Page 12 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - October 19

HURST GRANGE, 1948 - 50

MILTON TAYLOR

T my contemporaries in study or business. Of course, I
he idea of going on Hachshara (the
had come under the influence of the movement and
communal farm, or commune) was finalized
at a concert of Beethoven’s 9th symphony
performed by its leadership, which frowned on the idea of a
university
the Scottish education. In
Symphony fact, if you
Orchestra. read the
Whether it was minutes of the
the words of discussion in
Schiller (Ode to the movement
Joy, all men are at that time,
brothers) or the you will find
stirring music that this was a
that sealed my deliberate
decision to go policy, to
on Hachshara, I persuade
do not know. I turned to my Madrich (Group leader), young people not to go on for higher education even
who was at the concert and said something like “I am if it was possible. Thus at the age of 16.5, sometime
ready”. I was fed up with high school, with studying in 1948 I arrived at Hurst Grange, near Reading (at
piano, and, what I then considered the decadent life that time Twyford was the nearest train station and
of Glasgow Jewry (Jewish social clubs, Ballroom was just a village). I had come from a very middle
dancing, etc.). I had experienced all these years of class home and had never done a day's hard work in
Zionism and socialist indoctrination, having joined my life, except for pulling out a few weeds around
the movement at around 10 years old, graduated to the rhubarb patch in the back garden. By this time,
the Daily Worker, and was imbued with the idea of the family had moved up to Holeburn Rd, in
creating a "utopian” society. Newlands, one of the newer suburbs on the South

side of Glasgow.
This could only be done through going on Aliya to That I ended up in Hurst Grange was just chance,
Israel and living in a Kibbutz. I must have been quite since the movement had three training farms,
a romantic, and decided that this was a superior way “Reading” as the one at Hurst Grange was called,
of life, better than going to university and following David Eder Farm, near Horsham, and a third at

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