Bernard Sandler

Bernard Sandler
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Born	(1922-10-18)October 18, 1922 Chapel Allerton, Leeds
Died	(1998-06-06)June 6, 1998
Nationality	British
Occupation	British Businessman Theatre Producer

Bernard Sandler (18 October 1922 – 6 June 1998) was a British businessman and theatre producer from Leeds

Early life

Carl Bernard Sandler was born in 1922 in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. His father Hyman (Hymie) (1893-1979) was born in Ludza, Latvia and came to Yorkshire in 1910. His mother, Celia Hurst (1898-1988) was born in Leeds. He had two younger siblings, Max and Sonia. He was educated at Harehills Primary School and then Leeds Grammar School. He had a traditional Jewish upbringing and was bar mitzvah at Francis Street Synagogue in 1935.

World War II

During the Summer of 1939, he went on a schoolboy trip to Canada and the United States. Towards the end of the trip Britain declared War, he found himself in an extraordinary predicament as an adolescent of being unable to return home from New York.

He spent the early part of his war years in New York, firstly at Straubenmuller Textile High School. Next, he attended New York University in 1940.

In 1941, the U.S. declared War and it was likely he would be drafted into U.S. Army. Before being inducted, he took advantage of what New York had to offer by pursuing higher education, learning about progressive politics, enjoying the arts scene, and meeting the woman who would become his wife, Taube Barash. On 30 June 1942, he was enrolled in the U.S. Army. His basic training began at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in February 1943. Towards the end of his basic training he passed exams that enabled him to join the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) in May 1943 where he studied engineering.

During his year in ASTP he studied at North Carolina State University, Penn State and the University of Vermont before the ASTP was disbanded. In March 1944, he joined the 26th Infantry Division for intense training in Tennessee and then onto Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Later in 1944, he sailed on the USNS Henry Gibbins from New York to Cherbourg, France, as part of a convoy of ships (leaving on 27th August 1944 and arriving on 7th September 1944). They were the first infantry troops to sail directly from US to France. After a few weeks in Normandy, he moved towards the Western Front, where he was in combat in the Lorraine Campaign. He was injured, near Metz, in November 1944 and transported to a U.S Military hospital in Blandford in England. He was discharged in August 1945 after a short spell at Camp Butner, North Carolina.

Hurst and Sandler

The firm Hurst and Sandler was founded in 1921 by his Aunt and Uncle Leah and Henry Hurst together with his parents Celia and Hymie Sandler. By 1927, it opened a retail fashion shop in Leeds' Lower Briggate, and by 1939 it had a business of more than 20 fashion shops throughout Yorkshire.

After the war, Bernard moved back to the UK with Taube Barash, his new wife. He helped build up the Hurst and Sandler business, where he worked with members of both the Hurst and Sandler families. The company joined the London Stock Exchange as a quoted company in November 163. In 1968, the company, which by then included five Yorkshire department stores, four furniture stores, and ten fashion shops, was sold to United Drapery Stores (UDS); Bernard then went on to become Managing Director of UDS where he headed the Allders Store Group, where he set up out-of-town and airport duty free shopping. He retired in 1975.

Leeds Playhouse

In the 1960s, Bernard joined the Leeds Playhouse Trust Committee and soon became its Chairman. Working closely with Alec Baron, Doreen Newlyn and Leeds University architect Bill Houghton-Evans, Bernard helped bring the project to a successful conclusion, and the Leeds Playhouse was duly opened in September 1970.

Theatre production

He was also an independent theatre producer. He produced Pack of Lies, Steaming and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ working alongside Michael Redington and Eddie Kulukundis.

He also devoted much of his time to promoting fringe theatre. He became Chair of The Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, North West London (now Kiln Theatre), where he worked closely with the director Nicolas Kent.

Visual arts

Bernard had a love for the visual arts, shared with Taube, resulting in friendships with many artists, such as Jacob Kramer (Leeds), Josef Herman (London), Jack Levine (New York), and others — notably, the American painter Alfred Cohen (latterly of Kent, and then Norfolk) and the Bath-based sculptor Ken Smith, whose careers he helped develop by organising shows of their work.

Personal Life

Bernard married Taube Barash in Temple Emanuel, New York City, in August 1945. They had two children and four grandchildren. Taube died in Leeds in 1980. His son, Michael Sandler, is the founder the London Public Relations firm Hudson Sandler.

Death

Bernard died in London in 1998 at the age of 75.

The English GI

In 1995, Sandler wrote a memoir for family and friends called "An Informal Family Autobiographical Memoir.

Twenty-five years after his death, his grandson Jonathan Sandler worked closely with the American illustrator Brian Bicknell to adapt Sandler's original memoir into a graphic novel depicting his entire transatlantic wartime experience - from being a young schoolboy stranded in the vast metropolis of New York to his time serving in the brutal Lorraine Campaign, in France, in late 1944 under Patton's Third Army.

The English GI: World War II Graphic Memoir was published in 2022 by graphicmemoir.co.uk.

The Jewish Chronicle commented, "Beautifully illustrated by Brian Bicknell, The English GI tells the story of how a Jewish schoolboy from Yorkshire ended up in the U.S. Army. The black-and-white drawings are realistic, and their style captures a sense of period really well."

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