ON MONDAY OF THIS WEEK, WE RECEIVED THROUGH B.H.M., A MESSAGE FROM MR CHARLES SAMEK, ABOUT HIS LATE FATHER HERBERT, KNOWN TO ALL AT B.H. AS BERT, AND THIS MESSAGE LEAD TO SEVERAL DAYS CORRESPONDENCE, RESULTING IN THE UNCOVERING OF VARIOUS LETTERS AND PHOTOS BY MR SAMEK, AND THE ARTICLE FOLLOWING BY YOUR EDITORS.
We are using Mr Samek`s correspondence to explain the various entries we have made, interspersed with comments by ourselves to clarify any points not covered in his messages.
So firstly, Mr Samek`s first note to us…..
At this point we obviously said yes to Mr Samek`s kind offer, and although it might seem a little strange to have an obituary at the beginning of a man`s story, and not the end, we feel that the depth of information held in the text about Bert will give the many people who knew him well, and those not so well, an insight into what can only be described as a remarkable early career prior to BH, and a not unremarkable one after he did, so here it is……
…… and was followed by a further note from Mr Samek……
Although mentioned later in the notes, we include at this point Bert`s letter from the British Army at the time of his release in October 1948…….
We then discussed the date that Bert started at BH, as you will see from the letter, there is no date on it, which is rather strange….we suggested it was 1949, but Mr Samek re-looked at the time frame invloved, and came up with the following……
….and then eventually, he had sorted it out, after finding another letter, this time dated, and from 1949…..
….and the letter….
…you may wonder why this was important to both parties…it was because this correspondence now comprises of the oldest letters involving an employee being "given the start" that we have come across, and along with Jack Johnson, who also began his career in 1948, Bert becomes the equal earliest employee to be documented on the website, and was in fact one of the longest serving as well, retiring 40 years later in 1988.
The image Mr Samek refers to earlier, and the ones referred to above, are now shown together…the one with Bert, Mr Shapland & Mr Sunley is obviously before 1964, but it does look like a "Salon Night", and with what looks like a presentation to Bert of some sort….
….and now this group shot…Mr Samek isn`t sure where this is, he thinks it might be Columbus, Ohio, others think maybe Hudson, but probably not Newhouse, probably not Northampton…… ……maybe none of them…
….and the last shot is where ??….from Bert`s apparent young age, maybe this is 24 Berkeley Square, before they moved into No.25 in 1953….Bert was certainly in London in that period at times…but who is old enough to remember !! Nelmesy ?? Sorry, just a joke Tony !!
We had mentioned Bert`s relationship with BH Israel to Mr Samek, and his last message to us also touched on that point, and the other reference is regarding the location of the group photo published above.
We would like to extend our thanks to Mr Charles Samek for allowing us to share in his BH memorabilia referring to his father Bert, who, as if we did not know already, was obviously a very extraordinary personality, well deserving of this section, and how many people did know, amongst his many larger atributes, that he actually played in goal for Portsmouth Town FC as well !!!
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