MY FATHER'S LEGACY

Two weeks before my father, Hugo, died from brain cancer in August 1996, he convinced his doctors to let him to travel to St Donat's Castle to open the annual Atlantic College interfaith conference that had become the highlight of his summers.  Like a marathon runner crossing the finishing line, Hugo's passion for life kept him focussed on the things that really matter until the very end. 

A governor of UWC Atlantic for many years, Hugo was first introduced to the school by Lola Hahn-Warburg, a beloved congregant at the West London Synagogue in Marble Arch where he was rabbi for 32 years.  Lola, whose brother-in-law Kurt Hahn had founded the school, was an elegant Berliner.  She came to Britain in 1938, dedicating herself to the rescue of Jewish children from Germany.  After the war, when the British government gave permission for 732 children - including my father - who had survived the Holocaust to come to Britain, Lola helped organise care for those suffering from tuberculosis; later, she helped rescue children from Iran and Ethiopia.

He was deeply impressed by Kurt Hahn’s conviction that many of our conflicts are rooted in the fact that people of different nationalities and cultures are suspicious about each other, and that if enough people could live, study and work together, becoming personal friends, people you could trust, this would have a good effect on the future shape and mood of the world.

Hugo was well known as a broadcaster.  In 1989, he spoke about that year’s interfaith conference in his weekly ‘God-slot’ on Capital Radio:

"For me the most dramatic moment came almost at the very end of this conference. Two speakers – a Christian professor and a humanist biologist – had spoken about medical ethics. Both of them were in agreement about the great advances in science and in medicine. And wasn’t it wonderful that so much progress should have been made in such short time, implying how clever and adept the human race has become.  And then a 17-year-old girl called Ivy who comes from a hard-working family in Uganda brought all of us to our senses.

"I shall long remember her passion in speaking about lack of clean water, the death of millions of babies in Africa and Asia, the lack of even the most basic medical care, and the obscene way in which rich countries produce too much food which is destroyed to keep the prices at a high level.  And suddenly we realised that progress was not all that it seemed to be, that ethics and morality were a long way behind scientific and technological progress, that to be truly civilized we had such a long way to go. And I was not only moved but grateful to that young girl who understood so well that without practical compassion that affects the wellbeing of all of God’s creatures, we have no right to any kind of rest or self-satisfaction."

After my father died, I helped the development team at UWC Atlantic raise an endowed scholarship in his memory.  The many donors included Princess Anne and Queen Elizabeth – testament to the contribution that my father, as a spiritual leader, made to the British way of life:  not bad going for someone who arrived in this country as a traumatised teenager, without a penny to his name.  

Having had his own life transformed by a scholarship that enabled him to study for the rabbinate, my father would have warmed to the current Hugo Gryn scholar, Tamkeen Seddiqi, who is from Afghanistan.  I hope that her time at UWC Atlantic will be productive and pleasurable in equal measure, and that Tamkeen, together with all the students who come - not so much as passengers, but as crew - to this marvellous school, will take on their journey something of the spirit of my father’s unquenchable faith in humanity too.

If you would like to discuss leaving the college a legacy gift in your will, please email philanthropy@uwcatlantic.org.

Pictures below: (Top left) Hugo introduces Sheikh Gamal Solaiman, imam of the London Central Mosque, at the 1988 Religious Conference, Atlantic College; (Top right) Hugo with Dean of Westminster Edward Carpenter (1910-1998); (Middle) Hugo with Naomi. Karlovy Vary, 1989; (Bottom right) BBC's Moral Maze: Hugo with Michael Buerk, Edward Pearce and Janet Daly; (Bottom left)  Hugo with Naomi. New York, 1961.