Stamford Hill

So it makes perfect sense why so many of us feel the need to be in complete control whenever possible.

But what if there were another way to remain strong and resolute in the face of uncertainty, without setting ourselves up for even more disappointment? What if you were to find your own way to embrace the idea of divine restraint or release through some form of Shabbat observance? This doesn't have to mean keeping Shabbat like your friend in Hendon, or your cousin in Stamford Hill, or even like me at Counterheller.

What if you were to find one thing that you can just let be each Shabbat? Maybe it's to avoid social media or not read the news.

Maybe you could give up checking or responding to emails or texts.

But everybody that lives in the United Kingdom deserves to have safety and security, and we s- we see and we hear your concerns, and we'll make sure that we work in every way possible to do thought leadership about the fact that antisemitism is on the rise in the United Kingdom and how we get rid of that, but also making sure that you're not having to fund your own security, that our police forces are doing that for you."

I mean, where I live in North London, uh, I live near Stamford Hill, which has a huge Hasidic Jewish community, and I can tell you, outside every school, uh, synagogue, every Jewish building, um, there are security.

I mean, it is just matter of course.

I mean, H- Harriet, you know, when you hear, uh, what Susan says there, and you think about Ed and Miliband, you know him very well, how do you think he would respond to that? I mean, do you agree with Ruth that he has some work to do here to try and reassure the Jewish community?

This topic is, or this suite of topics is quite close to my heart.

I distinctly remember, it must have been about 15 years ago, In Gavriel's front room in Stamford Hill, Gavriel opened up this homebound book that turned out to be Rav Yahshua Buch's commentary on the Talmud Yerushalmi.

taught me what I think at the time was my first piece of Torah Eretz Yisrael from Rav Buch's Peirosh, which kind of turned upside down the way you look at Shofar and Shabbat.

And it's always, I think it's probably bothered a lot of us that when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, there is obviously no Shofar, other than in the Beit HaMikdash or in a central Beit Din.

My very first memory, very, very first, it was such a shocking thing, was from Yud Aleph Shvat Tovshin Yud.

My father took me then from the east end of London, to the new neighborhood of Stamford Hill, where Rabbeni Tzir Hashem Tov lived.

And the families, the few Lubavitcher families, had all gotten together to sit shiva for an hour in Rabbeni Tzir Hashem Tov's house.

89 credits road.

I know, it's hard to believe.

And I was in London at the time and I woke up in a skip in Stamford Hill.

How's it do? I swear to God, I woke up in a skip and I had one runner on me and I had no money.

And I walked from Stamford Hill up to Finsbury Park.

And when I got back to the gaff in Finsbury Park, me fucking runner was in the fridge.

So yeah, that was me.

I know, it's amazing.

But we did an album together, didn't we? What year was that we did that album? Well, it came out in 1980, but we must have done it in 79 in Stoke, Stanford Hill, wasn't it?

Stanford Hill, yeah.

Is that studio still there? No idea.

I never went back there.

Why would I go to the Pri- Primrose Hill for a barber?

I said Stamford Hill first, innit?

Yeah.

Obviously, Stamford Hill to you, you've, you've translated that to something else.

You'd forgotten Stamford Hill for a haircut.

Yeah, but I, I, I've seen it as, um, you talking about Upper Clapton.

That's what I'm saying, you translated it.

Yeah.

Along the Great North Road, such men might be seen in silent companies of a dozen or twenty, now and again singly or in couples.

At the tail of one such gang, which gathered in the Burdett Road and found its way into the Enfield Road by way of Victoria Park, Clapton, and Stamford Hill, walked a little group of three, a voluble young man of thirty, a stolid workman rather older, and a pale, anxious little fellow with a nasty spasmic cough and a canvas bag of tools.

The little crowd straggled over the footpath of the road, few of its members speaking, most of them keeping to their places and themselves.

As yet, there was nothing of the tramp in the aspect of these mechanics.

Chapter 13.

How Jocelyn Montianse encountered a masked horseman on Stamford Hill.

Two days after the events last recorded, a horseman, followed at a respectful distance by a mounted attendant, took his way up Stamford Hill.

He was young, and of singularly prepossessing appearance, with a countenance full of fire and spirit, and blooming with health, and it was easy to see that his life had been passed in the country, and in constant manly exercise.

For though he managed his horse, a powerful bay charger, to perfection, there was nothing of the town gallant, or of the soldier about him.

He wore no livery, and indeed his attire was rather that of a citizen's apprentice than such as beseemed a gentleman's lackey.

He was well mounted on a stout sorrel horse, but though the animal was tractable enough and easy in its paces, he experienced considerable difficulty in maintaining his seat on its back.

In this way, Jocelyn Montpensier and Dick Taverner, for the reader will have had no difficulty in recognizing the pair, arrived at Stamford Hill, and the former, drawing in the rein, proceeded slowly up the gentle ascent.