When I was four years old an uncle asked me whether I was Welsh or Jewish. I answered that I'm ticklish. Maybe I was confused. Today I call myself a Welsh Israeli.

My grandmother came to Wales to Tredegar in 1904 with seven children. My grandfather came a year earlier. On the way they were put in jail when crossing the Russian border but my grandmother managed to get the family out. My father remembered the incident well. He was just four years old.

The family moved to Cardiff in the thirties, first to Gordon Road, and later to Llandaff. My father went to Cardiff University and became a school teacher. My mother was also a schoolteacher from Sunderland.

Our house was always full of family and friends, Jewish and non-Jewish. One of my father's best friends was George Thomas who was a teaching colleague, and who went on to be the speaker of the House of Commons.

Another friend was Canon Mathews of Llandaff Cathedral. Dad used to take me to his house where there were evenings of reading Shakespeare.

The whole family belonged to the Insole Court Library and Drama Society. I later studied English and Drama, and the seeds of my love for the subjects were deeply rooted in Cardiff soil.

There was some anti-semitism around but also an understanding odf Judaism and later of the necessity for a Jewish state. I remember many teachers who told me to be proud of your Judaism and of Israel.

There was one incident that stands out in my mind. I was ten years old in 1950. One day at break time a class mate called me a "dirty Jew". I replied, "no I'm not, I'm a dirty Jewess". Then I hit him quite hard.

Miss O'Flynn, our teacher, came to see what was going on. She called us all to the classroom, and William and I had to stand in front of the class. Miss O'Flynn reprimanded both of us, me for hitting, and William for what he had called me.

She then went on to give the class a lesson in Judaism, on the ten commandments, and of the contribution of Judaism to Christianity and Humanism.

She also talked of the tragedy of the Holocast, and anti-semitism. Miss O'Flynn was a remarkable teacher in every way. She did not just teach us the three Rs but unstilled in us values that I have never forgotten.