David Sheldon (1953-63)

The Road from Carmel

Joining Jill and Doron on the 13th episode of the podcast (I guess you could call this our Bar Mitzvah episode), to tell us his story, is David Sheldon, pupil number 269, who attended Carmel College for a full decade, from 1953 to 1963, arriving on the very day - October 5th - that the school first assumed its place on the campus at Mongewell Park in Wallingford.

David has worked in the retail industry for nearly 60 years since his early days at Marks & Spencer, most recently as a strategic retail advisor. He lives in Old Basing in Hampshire with Pauline, his wife of nearly 50 years.

Hear David talk about why he was nicknamed ‘little monkey’, Kopul firing the cook, the place of corporal punishment at Carmel, the “juus in all the desks”, and meeting Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

Thank you, David Sheldon, for turning us again to Carmel days!

Dedication: at David’s request, this episode is dedicated to “Charlie” Marshall, PE instructor and rowing coach extraordinaire, who joined Carmel directly from his degree at Loughborough University, and went on from Carmel at the end of 1969 to retrain in order to teach deaf children in Brighton and Bradford.

Personal mentions in this episode:

• Rabbi Dr. Kopul Rosen (Founder & Headmaster)

• Dr. David Stamler (Headmaster)

• Dr. JSN Sewell (Main Prep School teacher)

• Miss VK Pickard RSCN (Matron)

• Dr. Alexander Tobias (Jewish Studies)

• Dr. Mendel Bloch (Jewish Studies)

• Mrs. Aarons (Kitchen & Tuck Shop)

• Mrs. Purchase (Matron & Laundry)

• Mrs. Beale (Laundry)

• Anthony Barr Taylor (Biology & Housemaster)

• Charles S Marshall (PE & Rowing)

• Ron Evans (Mathematics)

• Joshua Gabay (French)

• Julian Bunny (Physics)

• Israel Alexander (Jewish Studies & Hebrew)

• Mrs. Whitfield (French)

• Rabbi Jeremy Rosen

• Samuel Sheldon

• Carl Purchase

• Richard Beale

• Laurence “LB” Shaw

• Joe Mayor

• Harvey Jacobs

• Sidney Standig

• Brian Bloom

• Michael Windbourne

• Martin Dover

• Ivan Sherman

• Bruce Gottlieb

• Raymond Dwek

• P Fischer

• Neil Alton

• Laurence Cartier

• Roland Joffé

• Harold Berwin

• Tony Markovic

• Harris Sidelsky

• Spencer Baptiste

• Alan Gold

• Richard Engel

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