When I was 8 years old my father decided that I should leave the local state primary school that I was happily attending and go to a private primary school more befitting his son.
This was to be a big shock for me as I knew no one at my new school and all my classmates had been there from the first year aged 5. After about a week I was given a day off school for a Jewish holiday and when I returned to school the next day I entered the classroom to chants of ‘JEW BOY’ ‘JEW BOY’ I was then relentlessly bullied for weeks and realised I was the only Jewish boy in my class. My parents weren’t particularly religious but my father was Doctor and considered himself an important member of the local Jewish community.
In my 8-year-old mind I devised a plan to get my classmates to stop bullying me and become my friends – this involved me buying them all some toys which we could all play with together during breaktimes. Every morning when my father was in the bathroom and my mother in the kitchen I went into their bedroom and helped myself to a few coins from a bowl on the dressing table. After a few weeks I had collected enough to buy some cheap plastic toys.
I took the toys to school and gave them to my new friends who seemed very pleased with them – it seemed that my plan had worked. The next day when I came home from school my Mother told me to go upstairs for a bath and that my Father wanted to talk to me when he came home from work. While I was soaking in my bubble bath my Father stormed into the bathroom obviously in a rage and holding a leather belt. Apparently, the parents of one of my “new friends” found the new toy in his school bag and assumed it had been stolen by him from the toy shop. When my friend said that I had given it to him they didn’t believe him and phoned the school who then phoned my parents. My Father asked me to explain and I was faced with multiple dilemmas, did I own up to stealing money from him? Did I tell him about the bullying and risk reprisals from my ‘new friends’? He knew I had no money of my own and assumed I had stolen the toys from the shop and demanded an explanation. When I said I didn’t know why I did it he beat me repeatedly with the belt – I was still in the bath and absolutely terrified. He asked me again and I said again that I didn’t know why I did it – he beat me again. Then he sent me to bed with no dinner to think about it and explain in the morning.

Looking back 60 years later this was a defining moment in my life. I have always struggled with the concepts of honesty and justice and always sought refuge in escapism.