Jack Feldman is thrilled at the prospect of being called up at the New North London Synagogue in Finchley on Shabbat for his third barmitzvah.

But the 96-year-old North Londoner — wheelchair-bound after losing a leg in a car accident — is more excited to be sharing the ceremony with his twin brother Louis.

At the time the twins were growing up in London’s Soho,“if you lived to be 60, it was a good old age”, Mr Feldman told the JC at his home in Woodside Park.

With almost adolescent cheekiness, he recalled how the brothers’ striking resemblance allowed them to play tricks on family, friends and strangers. “It was hard to tell us apart.”

He and Louis were “little urchins, always getting into trouble. We drove my mother mad. We would go into the sweet-shop together and when the shopkeeper was not looking we’d have a sweet. We did everything together.”

The twins belonged to the West Central Jewish Boys’ Club, where Jack was a keen member of the boxing team. After one victorious fight, he went for a shower and Louis was mistakenly presented with his medal.

They often had to fight their way to cheder because other children would shout abuse at them for being “Jew boys”.

“It wasn’t called racism in those days,” Mr Feldman said. “It was the way it was and you had to fight for yourselves. We stood up for each other.”

The boys left school at 14 to learn the fur trade and became skilled furriers, eventually opening a workshop in Carnaby Street.

So strong was their bond that when war broke out, their sister Nellie wrote to Winston Churchill pleading that they should not be separated when serving.

Her appeal was successful and “we were transferred to the First Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders”.

They were involved in major battles but Jack Feldman prefers not to dwell on those times.

“I don’t like to think about it. It was terrible. All I can say is that it is good to be alive.”

They were demobbed in 1947 after completing their military service in Germany, where they received a letter from an uncle telling them they had family in Belsen.

The brothers travelled to Belsen to find the family members, who latterly moved to Israel.

Mr Feldman’s wife Rita, whom he wed in 1970, assisted with the accounts at the Carnaby Street workshop. Louis never married.

The brothers’ first and second barmitzvahs were at the West End Great Synagogue.

“Don’t ask me if I remember my parashah because I don’t,” Mr Feldman said of the first.

“It made me feel very good when I was a boy to see the pleasure on my parents’ faces. We had a party but it wasn’t like it is today.

“After celebrating our second barmitzvah, we thought that was enough. We wouldn’t have made a fuss about a third but my son David thinks this should not go unnoticed.

“We will have the entire family round to celebrate.” Fifty family and friends are expected.

One of the biggest changes in the Feldmans’ latter years has been new technology. “I have two grandchildren and they run rings round me,” Jack Feldman said.

“The things they do on their phones I don’t even understand.

“Things have changed more than I can imagine.”