When I was a kid growing up in relatively affluent but in some ways culturally ignorant Muswell Hill in the 1960s I was an inmate at the notorious William Grimshaw school in Creighton Avenue. Subsequently it became Creighton (and got joys of accolades from people with double-barreled names with kids who were called Tarquin, Jasper, Jocaster and so on) and was the doyen of the chattering weekend socialists en route to Islington. And then it became "Fortismere."
Frankly as one of the few yids there Christmas and Easter weren’t particularly happy times. The ignorant and bigoted RE teachers musings on such matters didn’t help. Most of the blacks hated us yids more than the evangelical Catholics did! It was tricky to figure out which lot to avoid. Black catholic males were, in the main, a particular hassle.
We got no shit from the Jehovah’s Witnesses though. It left a sort of soft-spot for me about them. Recognising that red-sea pedestrians stood no chance of conversion they left us alone. When I learned of their situation re incarceration in the death camps I fell somewhere between respect and the folly of faith re them. The Muslims were benign towards us as were the Greek Orthodox and Zoroastrians. Buddhists were thin on the ground and generally blended in.
