At the age of 25/27 Hyman Berman was conscripted into the British Army, there is a photograph of him in uniform with a bushy moustache.
This was during World War 1, he was in the Pioneer Jewish Battalion, he claimed he was never sent to France because on the day he was to go with his unit, he lost his boots, down the toilet. Meanwhile his wife Sophia who by now had four sons, had to earn a living, so she rented a barrow and used to push it to market every day. She used to sell chocolates and groceries, her wholesaler was Jack Cohen of Tesco. The sons were not allowed to eat the stock but tell of one occasion when their Dad came home on leave, he put a box of chocolate bars on the corner of the cabinet in the Lounge, against the door, he slammed the door open, hard, knocking the box into the floor, giving his sons broken bars Sophia couldn’t sell.