03/06/88 - CHURCH OF SCOTLAND'S TABETHA SCHOOL, JAFFA

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< (Left) BA visits his old school in Jaffa, Israel. Later on in the day Bryan played to packed audience in Tel Aviv.

BA - "To be in Israel is a remarkable experience because there are so many stories there. You can't help but be involved and enveloped in the history, whether it is Roman history, Jewish history, Christian history or the modern history of war and the struggle for independence. It is a tiny country with more stories than most countries in the world. But's it's a country torn by it's religions and some tense political positioning. You can't go anywhere without a sense of the military.

We lived in Israel for a while when I was a child. My parents sent me to the Church of Scotland's Tabetha School in Jaffa.

It was run by missionaries from Scotland and the headmistress liked me, sort of. I think she thought I could be calmed, but I was far too mercurial for her. The last thing she needed was a ringleader organizing football during the lunch hour or, even worse, speaking when I wasn't being spoken to. Little boys were to be seen and not heard.

She was a large creature and I always liked her, even when she used to stuff her snotty tissues into her bra strap. I never got beaten, just severely reprimanded. God gave her the gift of speech and she would hail it down upon me at regular intervals: "Your mind is in the gutter, may God forgive you.""