Alan Douglas Bell

An only child, Alan Douglas Bell was born in South Africa on April 8 1943. His soldier father and nurse mother had been in the British Army in North Africa. Alan entered CLS on a scholarship in New 2A in 1954, where he was allotted to Beaufoy House. He then proceeded through the A stream to the Modern VI, where he took excellent A Levels in French, Russian and English. In 1961, he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge on another scholarship, where he took his degree in Modern Languages and stayed on for a fourth year to take an MA in law. At CLS, from the third year on, I had a ring-side seat and watched him regularly come third (to his chagrin doubtless and to my envy) in the class, after two other Bs, Jonathan Barnes and Michael Booth. We both entered the Modern VI in 1958, which was the first year it became possible to study Russian. Our teacher was John Davidson whose job was to get us up to ‘A’ Level standard in two years.

Our friendship at school was not close but blossomed later when, having studied accountancy at Peat Marwick and Mitchell, he joined my father’s city firm as a qualified chartered accountant, with the promise of a partnership at the age of thirty. Early on, at an office party he met my sister Ruth, who became his first wife. Later, he set up A.D. Bell International, still thriving, which was his primary professional commitment until he died. He was an excellent linguist – he spoke seven languages — and, as such, was invaluable as an interlocutor when it came to foreign companies who were employing his firm’s taxation and other services. He was involved with the Martin Scholarship Trust as their accountant and asked another CLS contemporary, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky (Class of 1961) to be a trustee.

My main recollection of him at school outside the classroom was not sport or model railways or stamps but his active commitment to the jazz club as a bass player, with Dave Roberts on the drums and (the future professional jazz musician) Peter Lemer on the piano. A possible cultural connection with the Jazz Club was occasional forbidden smoking in the Great Hall rafters. One evening I recall, out of the blue, that Alan and I and Dave Roberts went to hear Ella Fitzgerald at the Kilburn Empire. Jazz remained a lifelong passion for Alan. At Cambridge, where we would have an occasional drink together, he was President of the Jazz Club, a contemporary of drummer Jonathan Lynn, later famous elsewhere.

He was a sociable, good-natured, kind and generous man. He devoted a lot of time to the Citizens Advice Bureau, where he was well equipped to offer financial and other advice to those in need. Alan had a fine tenor voice which he deployed in synagogue choirs, at family weddings and elsewhere. Unforgettable was his jokiness, often competitive, as is common among old friends and in a style formed in a generation brought up on the Goon Show. Every few years, some CLS friends would meet for a curry, including David Roberts, Warwick Hillman, Ronald Hooberman, Barry Connolly, Alan Hunt, Geoffrey Goldkorn and myself. And I would meet him at family milestones.

I now quote from his sons’ funeral eulogy: “Family and work legacy aside, Dad was always a fiercely proud Jew and advocate of the State of Israel. As a member of Alyth Gardens synagogue in Golders Green for over half a century, he was more than a congregant. Dad invested his time, leadership and choir-singing voice to the cause, serving the roles of warden, treasurer and council member at the synagogue where his four sons had their Barmitzvahs, and whose cemetery would in due course host his final journey”.

He died after a short illness on February 26, 2022.  He had four sons with Ruth: Daniel, (Class of 1992)  Nicholas, Josh (Class of 1996) and Benjamin.

Anthony Rudolf (Class of 1960)