One day an eleven year old boy from Holland came to St. Christopher School in Letchworth, brought there by his mother. I call him ‘Eric’ here because I don’t remember his name, but he discovered some of my special secrets. For a long time I had the fantasy that I would try to visit the Czech sisters who lived in the main house on the second floor. Their names were Iva and Zora Suchkova and their father, a socialist deputy in the former Czech Republic, had been killed and his body thrown at the front door of the family dwelling – and that same day the girls’ mother took them out of the country and brought them to the school. Iva was about my age and Zora two or three or three years younger but, because they came from abroad and Zora’s English was still very weak, she was allowed to stay in the same bedroom with Iva on the second floor of the main school building. The students at St Christopher thought of the foreign Czech girls and me, as strangers - even though I had been in the country for some time and spoke English well.
St. Christopher School was co-educational and considered a modern school, although folks in Letchworth tended to think of the school, its teachers, and its students, as outlandish. We were expected by others to do strange things and sometimes outrageous things - some of us did so in fact. One day a boy from Mexico or Spain, having heard that I was a Jew out of Germany, approached me at supper table with what he thought was a secret. He told me that he had heard the rumour that, on Sunday next, there would be a speech by an Anglican priest at the Anglican church in Baldock, near Letchworth, on the subject of the conversion of Jews to Christianity. That boy, knowing that I was a Jew, approached me and suggested that we go and make trouble at the meeting (he apparently was a radical who liked to upset the status quo). He expected me to be interested in going with him because he correctly assumed that I did not like being missionized, or the activities of missionaries toward Jews. So I agreed with this boy that I would join him in making trouble for this missionary. What I remember of the Sunday afternoon at the Baldock church was that, when the minister or missionary had stopped speaking, I raised my hand and asked him some questions – though I don’t recall what it was that I said at the time. He answered me very calmly and without taking offence. But apparently I wanted to upset his applecart and, I don’t recall how I did it or what I said but, when the headmaster Mr. Harris, got up to calm the situation, my fellow student and I tried to duck out - but found Mr. Harris at the door. He tried to say something to us but we did not stop to hear it, instead racing off on our bicycles – and we began riding up the hill toward our dormitory.
When my companion suggested that we stop at a pub and have a glass of hard cider or two, it seemed just the thing to do. So we got off, leaned our bikes against the wall of the pub, and consumed a pint or more of the local very hard cider. When we left and got back on our bikes and tried to ride back up the hill to school, a local policeman stopped us saying something like, “Boys, you seem sick – or more likely drunk. Since you are riding in the direction of St. Christopher School, I am assuming you are students there. Perhaps I had better accompany you and take you in to speak to the headmaster.” I don’t know how we dissuaded him from taking us back to school, but I do recall that we promised him not to ride bicycles again in an inebriated state. We arrived back at the school just in time for the Sunday evening traditional soup and “rusks” – very dried bread left over from our weekly rations. But before we could get off our bikes, we were met by the head boy who said that he had a message for us from Mr. Harris, who wished to see us after our Sunday soup intake in his office. Mr. Harris, unlike his wife, was not a taskmaster, but his control of students depended on his calling on their consciences.
That evening Eric and I slunk quietly into the dining hall and, after our soup and rusks, went quietly to knock on Mr. Harris’s office door. There he sat at his desk in his old coat and smoking a pipe. Asking us to sit down with him, he let us know that he knew of our excursion to the Baldock church and he said to me that he understood why I would want to defend the Jewish religion against any assault from Christian churchmen. But he also said he felt that I anticipated trouble when there was none and that the minister and his guest speaker at Baldock were in no way anti-Jewish. He therefore suggested that I telephone the priest in Baldock and apologize for any offence my outburst may have given him and his guest. Because of the great respect that I and my fellow student had for Mr. Harris, we went to a telephone and made the call to the priest at Baldock. It was not he who answered the phone but his wife, who had evidently heard of the encounter. She said to us that her husband had understood why we had spoken as we did and that he understood why a Jewish boy, recently out of Nazi Germany, felt the need to defend his people and religion.
To my great surprise and relief no offence had been taken and, furthermore, my fellow student and I were invited to the priest’s house for tea on the next Sunday afternoon. I remember very little of the event except that it led to a long-term connection with the priest’s family. I was many times invited to family meals and to meet members of the congregation. Sometimes I even attended services at his church, a relationship that lasted until my graduation and beyond. Even after having gone to Manchester University, I kept in touch with the Baldock priest by sending the occasional greeting card and, when visiting the school, would be invited to tea in Baldock at the priest’s house. That is how I learned that a forthright stand in defense of one’s people and religion can be a step toward friendship and understanding with people of another outlook and way of life.
H.D. Kirk
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