Born in 1926 and raised in Stepney Green in London's East End, the son of Dutch-Jewish immigrants,[1] Bernard Kops was present at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936.
[2][3] He was evacuated from London in 1939, and recounted that experience in episode two of Thames Television's TV series, The World at War, first broadcast in 1973.
Kops then wrote the television film It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow (1975), about the Bethnal Green tube disaster of 1943, also for John Goldschmidt, and this was nominated for an International Emmy Award for Drama Series.
[8] In 1975, suffering from drug addiction, Kops made a suicide attempt; he wrote about the incident and his successful journey to sobriety in his second autobiography, Shalom Bomb: Scenes from My Life.
[9] In 2016 filmmaker Jill Campbell directed a documentary on Bernard Kops, The Hamlet of Canfield Gardens, referencing his first play and longstanding West Hampstead address.