JEWISH NEWS MEETS… Trevor Chinn at 90: I regret nothing

If you are going to celebrate a big birthday, you might as well do it in style. And Sir Trevor Chinn — a remarkable and scarcely believable 90 in July — did just that. 

His younger son, Simon, is an Oscar-winning documentary-maker, and made a film screened at a warm and intimate family event at Sir Trevor and Lady Susan’s home. The film featured tributes from Israeli president Isaac Herzog and the Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, plus Sir Trevor’s closest friends, Gerald Ronson and Harry Djanogly. It was, says the celebrant, “a fabulous evening,” complete with children and grandchildren. His elder son, David, is presently living in Israel, where he is senior partner in management consultant McKinsey.

Over the last seven decades there has scarcely been a good cause which has not benefited from Trevor Chinn’s input, ranging from many projects in Israel to cultural enterprises and a remarkable campaign for the Wishing Well appeal at Great Ormond Street Hospital. The latter campaign, which raised millions for the children’s hospital, got him his knighthood in 1990, but he is also the holder of the CVO —Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, and, most proudly, one of eight diaspora leaders to be awarded the Israeli president’s medal of honour in December 2024.

But Chinn, an astute businessman who made his fortune in the motor industry and then as an adviser in the private equity world, is swift to point out that he does not regard his fund-raising for Israel as philanthropy. “I’ve spent my life working for Israel”, he says, “but that’s not philanthropy. That’s a Jewish purpose.”

Our conversation is taking place in Chinn’s “alternative office”, Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair, where he tends to hold many breakfast or lunch meetings. In a comfortable corner table in one of the hotel’s restaurants, Chinn, still enviably lean at 90, recalls his early introduction to raising money for the cause of his life — Israel.

He had, of course, an on-the-spot example in his father, Rosser Chinn, who became president of the Jewish National Fund. But after school (Clifton College) and Cambridge University, where he studied economics, he became involved in the Charities Aid Committee, which raised money for JNF. “I succeeded [the future Conservative cabinet minister] David Young as chairman. And in 1958, when I was 23, I went to Israel for the first time. I have to admit, I was just blown away. What no-one ever tells you is how beautiful the country is. I went from the very north, Metulla, to Eilat in the south, which had one hotel in those days. Basically, that was the beginning of my work for Israel”.

Israel didn’t dominate Jewish conversation until the 1967 Six Day War, says Chinn. “In the two weeks running up to the war we began to think there could be another Holocaust. But in fact people didn’t really talk about the Holocaust either, until the Six Day War. That war really took over the lives of people like me. I was involved at that time with the JIA — actually, it was called the JPA, [Joint Palestine Appeal] and I changed the name later when I became chair. My closest friend at that time was [Ladbroke’s chair] Cyril Stein. We were working together to raise money”. Chinn laughs: “He would always tell me I wasn’t doing enough”.

In or around May 1973, the Marks and Spencer grandee Michael Sacher asked Chinn to become chair of the JIA. Six months later, Israel was facing the Egyptians in the Yom Kippur War. “Basically, Cyril and I were running the campaign, so we could do it how we wanted. We raised £58 million in three weeks. I set out to get million pound gifts, and I think I got 12 [separate] million pound gifts.”

He was, he says now, expecting that kind of response and believes that “Jews are actually very generous. The issue is asking for enough. If you don’t ask for a million pounds, you’re not going to get a million pounds. And we found new, big donors. We all came out of synagogue on Yom Kippur to hear that Israel had been invaded. We were horrified. And Zionist or not Zionist, people just responded because they wanted to.”

Like the former Conservative politician Jim Prior, who chaired the Wishing Well Appeal for Great Ormond Street, I am intrigued to know how on earth one asks anyone for a million pounds. Chinn laughs and repeats what he told Prior on one of their pitches for money: “You just open your mouth and let the words come out”.

He adds: “I always tell people, you’ll feel better after giving.” Do they? “Yes”, he says, firmly, and since I don’t have a handy million pounds I’ll never be able to test if he is right.

The largest single amount Chinn has ever raised came from the Datsun and Nissan importer, Romanian businessman Octav Botnar. Botnar, a former member of the French Resistance during the war, gave Chinn £8 million, which he then increased to £10 million, to fund the Institute of Child Health next to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Unlike some in the heady hierarchy of the rich, Chinn is optimistic and confident about the upcoming generation, and is full of praise for the leadership of the Union of Jewish Students. Cheerfully, he says that when he headed UJIA (“I was there for 20 years, much too long, I should have stepped down years before), he had put students and youth movements at the top of the agenda, “even in a bad year” for fundraising. “I think it’s paid off and has kept the community Zionist.”

Delegation, says Chinn, is the name of the game if one wants to be a mover and shaker in the charitable sector as well as working hard in business. But it’s not just charity which takes up his time outside the business world: he is a devoted family man and says he never got into playing golf at the weekend, because he preferred spending time with his wife and sons. In fact, he and Susan met originally “at a reception that my father and Susan’s father were giving to raise money for a forest in Israel”. Susan herself has also been a fundraiser with whom to be reckoned, raising millions for the National Theatre. She was awarded the CBE for her work.

Perhaps some of his success can be attributed to his capacity for friendship and relationships. Among those with whom he has maintained long friendships are Lord Mendelsohn — whom he met when Mendelsohn was chair of UJS; Lord Kestenbaum; and the TV presenter and commentator Trevor Phillips, who was chair of Hampstead Theatre, when Chinn was vice-chair. The two Trevors still lunch together every few months.

Speaking of the present-day situation and the rise in antisemitism, Chinn is philosophical. He believes that we Jews “are living in frightening times”, and says that “for the first time ever I am worried for the future of Jews in the Western world.” But he speaks warmly of the Palestinian leader Hussein Agah, whom he describes as a close friend, and suggests that a change of leadership on all fronts would improve matters.

He describes himself as “a man of the left” politically and is known to have good contacts within the present-day Labour Party, adding that “I have always been a Labour supporter, because it fits with my Jewish values.” (He has also given money to the Conservative Party). He praises the current Labour leadership and says he does not regret support for individual politicians — or, indeed, any of his actions behind closed doors, where he might have sought to influence thinking —“because I have always tried to think through the consequences of what I do.”

Attending an English public school such as Clifton College, says Sir Trevor Chinn, “teaches you not to applaud yourself.” Just the same, at 90 he remains an influential giant of the Jewish community. If he seeks a meeting for a particular purpose, there are very few in public life who will refuse him.

If he doesn’t want to applaud himself, there are very many who will do that for him. Happy birthday, Sir Trevor.