Michael Fenton memory of Cheder

By and large, the Talmud Torah was an accepted edifice in Paradise Square: 5 or 6 classrooms and a playground. Participation in Shul functions was a great day, but the day of the year was the sports day. I wonder if they indulge in such things today. We went out to Derbyshire Farm Fields and had a good sprint for our outing. 

When one thinks back, one is amazed as to how the classes maintained their existence, with school fees of twopence or threepence per week – some weeks there was not enough for the salaries of the teachers. I often felt sorry, even in those days, for the overburdened treasurer, Mr. Abrahams.

I can only think of the 1904-24 period of the Talmud Torah as being full of excitement tinged with anger; of academic progress in a world of first generation Anglo-Jewry. Anglicisation was demanding a newer approach to everything Jewish and the schoolroom eventually went to Brunswick Street.

(Source: ‘The Best Days of Our Lives’, in Sheffield Jewish Journal, No. 105, April 1972, p. 8)