A Momentous Day

Sunday 30th October 2022 marks exactly forty five years since Sunday 30th October 1967 when 40 members of the congregation turned up for the first organised work-in at our synagogue to clear up the terrible mess confronting us. The vendors of the vandalised old St Nicholas C of E school, the Diocese of St Albans, had given us permission to start clearance work on the building before the final contracts were signed. Despite the terrible mess, by 2pm there was an enormous improvement inside and outside of the soon to be synagogue. Many passers-by complimented the workers who had cleaned up the front of the building. To dispose of a vast pile of rubbish a bonfire was lit which burned throughout most of the day.

The Old School frontage in 1977

Note the Entrance Archway separating the main building from the Head Master’s House above and to the right. The archway was later filled in to become the new kitchen and to link the previously separate buildings

Has anyone read any Jewish themed or related books they would like to review for the magazine, either ction or non- ction? Are there any members interested in forming a Book Club, physical or virtual. If so please contact Hakoleditor@tlse.org.uk or 020 8953 2912

Dame Vera Stephanie "Steve" Shirley CH, DBE, FREng, FBCS, is an information technology pioneer, feminist, businesswoman and philanthropist. Steve Shirley was born in 1933 as Vera Buchthal to Arnold Buchthal, a Jewish judge in Dortmund who lost his post to the Nazi regime, and a Viennese mother. In July 1939 Steve Shirley arrived, at the age of five together with her nine-year-old sister Renate, in Britain as a Kindertransport child refugee. Shirley attributes her early childhood trauma as being the driving force behind her ability to keep up with changes in her life and career After attending a convent school, she moved to Oswestry, near the Welsh border, where she attended the local Girl’s High School. She decided not to go to university but sought employment in a mathematics/technical environment. At the age of 18, she became a British citizen and changed her name to Stephanie Brook. In the 1950s she worked at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill building elementary computers from scratch and writing code in machine language. She took evening classes for six years to obtain an honours degree in mathematics in 1956. After marriage in 1959 to a physicist, Derek Shirley, she founded in 1962 the software company Freelance Programmers, (later F International) despite having no capital or business knowledge. Having experienced sexism in her workplace, "being fondled, being pushed against the wall", she wanted

Dame Vera Stephanie "Steve" Shirley CH, DBE, FREng, FBCS

to escape the constraints of working as a woman in a predominantly male working environment and to create job opportunities for women with software skills and caring responsibilities and enabling them to work from home. At the time when a woman couldn’t open a bank account without her husband’s permission, this idea was truly revolutionary. In 1978 I personally met with Steve Shirley in my office. I was then responsible for all computer operations and development for the P&O Group and Steve was marketing the services of F International to me. By the early 1980s a wider general interest in remote work via telecommunications support became evident and the business had developed country-wide coverage with more than 600 staff. Although for the first decade the F International workforce communicated successfully on a daily basis, using the Post Office’s overnight

first class mail service, home working became increasingly accepted as telecommunications services became available. The F International story attracted extensive public and professional interest. In 1991 Staff could take 44% ownership of the company by means of a workforce share scheme and in 1996 the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange. By the year 2000 the company that had begun as Freelance Programmers was valued at almost £2 billion, and due to Dame Stephanie’s co-ownership structure, had made millionaires of over 70 of its staff.

Steve Shirley retired in 1993 at the age of 60 and has since focused on her philanthropy. Her late son Giles (1963–1998) was severely autistic and she became an early member of the National Autistic Society. She has instigated and funded research in this field, for example through the Autism Research Centre, and addresses conferences around the world (many remotely) and is in frequent contact with parents, carers and those with autism spectrum disorders. Her autistic son Giles died following an epileptic seizure at the age of 35.

She has donated more than £67 million of her personal wealth (from the internal sale to the company staff and later the flotation of FI Group) to charity through the Shirley Foundation. In her 2012 memoirs Let IT Go, she writes "I do it because of my personal history; I need to justify the fact that my life was saved."

She was appointed OBE in 1980 for services to industry; appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2000 for services to information technology; and Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2017 for services to the IT industry and philanthropy. NB The Order of Companions of Honour is limited to just 65 persons at any one time in the Commonwealth who have made a major contribution to arts, science, medicine or government over a significant period of time. In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4 .

In January 2014, the Science Council named Shirley as one of the "Top 100 practising scientists" in the UK.

Steve Shirley’s Kindertransport Identity Document