came in.
‘This is a Jewish school’.
She pointed at the mezuzzah (a small scroll attached to doors in Jewish homes and places of work; the person passing through the door is meant to touch it and kiss their hand as a show of devotion to God) on the door. Just in case the fact that the school was called The Jewish Free School and all the men had to have their heads covered and we spent thousands of hours being taught Hebrew and Old Testament religious knowledge were not enough in the way of clues.
‘We teach things that will make you better able to contribute to the Jewish community. And one of those things is being able to speak Ivrit [the Hebrew word for Hebrew]. Do you understand?’
I didn’t get a chance to answer either way.
‘A waste of time?’ Her voice got louder. ‘Why would you say such a thing to Miss Felberg? How could you say that learning Ivrit is a waste of time? Who are you to decide what is and isn’t a waste of time? That is an insult to the other pupils, to the teacher, to me, to the school.’ She paused. ‘To Israel.’
I suppressed a laugh. I was imagining people in Tel Aviv phoning each other:
‘Did you hear what Ian Stone said?’
‘No.’
‘He said that learning Hebrew is a waste of time.’
‘What? The little prick!’
She moved round the desk and came up very close to me. It was like the scene in Alien where the monster gets really close to Sigourney Weaver. Apparently, I hadn’t completely suppressed the laugh.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘I’m not laughing’ I said, while sort of laughing.
She was really shouting now.
‘Your gross disrespect for our teacher and the language is disgusting’.
‘Christ. Keep your hair on,’ I said.
*
Later on, when I relayed the conversation to Simon, he started laughing and continued for about a minute and a half.
‘You fucking idiot,’ he said. ‘She was wearing a sheitel.’
‘A what?’
‘A wig. Religious Jewish women shave their heads and wear a wig.’
‘What? Why? How do you know this?’
‘My mum told me. A man is not to look upon a woman’s hair. It says it in the Torah.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. In the hair section.’
‘I don’t understand. Why can’t they look at a woman’s hair?’
‘Because it will drive them wild with desire.’
‘Hair?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘I’m telling you. She must’ve hit the roof.’
We were both laughing now. ‘She did.’
That was one of the few days at school where I actually learned something. At the time, in Mrs Abrahams’ office, I didn’t understand any of this. All I could see was her going bright red. I’d never seen anyone go that red. She looked like she wanted to hit me but by the mid-1970s, that sort of schooling was being slowly phased out so she just glared at me for a short time and then took me to see the headmaster.
We trooped over to his office and when he was told, he was, if anything, more apoplectic than her. He ranted for a while and I stopped listening. He was almost always ranting about something, generally to do with not wearing our skull caps. I concentrated on his dandruff. He favoured a black suit with a black cape, so it was always noticeable, but it seemed particularly bad today. As he spoke, I could see it falling off his head like a moderately heavy snow shower. Like it might settle. It piled up on top of the dandruff already there. His shoulders looked like a ski resort. He told me to go home and he would speak to my mother in due course.
And so it was that I had a week off school. It was incredibly boring. Today, with all the different TV channels and Xboxes and the like, I could’ve kept myself busy. Back then, there was nothing to do. One of the only things stopping us bunking off more than we did was the almost complete lack of entertainment available at home during work hours.
I watched Pebble Mill at One. This was a magazine show broadcast at, would you believe, one o’clock in the afternoon. It was broadcast live from Birmingham during the week and was very popular with students, the elderly, the bedridden and people who were snowed in. The audience was entirely made up of old people. The women all had white hair, most of the men were bald.*5
My mother was really upset with me because she had to take a week off work. I didn’t take a lot of looking after but without her, I wouldn’t have eaten. She made me food, knocked on my bedroom door to tell me it was ready and told me to turn the music down. It was like having the angriest room service ever.
The following Monday, she had to come in and sit with me in the head’s office while he laid into me again for what felt like a week. He was shouting and spitting. One small bit of spittle landed on my mother’s bag. All three of us saw it happen but no one said anything. As we were leaving, he made it very clear that if I ever said anything else grossly insulting to the Jewish faith, I’d be expelled. Did I understand? I did. I almost said something grossly insulting there and then, just to get it over with.
*2 Except for Martin Cohen, who was a very good-looking guy. He told me one day that he’d started going out with one of the girls from Camden Girls School. He was meeting her later on and did I want to tag along. Later that day, Martin and I got the bus to the station and in order to look like he didn’t go to our school he took off his school blazer and tie when we got there. Vanessa or Chloe or Virginia turned up shortly afterwards and they kissed. I was introduced. She gave Martin a look that said ‘what are you doing hanging out with one of those kids from the Jewish school?’ It was a fair question. I went home shortly afterwards.
*3 Simon told me that in his Biology ‘O’ level exam, one of the questions was ‘Why is the pituitary gland known as the conductor of the orchestra?’ And he answered ‘Because it looked like Andre Previn.’ Still tickles me.
*4 Was there any other kind?
*5 Twenty-five years later as a fledgling stand-up comedian, I was offered a slot on the show. Because it was live, daytime TV, the producers required a full script of the act you were going to do so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the daytime crowd pottering about at home. I faxed (!) the script over and an assistant called me straight back.
‘You can’t say arse.’
‘Can I not?’ I had a joke where the punchline was ‘right on the arse’ and I was hoping I could get away with it. Apparently not.
‘No.’
‘Oh. How about bum?’
‘Hang on a minute.’
He put the phone down on the desk and I hear a muffled shout across the office. ‘Can he say bum?’ There’s a pause. I don’t hear the reply. The assistant comes back on the line.
‘Bum is out.’
‘Oh. Bottom?’
‘Hang on.’ We go round the same routine again.
‘We’d