Stephen Goschalk's talk at Stone Setting

Do not be wise in words; be wise in deeds – perhaps the message that guided my father’s life.

Dad was born in England in 1923 which meant that in 1941 when he turned 18 he was called up. He went to the call up station and had the customary medical and due to his curvature of the spine and compromised lung capacity was sent home again. So what did he do – he volunteered to be a fire watcher. A fire watcher was someone who when the sirens sounded and everyone else headed underground went up. Up to the roof of their allocated flat roofed building there to sit with a tin hat on, two buckets, one for sand and one for water, and a small stirrup pump. There he would sit as the bombers passed overhead, the search lights looked for targets for the antiaircraft batteries and the night fighters sought to down the bombers. He sat and waited for an incendiary bomb to fall onto the roof and then he would have had to pour sand on it and then douse the sand with water to stop the roof catching fire. I asked him how he felt – scared, excited what? – Bored he replied – he couldn’t read the book which, as always, was stuffed in his pocket – no light was allowed because of the blackout.

He had been rejected to serve his country but he did the right thing – he volunteered to be of use, to serve in the way they would let him.

During the war his family lived in Letchworth where they had moved to get away from the bombing of the East End and he commuted to work at the clothing factory by train to Kings Cross. Often these trains would be delayed or cancelled due to bombing of stations or lines or the need to move troop trains or loads that had priority, so rather than going home Dad would go to sleep at his elder brother, Israel – Issy, flat in Willesden. Issy was 13 years older than my Dad and was married already and in his flat there was a regular poker game – I suspect that the language of the game was Yiddish and the participants were friends but also Dombrowski cousins. Dad was now 18, good at numbers and one evening he was at Issy’s and was invited to join the game and he won – over the evening he ended up more than £20 up – doesn’t sound much but it equates to £1,000 now and was what someone could expect to earn over a week or two. He felt guilty and he thought about returning the money but he realised what that would mean to the people who had lost – rather than losing money they would lose self-esteem, between by a kid who felt it was so unfair that he had won that he gave back the money – so instead he promised himself he would never put himself and others into this position again and he never did, never using his skill with numbers in this way. Even at 18 faced with a difficult dilemma of salving his own feelings of taking advantage of others with making them feel small he found a right way of acting.

At work he was Mr Sidney to distinguish him from his brothers with whom he worked. There was one particular occasion when a call would go out, loudly, “Mr Sidney”. He knew what it was – one of the ladies (actually a lot of them were still girls of 15 or 16) had lost concentration for a moment and the needle of the industrial sowing machine had gone through a finger or part of the hand. He would walk out of his office, probably with the unlit pipe clenched in his teeth, having grabbed the first aid kit, heading for where a girl sat, in tears, with a friend or relative trying to reassure her. He would turn off the machine, gently turn the motor by hand lifting the needle out – then wrapping the hand in bandages. He would lead the girl to the canteen send the friend or relative to grab her handbag and coat and then have them driven to the local Accident and Emergency – only then would he turn to the bloodied work on the machine – see what could be rescued and used, what had to be remade. First the person, only when the person was properly cared for was work dealt with. He did the right thing.

I would like to read a letter I found in his papers – dated 1961 from Bernard Gould

Dear Mr Goschalk, Now that our landlord tenant association is terminated, I would like to take the opportunity of declaring this has been a singularly amicable relationship. I cannot imagine tenants and landlords can often strike a common basis of goodwill and cooperation and that we have achieved this unbroken for over 14 years must surely be worth recording. I do hope that we will not lose touch altogether yours sincerely Bernard Gould.

In his business dealing he did the right things.

When we were old enough each of us, Anthony, Alan, Jackie and I went first to Hasmonaean Primary School and then Hasmonean Secondary Schools. As soon as we had started down this road Mum and Dad joined the Parent Association – a group that raised money for things not covered by the local authority such as additional library books, new furniture and additional limude kodesh teaching and resources. He felt that this was an obligation that went with sending his children to the school. And when it came to his turn to be the Chair of the committee he stepped up – the quiet man who sat to one side and kept his counsel - stood up and acted as Chair, made decisions, led fund raising and made speeches – when his period of office was over, he stepped aside but he had done what he saw as required and what was right.

It must have been around 1970 when the Hasmonean Boys Secondary School started the yeshiva stream – for those boys whose parents wanted and could afford for their sons to go for a year or two to yeshiva - to prepare by learning in the yeshiva way for an hour each morning before school started. Dad with some of his friends Mr Lichtig, Pomson, Kreditor and a few others felt that this was incomplete, that it divided people and classes and whilst was a good idea was not right – for there were those whose parents did not consider yeshiva or could not afford it and these boys were left out. So they lobbied for and raised money for the non-yeshiva stream – classes in Jewish subject for the same hour before school – I don’t think that this was a great success – but he felt that this was the right thing to try and went out to do this right thing.

My mother came home one day with a flyer, I suspect from the library, asking for volunteers to teach reading to adults who has left school without having learned to read. My father, time poor from a long working day, volunteered to give up a couple of hours one day a week to help. He was allocated a man, he had left school at 14 or 15 like Dad but had never mastered his letters – he was a builder, married with kids, doing OK but could go no further – he couldn’t even road the road names to be able to find his was in his van to a new building site. Dad spent a year helping, guiding, teaching, at the end of which this man could read. Dad had changed a life for the better - a man he didn’t know, from outside his normal group but an individual with a need he could solve – he did the right thing.

Later, after Mum had passed away he started vising a young man, Daniel, who was crippled by a degenerative disease – this poor young man had a good brain, interests in the outside world but was confined to a care home. So Dad started to visit him and a friendship was created – so Daniel came to Dad’s birthday party at Ferrydale pushed by his carer and greeted by Dad with not that little grin but a broad smile of welcome – it was clear he really cared for Daniel and his presence gave him real satisfaction – he had done the right thing.

So it was, whether in service to his country and society, care for other’s feelings, communal institutions or one to one relationships he did what was right – he will not be recorded in history books, not even a footnote, but he strived throughout his long life to do the right things.

So may it be that we are his legacy - his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, relatives and friends whose lives he touched – that we should think “what would Dad, G’pa, Uncle Sidney have done” and see the right action and do it.