Responsible for giving voice to British school children and drawing attention to inner city deprivation, Teddy Gold, who has died aged 92, was known for his charismatic style of youth work and leadership.
One of seven children, Teddy was the son of Samuel Gold, an East End tailor, and Rachel, a dressmaker. He was head boy at school but left aged 14. He served in the Army Medical Corps at the age of 21 and went to Israel in 1948 where he joined a mobile medical team in the Negev, assisting displaced Bedouin tribes.
On his return to the UK he worked in London’s East End in Jewish social and youth establishments, including the Bernhard Baron Settlement in Berners Street, where he was influenced by the pioneering youth work of Sir Basil Henriques and his wife Rose. They saw Teddy’s potential talent and encouraged him to become one of the UK’s first fully trained professional Jewish youth leaders.
Harold House was then the first purpose-built headquarters for the Liverpool battalion of the Jewish Lads’ Brigade, sited in the midst of the Liverpool Jewish community. It was commandeered by the government at the outbreak of the Second World War, but later handed back and used as a youth club. The idea was to link the established Anglicised community with the more recent immigrant sections.
Invited to take over from its first leader Norman Maltzahn, who had launched an innovative multi-cultural programme, Teddy applied revolutionary techniques and methods to traditional youth work, encouraging the older teenage members to take the younger children under their wings in partnerships and as role models. Teddy trained young members to form committees with a view to running their own programmes.
He took members to visit clubs in London – for some their first experience of travel outside Liverpool. He took them to Hyde Park Corner to listen to orators on soap boxes, then taught them public-speaking skills to help them stand up to Antisemitism. Many former members owe their success in business and professions to this early confidence building. He introduced sex education programmes and persuaded members to write articles for the club magazine. Copies sent abroad to club members on National Service maintained vital links with friends back home.
The excellence of the club’s programmes under Teddy’s charismatic leadership was acknowledged by national and local youth associations. Harold House was the subject of a highly complimentary government report in 1956.
Teddy’s programming catered for all ages and included acrobatics in the club’s gymnasium as well as track sports, for which the club won numerous local and national trophies. In the age of Merseybeat, several local bands played at club dances. Teddy enlisted Rory Storm as a voluntary swimming instructor in between gigs with his rock band The Hurricanes, with Ringo Starr as its drummer.
In 1962 Teddy married fellow youth worker Florence Bernstein. In 1963 Liverpool University placed a compulsory purchase order on Harold House for re-development, which saw the end of a chapter for the community and for Teddy. The club’s management committee had been influenced by the 1960 Albemarle Report on youth work and drew up plans for a new building in the suburbs. Teddy resigned, after refusing to conform to new demands for youth leadership. He returned to London to work as leader and to develop the successful Victoria Jewish Boys and Girls Club in Stamford Hill.
Eventually he returned to Liverpool with his young family and after Harold House had moved to its new building in Dunbabin Road in 1963, he was invited to act as advisor to the Club’s Management Committee.
By now Teddy adapted his methods to the youth from inner city families. Aimed at teaching politicians to learn from the past, and based on the ground-breaking initiative he had kick-started in 1960s Liverpool, he produced a document drawing on his work there: Kids Talk: Liverpool In The 60s – Children From Some of Liverpool’s Worst Slums Tell About Their Lives.The basic principle he applied was that responsibilities of care should be shared between those in charge and those they served. This method proved successful even when introduced to three of Liverpool’s most violent estates in the 60s and 70s. Visiting the area, Margaret Thatcher was extremely encouraging. She told him, “You should have everything you need to continue your work.”
In 1965 Teddy was encouraged by Liverpool City Council to help tackle problems in St Andrew’s Gardens, known locally as the Bullring, where youths had destroyed their club.
His organisation, Priority Area Development, helped these communities set up neighbourhood councils like the Bronte Neighbourhood Council, a street-elected community with its own adult and youth sections, prepared to be responsible for its own centre. The valuable work with the Bronte was recognised by the Home Office, which grant-aided a second adult and youth council, Southern Neighbourhood Council in Toxteth, in 1973. The Rialto Neighbourhood Council, was the third Teddy helped set up in 1978.
He also helped local Toxteth black youths draw attention to their living conditions.
However, after the 1981 riots on the streets of Liverpool 8, Teddy invited Michael Heseltine, then Deputy Prime Minister, to speak to the rioters. He asked them what they wanted. They replied, “Our own gymnasium.” A grant was provided to build a local gym which earned recognition from local politicians and city councillors, and changed their Liverpool neighbourhoods into caring communities, which are still working 30 years on.
Based on his successful pilot schemes in Liverpool’s Toxteth and Kirkby schools, Teddy founded School Councils UK. He moved the operation to London with a team of ten staff under the direction of his daughter Jessica. The results influenced education policy in the field of pupil voice and school councils.
Teddy is survived by Florence and their children Micah, Jessica, Benjamin and Matthew, and Danny from his first marriage to Clare Fredman, and grandchildren.
MICHAEL SWERDLOW
Teddy Gold: born September 14, 1927. Died January 23, 2020
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