactolite lenses!), Yours Truly, Cyril. Back row: Mencer, Topol, Schuldenfrei, Leigh, Myers, Berack, Lange, Hazan.

Cyril punished misbehaviour by dishing out what he called “sides”. “Take four sides” (the minimum), he would bark, “two on Obedience and two on Sensible and Decent Behaviour” (preceded, sometimes, by “You’ve wasted my time, now I’m going to waste yours“). Oddly, for such a resourceful man, he never came up with any new topics, which made things difficult for repeat offenders, who had nothing new to add on the subjects. We would fill the “sides” with absolute drivel (“I must be obedient, because it is important to be obedient, because obedience is important . . .”), after it became clear that Cyril never took them home for evening reading.

Cyril would dismiss boys from class with a cry of “Get out, you lout!” And, with the exception of his “star pupils” (Bassous and Coren in our class), who could do no wrong, the rest of us were all, at one time or another, referred to as “wretched creatures that you are”.

Unlike some of his sadistic colleagues, however, Cyril rarely resorted to violence, a quick and incisive wit (if, again, weird) being his weapon of choice. There was, however, one occasion on which he pulled three boys – Garfinkel, Kelly and Kenley – into our classroom (Room 12, I think, “over the bridge”), for making faces through its window. Cyril had his back to the door at the time, and my perennial partner in mischief, Grant Morgan, and I – who had been banished to stand at the back of the class earlier in the lesson – had grassed the three up in the classic fashion: “Sir, there are these boys . . .” Yanking each one in turn by his sideburns, from their standing positions downwards (as if shaking a lulav), while yelling “Stop annoying meeee” (at increased volume with each victim), one half expected the sides of each of their faces to be ripped off from ear to chin. And the looks of shock on those faces as a result of the unexpectedly vicious assault – I can still picture Kenley’s exactly, over 25 years later – had Morgan and I laughing so hard that we were reduced to our haunches.

Cyril’s lessons, even more than most at Hasmo (as it gave more daring boys an opportunity to test his famous unpredictability), were frequently interrupted by requests for spare chairs. On one occasion, this happened so often that Cyril became infuriated, vowing that “the next boy who knocks on this door is gonna be for it” (another one of Cyril’s favoured expressions). And we didn’t have long to wait. Cyril rushed to the door, an enraged Welsh dragon puffing smoke, and pulled it open in order to administer another Chinese haircut. . . until we heard the now famous words: “Oh! Sorry, Mr. Chichios!”

Cyril possessed a wonderful sense of both drama and comic timing. It was as if the classroom was his stage. And his performances were usually captivating. He would read out examination results in ascending order. On one occasion, he reached the top mark without having called the name of Marc Reiss. Lifting Reiss’s red ink-covered exam paper to the class, as if it was diseased and he didn’t really want to be touching it, Cyril commented that marking it was “like wading through a sewer”.

Cyril, on his “stage”

Even though they would be sitting right in front of him, Cyril employed the highly effective dramatic device of referring to errant pupils in the third person, beginning sentences with “This boy . . .”  Indeed, one of Cyril’s favourite putdowns was “He is like an idiot. No. He is not like an idiot . . . he is an idiot!”

True, Cyril enjoyed the odd cringeworthy play on French words – for example, “Toute suite” (the instruction he would give his wife [who, for some reason, we referred to as “Agnes”] when she picked him up from school), and “Was he pushed? No, Eiffel” – but he also possessed a wonderful turn of phrase, coming out with some truly memorable lines:

• He would occasionally regale us with tales of his post-war military service in Burma, but – not being able to imagine him in the pith helmet he was obviously so fond of – I once asked Cyril what he was doing in the army, to which he fired back “What do you think I was doing? Sipping cocktails?!”
• He summed up his contempt for football by describing it as “22 grown men chasing a pig’s bladder”.
• And, Cyril’s amusing nicknames for pupils tended to stick – Anthony Levy, for instance, who once hesitated with an answer, became “Errr Levy” for the remainder of his Hasmonean days.

Every few weeks, Cyril would administer a test for revision purposes, with each boy’s answers being marked by the boy sitting in front of or behind him (“mark out of twenty, sign your name, and pass it back in the usual manner”). Cyril would comment on each mark individually, ranging from “very good indeed” down to some expletive or other, with all those just clearing double-figures being greeted with the term “scraper”. More cheating occurred in those tests than in most middle-class suburbs of Paris, seeing as a single-figure mark resulted in “extra work”. It was remarkable that Cyril so rarely became suspicious that the vast majority of marks fell into the “scraper” category. And, to this day, I have never heard of a half being referred to, as it was by Cyril, as “ten and one half”.

No nightmares now, boys!

Other than “Un bon vin blanc” (Cyril’s demonstration of the full range of French sounds), “Bonjour monsieur” and “Asseyez-vous” – our greeting to, and reply from, Cyril on his entry to the classroom (with his books piled perfectly one on top of the other) – hardly any of us can now speak a useful word of French. That is, however, less the fault of Cyril, and more that of the then archaic syllabus. Judging by the appallingly unimaginative Lectures (French texts), the publishers of our textbooks, Whitmarsh, were obviously oblivious to the fact that anyone in France was called anything other than “Jean” or “Marie”.

In fact, the full extent of our practical exposure to all things Gallic consisted of a one-day ferry trip to Boulogne . . . from which we returned with no French, but plenty of flick knives (don’t ask me why) and pornographic playing cards (no need to ask why). When a more progressive French teacher joined the school, and dared to set her own, more practical examinations, Cyril – fearing his hegemony was being challenged – would refer to her merely as “the wretched Mrs. Samuels”.

We knew how to push Cyril’s ‘buttons’, and they rarely failed to work . . .

• He had particular contempt for those boys – in our group, Reiss, Mencer and, of course, Elbaz (or “Elll-baz” as Cyril referred to him) – who should, hearing French at home, have been better at it. When any of them underperformed, we would generally prompt him with “Sir, that boy is French-speaking.” And Cyril rarely failed to take the bait, hissing “Yesss . . . French-speaking.”
• Cyril didn’t like his routine disrupted, which he felt it was by the fourth year Israel Trip, a one-month study visit to Jerusalem, attended by about a third of his French class. Following our return, he scornfully blamed every underperformance by any of us on the trip. The class would gleefully, in unison, greet every wrong answer or low test result with “Sir, that boy was on the Israel Trip.” And Cyril, again, would always rise to the bait . . . even when the boy in question hadn’t even been on the trip!
• Even a seemingly straightforward request by a pupil to remove his school blazer could be blown up into a major incident. Cyril, commencing with his trademark “Hmmm . . .”, could deliberate on such a request for several minutes – weighing up the weather conditions, whether he himself  felt the need to remove his jacket, etc – before reaching a decision (and would sometimes even hand out “sides” to the maker of the request for, irony of all ironies, wasting the class’s time).

We were more than willing participants in the drama of Cyril’s classroom. For example, Morgan, who always marked Elbaz’s tests (as we always sat in the same places), was ever keen to expose the “French-speaker’s” mistakes to Cyril and the class, whilst pretending that he wasn’t aware of the boy’s identity: “Sir, this boy,” he would begin, holding up Elbaz’s exercise book. When Cyril would enquire whose work Morgan was marking (even though he knew), Morgan –  who had been marking the same exercise book for months – would, theatrically, slowly examine the name inscribed on the front cover. “It’s Elbaz, sir . . .”

Paul Kaufman used to use French lessons as a vehicle for his impressive and amusing take on Call My Bluff. On one occasion, he succeeded in convincing Cyril that the French word bas (meaning “low”) derives from deep-swimming sea bass. Cyril was taken in for some time, until – when it dawned on him (probably assisted by us) that Kaufman was selling him a whopper – he suddenly exclaimed his renowned “Wait a minute!” (which sounded more like “Wayderminnit”), and ‘rewarded’ Kaufman with a generous helping of “sides”.

In fact, there was no greater challenge or enjoyment than getting Cyril to dish out “sides” to a classmate. On one occasion, Whitefield, too academic to be a “lout” or a “wretch”, but wanting to be part of the fun and games, started mimicking Cyril’s trademark “Ohhh” sound (which sounded similar to Loh [the Hebrew for “no”], and – though I have never had the pleasure –  how I imagine a Welshman sounds on reaching the height of sexual arousal). Boys would often mimic this sound within earshot of Cyril, and then scarper. On this occasion, Morgan and I, sitting behind Whitefield, and sensing the opportunity, egged him on. The noises got louder and louder, and Cyril, cunning to a fault, pretended not to hear them . . . until he pounced. Suddenly regretting his ill-conceived departure from “Swotdom”, Whitefield turned round to us, entreating “It wasn’t me, was it?” He couldn’t complete the question, however, before our heads started nodding vigorously, providing Cyril with the confirmation he required.

Mr. Bloomberg was a cultured man (certainly more so than most of his colleagues), once even taking us to the opera, La Traviata. . . something he probably regretted, when one “wretch” (either Kenley or Gittelmon if I recall correctly) rolled an empty soft drink can down the aisle, causing a racket (and, no doubt, more anti-Semitism amongst the British middle-classes).

Mr. Bloomberg, who is now in his eighties, still lives in Hendon (we attended the same synagogue, Raleigh Close, where one of his former pupils, Mordechai Ginsbury, is now his Rabbi). He enjoyed his retirement, going on regular cruises with his wife, but was also struck by tragedy, in 2001, when his daughter-in-law Techiya was killed, and son Stephen and granddaughter Tzippi paralysed from the waist down, in a drive-by shooting by Palestinian terrorists.

Mr. Bloomberg, thank you for all those happy hours and memories. On behalf of all your ex-Hasmo pupils, I wish you all the very best.

“Don’t take that photograph, you wretch!!”

[Thanks to “That’s not French, that’s Morgan” for helping to jog my memory of Cyrilisms. Next on Hasmo Legends, “Sid” or “Chich” . . . haven’t yet decided which! And if any of you have any good Hasmo photos, especially of Legends, please get in touch.]

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part IV: Sick in the Head – Mr. Chichios

Hasmo Legends II: Yids vs. Yoks – The Religious Mix

Anal (or Madam), Ant (or Veggie), Bacteria Boy, Bad Back (or Cliffhanger), Banana (or Gunga), Banquo (or Ghost), Beetroot (or Purée [yours truly!]), Bubble, Chips (or Gumface), Choirboy, Chuttocks (or, the rather less subtle, Massive Arse), Crab, Egg, Fish, Flake, Gnu, Gonzo (two boys), Gus, Jelly, Lanky, Magic (or Tricky), Monkey, Mosquito, Mouldy (two boys), (Paki) Mouse, Mutley, Ox, Potato, Rassen (Fassen), Robot, Lionel (Blair), Shitter, Slobbes, Slow, Sly, Smella, Spider, Stavros, Teabag, Tsoyvelah (or Waverleh Quaverleh).

These are the nicknames (not including plays on names) that I can still recall, from my year (of ninety boys) alone, some 24 years after leaving Hasmonean.

Piss-taking was rife at Hasmo, though it rarely crossed the bounds of acceptability (unlike the actions of the pupil living opposite the school, who took a pot-shot at Headmaster Rabbi Roberg’s office with an air rifle, penetrating the window). It wasn’t the piss-taking, however, which marked Hasmo apart. What made it the special place that it was, I believe, were the unique racial, ethnic, but especially religious, conflicts and tensions inherent in the school, its teachers and pupils.

Playground footie: Yids vs. Yoks

While I understand that Sabbath observance is now a prerequisite for admission, until 1985 (when I left), at least, only around a third of boys were religious. To save time picking teams for playground football, we just played Yids against Yoks (pejorative Yiddish for Jews and non-Jews, respectively).

Around a quarter of teachers were not Jewish, while a similar number were merely Jewish “lite”. And all of them used to tear their hair out having to deal with the narrow-minded stupidity of the controlling religious “elite”. At one stage, for example, literature considered subversive – including, I seem to recall, George’s Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (about as sexually explicit as an illustrated Bible) – was banned from the syllabus and school library.

As with most things Hasmonean, however, there was usually a humorous side to the meeting of the secular and the religious. For instance, our non-Jewish fourth year form master, Mr. Joughin (back row, fourth from right, in the staff photograph in Hasmo Legends I), could not master the harsh guttural pronunciation (as in German) of Mincha (the afternoon prayer), instead calling us to prayer with his adapted “Minkerisation”.

Hasmonean’s emphasis on Jewish Studies – compulsory every morning, with an after-school Yeshiva Stream for those who couldn’t get enough (or, as in my case, parents who had had enough!) – resulted in an unbalanced education, to the detriment, especially, of the less bright and/or non-self-starters.

To make matters worse, the general level of teaching of Jewish Studies was appalling, with little or no thought given to what might capture the interest (and there are plenty of aspects of Judaism which can) of  the less learned or diligent boys (myself included). All I can recall from seven years of Gemorah (Talmud) study are scenarios of one man’s ox goring another’s in a public or private thoroughfare, which had little relevance in 1980s Britain (even in the shtetl of Golders Green). Yes, I know, Talmud study teaches one logic, and how to think . . . but a half-decent educator should have had a ‘plan B’ to offer our recalcitrant Yeshiva Stream ‘B group’. When Rabbi Abrahams, remarkably progressively for Hasmonean, decided to devote one school year to an explanation of the Siddur (daily prayer book) – relevance! shock horror!! – there was a tangible spirit of revolution in the air (though it was one which, sadly, never took wider hold).

So, whilst the more serious, religious boys became more serious and religious, the less religious ones generally lost any interest they might have carried over from their Jewish primary schools or Sunday Cheders (Hebrew classes), which was an opportunity sadly lost.

The religious “elite” generally promoted a rather narrow, unhealthy view of the world (either reinforced or corrected in pupils’ homes). I will never forget our class being advised by Rabbi Schmahl –  a kindly man, and otherwise one of the more normal members of the “elite” –  that we should never stand too close to the tracks on the Underground, because there could always be a Goy (non-Jew) who wanted to push us on. That is quite shocking news for a 14-year old to have to absorb, especially since my father’s colleagues in the medical profession – who my folks used to entertain at our home –  had not exhibited any obvious genocidal tendencies. Anyway, as a result of Rabbi Schmahl’s advice, over subsequent years, I proceeded to push non-Jews onto the tracks . . . before they could do so to me.

Amongst the religious “elite”, there was a small, but seemingly influential, number of anti-Zionists, who somehow succeeded in getting Hatikvah (Israel’s national anthem) banned from school assemblies and speech days. They were led, it seemed, by Osher Baddiel (middle row, third from right), who, it was said, fasted on Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day). The ban represented pure spinelessness on the part of the school’s decision-makers, seeing as the vast majority of pupils and teachers staunchly supported the State (Rabbi Roberg would later retire to Jerusalem). And it only served to strengthen the Zionist spirit of the boys, who would smuggle in Israeli flags, and sing Hatikvah with renewed gusto, to spite the fundamentalists (yes, we have them too), who it was a joy to watch writhe in discomfort.

Many of the religious “elite” also exhibited a distinct sneering superiority (especially towards the less religious). Even as a young boy, I picked up on the irony of Dr. “Jerry” Gerber (front row, third from right) screwing up his eyes and addressing pupils as “You arrogant boy”. Gerber also somehow managed to take the word Goy – not one with particularly pleasant connotations at the best of times – to a new low, making it rhyme (in a uniquely horrible Golders Green way) with the French fauteuil.

A story comprising a mere two words best illustrates, for me, the arrogance of so many of Hasmo’s religious “elite”, and the oft-justified, Chutzpadik reaction of pupils thereto. On visiting the school, shortly after leaving, with Grant Morgan – my former partner in crime in Cyril’s lessons (though, sadly for me, not in business) –  a newish addition to the teaching staff, Rabbi Fine, poked his head out of the Art Room Annexe window. Looking down his nose (both literally and figuratively) at us, while furrowing his brow, he queried “Yessss . . .?” (as if to ask “Who are you?”) Grant, never short of a riposte, looked up, and replied, conclusively, “No.”

Berkoff: Separated from DJ at birth?

Then, regrettably, there was Mr. Jacobson (front row, third from left), known to all as “DJ”, he of the sinister nippled forehead. Whilst the similarly benippled Stephen Berkoff is only a baddie on stage and screen, DJ’s persistent machinations and snide comments caused him to be widely detested by pupils – with the exception (one would hope) of his poor sons, who were also at the school – and, even, colleagues.

DJ seemed to consider himself de facto Headmaster of Hasmonean, which was odd, seeing as most didn’t even recognise him as Deputy (which, apparently, he officially was). And, if you weren’t “Golders Green religious”, or didn’t go on his summer walking trips – to be that desperate for a summer getaway, one would have to have had paedophiles for parents – he could be extremely vindictive. After I returned to Hasmonean, following a short spell at Haberdashers at the start of the sixth form, DJ delighted in constantly taunting me: “Isaacson, why don’t you go back to City of London?” He riled me and a friend so much, on one occasion, that we conspired to ambush him outside his home (a plot which, sadly, never came to fruition). In fact, when I first heard Morrissey sing “Hang the DJ”, I was convinced that he must have been a Hasmo boy.

Jack “on the gate”, an archetypal East End rough diamond if ever there was one, couldn’t resist attaching “the c word” to every mention of DJ’s name, which, naturally, we delighted in (and even encouraged). Indeed, I learned, and owe my love of, the word – surely the most expressive in the English language – to him. (Jack claimed to have fought in the Battle of Cable Street . . . though, if one believed every ageing East End Jew who has claimed that, and the related stories that they tell, Stalingrad, in comparison, starts to resemble a handbag tiff at a Wizo coffee morning.)

There was also the Ashkenazi/Sephardi (Jews of European/North African origin) thing going on at Hasmonean, with a sizeable minority of boys from Adenite and Indian families. Ethnicity, however, was never an issue at the school, and, until I made Aliyah (emigrated to Israel), ethnic Jewish stereotypes meant nothing to me; so much so, that I was completely oblivious to Eric Elbaz – easily the most mischievous boy in our year (and, arguably, the school) – being Moroccan. . . which, with the benefit of hindsight from my later experience in Israel, he so obviously was! Elbaz, after (inevitably) being thrown out of his own class, would utilise his considerable footballing talents to joyfully and tirelessly crash footballs against other classes’ windows, and then scarper before teachers could nail him. Naturally, Grant Morgan and I would inform Cyril – “Sir, it’s that wretch Elbaz” – but the boy had all the qualities of a Teflon frying pan.

Hasmo’s ethnic mix was further enhanced, in 1979, by the addition to every class of a sprinkling of  refugees from the Iranian Revolution, their rich Farsi accents always giving them a wonderfully naive and startled demeanour. That was when we were in Form 2AB, representing the initials of our second year form master, a certain Mr. Alan Bloomberg.

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part III: Cyril, aka Mr. Bloomberg

Hasmo Legends I: An Introduction to an Institution

During the recent festival of Hanukkah, we Jews celebrated the Hasmonean legends. But there are other, more modern – and, many would argue, more relevant – legends of Hasmonean, who had a profound and enduring influence (though not always for reasons they would have wanted) on the lives of thousands of London’s Jewish males. A Google search, however, sheds little or no light on these characters (in every sense of the word), former teachers at Hasmonean High (previously Grammar) School, known to all merely as “Hasmo”.

Memories of these pedagogues have lingered with ex-“Hasmo boys” for even longer than the aftertaste of Mrs. Bannister’s meat loaf, and we celebrate them no end whenever we get together (much to the annoyance of wives, and other non-Hasmo alumni, who may be present). But documenting them for posterity, and having a central site for ex-pupils’ comments and stories (though see “NOTE” below!), seems a most worthwhile undertaking for melchett mike. And I am certain that even the non-Hasmo alumni among you will enjoy being taken into “one crazy yiddishe mamma” of an institution (I use the word advisedly) . . .

Hasmonean, a voluntary aided comprehensive, was founded in 1944, in Golders Green, by Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld (left), who was still in the process of saving thousands of Jews from the Holocaust. It moved to its current site, in Hendon’s Holders Hill Road, three years later. To the best of my knowledge, it is still the largest Jewish boys’ school in the UK (perhaps even Europe).

Hasmonean, 1950

Whenever I inform someone that I attended a religious boys’ school, I receive a look of pity. But anyone who attended Hasmonean should not be pitied (or, at least, not for that reason) . . . we had the time of our lives!

Chutzpadik: Hasmo Boys (date unknown)

The “fun and games” were largely attributable to the Chutzpah, and uniquely Jewish sense of humour, of the boys, who felt they could get away with most things in such familiar, safe surroundings. When, on one occasion, English teacher Mr. Marks (back row, second from right, below) asked “Has anyone got any work for me?”, one boy (the son of a well-known local Rabbi) replied “Yes, sir, you can go and clean the playground!” Moreover, many pupils would see teachers out of the school environment, in their communities and synagogues, and that reinforced a “What is the worst that can happen?” attitude in already Chutzpadik Jewish boys.

The entrepreneurial Jewish spirit also contributed to the lively atmosphere of the place, with many an Adidas holdall stuffed not with textbooks but, rather, chocolate (and, in the summer, ice pops ) for resale. The dinner hall, too, saw a brisk trade in soya rolls and chocolate rice crispies; while, behind it, pocket money was frittered away playing “penny (or, rather, 10p) up the wall”. There were also the self-mocking “cha’penny bundles”, in which a half-penny piece would be thrown in the air, with boys scrummaging for it as if their lives depended on it.

Rabbi Dr Schonfeld’s belief in the principles of Torah im Derech Eretz (literally, “The five Books of Moses with the Way of the Land”), a fusion of traditional orthodoxy and the modern world, was undermined by the total lack of Derech Eretz (more commonly used to mean decent, polite and respectful behaviour) displayed by so many of the pupils.

But how could any but the most mature boys be expected to behave with Derech Eretz, when confronted by the incompetence, lack of professionalism, eccentricity, and/or (in one or two cases) borderline insanity exhibited by such a large percentage of the teaching staff?! Of the 32 teachers in the photograph below, there are three I don’t recognise. Of the remainder, the number who most parents would have embraced as positive role models for their sons would likely have been in single figures.

Hasmonean teaching staff, circa 1979

To my mind, the main problem that beset Hasmonean was over-familiarity, and the blurring of the professional and the personal. As aforementioned, many teachers and pupils lived in the same communities, often attending the same synagogues. Even if they didn’t, we would often see other teachers when visiting different synagogues (when staying with friends, for example, or for bar mitzvahs).

One story, in particular, comes to mind when I reflect on such “blurring”. During much of my time at Hasmonean, I was convinced that a certain Rabbi Abrahams (standing furthest right, above), known to us merely as “Abie”, was picking on me. And I told him so on numerous occasions. He ardently denied the accusation, even mockingly using it against me when I really did misbehave. At the end of what was supposed to be my final day at the school, before moving to Haberdashers’ Aske’s for the sixth form (I returned shortly afterwards), Rabbi Abrahams offered me a lift home (something he had never done during the previous five years). Once in his car, he confessed to having picked on me, because I – or, more accurately, my parents (who wouldn’t have known him from Adam) – hadn’t invited him to my bar mitzvah. I was flabbergasted.

Though not, I suppose, an exclusively Hasmonean phenomenon, boys with brothers at the school suffered from continual, damaging comparisons, and just couldn’t win – they were damned for having a naughtier sibling (“you are just like your brother”), and damned for a cleverer one (“you are nothing like your brother”).

My cousin, Daniel, had, by the time I got to the school some two years after him, built up quite a reputation for mischief. Soon after my arrival, I was dragged before the then acting headmaster, Rabbi Roberg (front row, fifth from right, above), by the same Rabbi Abrahams (to be fair to him, this was before my bar mitzvah!) Looking at Rabbi Roberg, Rabbi Abrahams uttered a mere two words: “Reiss’s cousin”. The two Rabbis exchanged knowing looks, and – no clean slate, no judging on merits – my fate, for the next seven years, had been sealed. (Incidentally, I have bumped into Rabbi Abrahams on numerous occasions since, and bear him no ill will. That was just Hasmonean! He was also the only teacher who ever got me even remotely interested in religious studies.)

Nor was sympathetic counselling Hasmo’s strong point. One boy, who was a large hamper “short of a picnic” (and who, these days, would have been referred for special needs education), was told by a teacher that he was “sick and need[ed] help” (the same boy used to look up skirts of girls from the local comprehensive on the 240 bus home . . . so, perhaps, we were the ones who “need[ed] help”!)

My late brother, Jonathan z”l, had also been a pupil at the school. It transpired that he had been exhibiting worrying behaviour, and playing truant, for some months before the then headmaster, Mr. Stanton (front row, fifth from left, above), decided to alert my parents to it . . . not by calling them to the school, mind, but by waiting for a chance meeting at a dinner party! On the day after Jonathan passed away (I was 12 at the time, and my parents wanted to shield me from the funeral), not a single member of staff approached me about it. I remember bursting into tears on that morning and, for all any of the teachers cared, I could have still been sobbing at 4:30.

A wonderful story that I heard recently shows that Hasmo still excels in the lack of professionalism stakes. A boy was hauled before an external psychologist for supposed behavioural problems, only for it to be discovered, some twenty minutes into the discussion, that they had really wanted his younger brother. To add insult to injury (and, perhaps, also to prove that Hasmo can always go one better), instead of a teaching professional summoning said brother, the boy was told to fetch him, which he proceeded to do by entering a packed classroom and announcing to his brother that “The psychiatrist wants to see you.” The boys’ father, a friend of mine, was none too pleased.

If not unprofessional, many other teachers at Hasmonean were simply incompetent, bearing testament to the saying that “Those who can’t do, teach”. The fact that Hasmonean was (and still is) never far from the top of the various school league tables was in spite, rather than because, of those teachers. If you were not a self-starter, or were more interested in the arts, you could be left to stew. But a combination of most parents’ ability to invest in private lessons – though, alas, not in sufficient chairs for pupils (lessons were interrupted an average of once every three and a half minutes by a boy bursting in and squawking “Sir, have you got a spare chair?”) – and the Jewish emphasis on the importance of education ensured that most “Hasmo boys” did not suffer, in the long term, from such incompetence.

That is not to say, however, that all teachers were incompetent. The first subject of my series on, and arguably the greatest of, Hasmo Legends – former French master, Mr. Bloomberg (front row, furthest left, above), known universally as “Cyril”  – was far from incompetent. But, what he lacked in incompetence, he made up for in eccentricity. Watch this space.

The next instalment, however, will conclude my introduction, by looking at other aspects of Hasmonean, especially its religious mix and attitude towards the State of Israel.

[NOTE: I have thought long and hard about whether or not to include actual names in this series of posts, not for fear of being defamatory (truth is an absolute defence), but because it is not my aim to be vindictive. With some reservations, I have decided to include them, because not to would detract from my purpose of “painting the full picture”. If you wish to comment on posts, kindly bear the defamation issue in mind, and don’t hide behind a veil of anonymity (please provide your full name and email address). As a general “rule of thumb”, if you stick to the facts (however extreme!) of your story , rather than resorting to opinion/name-calling, there should be no problem.]

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part II: Yids vs. Yoks – The Religious Mix