Max Friedlander

It is with great sadness that I write to inform you of the passing of Max Friedlander (Class of 2009). Max was born in 1991 with Neurofibromatosis, a condition which causes tumours to grow along the nerves at random locations and times. It has been likened to the Sword of Damocles. But as he was determined not to be treated as “sick”, most were unaware of his condition.

After attending North Bridge House School, Max joined City at 13. His marks were consistently above average, and his reports from teachers described him as mature and confident, with particularly glowing feedback in Art, DT and Maths. He also “participated” in the Wind Ensemble with the clarinet although I gather from school reports that his attendance became somewhat sketchy over time. He apparently achieved Grade 2 in foil fencing which I don’t recall him ever doing but does explain his aptitude for swashbuckling.

Max had a brief and somewhat colourful affair with the CCF. We joked that he was kicked out once a week. Somehow though he muddled through the requisite length of service and even picked up a couple of DofE awards which, as every 14-year-old knows, are totally invaluable for CVs and are pretty much guaranteed to land you any job you like. The last straw for the beleaguered Colonel Woodhams however was a report of underage drinking during a Bavarian DofE expedition. Max was ejected for the last time. The report, as it turns out, came from a curtain-twitching do-good German neighbour. Perhaps a former Stasi informant.

The next few years were spent largely discovering and embracing his artistic talent and the Art department became his regular hangout. City has a history of sporting achievement and I’m sure Max wouldn’t mind me saying that he contributed to this in absolutely no way whatsoever. In fact I think he took a degree of pride in his absence from the Top Playground and timely tummy aches on Wednesday afternoons.

Despite his lack of sporting prowess, I think Max was fairly popular at school but then again, a younger sibling’s opinion on that matter is never quite objective. He kept up many of his school friendships and even rekindled some in the last few years of his life. His friends from City and beyond have been a huge support to our family throughout this difficult time.

By the time Max reached Sixth Form, he had discovered a much more interesting life outside the walls of the school, including girls, the guitar, and smoking hookah with unusual regularity. He wore a leather jacket, and a friend once quipped that he resembled a young Marlon Brando. His charisma and easy smile kept teachers on side, and they were rooting for him to achieve his full potential… which he sort of did, somehow.

The truth is that Max’s academic career can be summarised using the oft-deployed duck analogy: Calm on the surface and paddling like hell below. Except that in this instance the paddling was mostly orchestrated by mum, who devoted herself with saint-like patience to Max’s academic success. Entire weekends were given over to writing a history essay, whole holidays to physics coursework, and weeks at a time spent discussing German literature around the dinner table.

The result was that Max, after an Art Foundation year, began his studies at UCL’s infamous/prestigious (depending on whom you ask) Bartlett School of Architecture. Here he embarked on some of the various hijinks expected of an undergraduate but on the whole was committed to his studies and performed well. He went on to complete Parts 2 and 3 of becoming an architect and began his career in earnest, working for Richard Rogers and Seth Stein and no doubt other prestigious architects with alliterative names.

In 2017 Max surprised everyone and delighted many when he produced a daughter, Elena. He took to fatherhood with a natural talent – a genuinely cool dad. And as always, mum was on hand to help out. Max and Elena became a local institution, seen often hand in hand chatting to neighbours. Elena was joined by a sibling, Nectarie, in 2024.

Sadly, Max and Nectarie did not have long to become acquainted as a tumour developed, metastasised, and eventually took Max from us in November 2024. We remember him as you do; a romantic, an artist, a cheeky grin, a dash of the rebel, and a leather jacket.

Louis Friedlander (Class of 2011)