ON a sunny day in September 1939 I listened to Neville Chamberlain on the radio telling us we were at war with Germany. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was living in Dover and I was five years old.

A few days later my mother told me to go and stay with old friends of my parents in Nelson, Lancashire until the war was over. They believed that Dover would soon be in the front line and in fact Stanhope Road was to be the most bombed road in the town.

My mother took me by train. I was very sick and thought I was dying. She had packed my clothes and a couple of sheets in a bag but all my toys, even my gollywog were left behind. When we eventually arrived I had to take my shoes off and walk over newspapers covering the new carpet to a black rug. I was told to sit.

The grown ups talked a long time, mostly about the cost of my board. Then my mother stood up and said "Be good Roger" and went out to catch a bus. After tea "Uncle" Tom said: "You've got to go to school tomorrow. A lot of the boys wear clogs and they might kick you. If they do you should raise your left leg up a few inches and then they will catch their ankles" We practised this for 10 minutes and then I was taken upstairs to a tiny bedroom with a camp bed which was where I slept for the next three years.

I woke early and listened to strange clicking sounds out the front. I was told over porridge it was the weavers walking in their clogs to the 50 mills in town. Auntie Annie pulled my stocking up tight, spat on my hair and smoothed it down and opened the door. She stopped two big boys.

"Are you going to St John's? They said "Aye". "Will you please take Roger with you"? It was a 15 minute walk and they said nothing to me. They ushered me into a classroom where 60 children about my age were shouting and yelling in a foreign language. The young pale lady teacher was trying to take the register. She counted up and then noticed me sitting behind her on a chair.

"Who are you?" "Roger", I said.

"Where do you come from?" "Dover" I said.

"You can't," she screamed, "Dover's too far away".

Suspicion crossed her face. "Are you an evacuee?" "Yes" I confessed.

"Where are you staying?"

"I dunno,"?I said.

"What is the name of the people you are staying with?"

"Uncle Tom and Auntie Annie".

The teacher went into the other classroom where the headteacher also had a class of 60. They found the two boys who had brought me.

"You live at 5 Town House Road and you are staying with Mr and Mrs Robertshaw. Can you remember that?" "Yes", I said.

The next day I was sent on my own to school. The houses were black, women were on their knees scrubbing their front steps, the air was smoky. A boy of about my age was waiting for me and when I got near he punched me several times. In Dover I had no brothers and sisters and friends and was not used to fighting. It was the same the next day. I tried walking on the other side of the road but he came across and thumped me. I became miserable and crushed. Then after a couple of weeks the bully spoke. "I am not going to hit you again".

Within a month I had learnt the local language, forgotten my parents totally, and was having wonderful stone fights in the unsupervised playground.

When I used to teach R.E. lessons 27 years later I found it impossible to persuade by pupils that turning the other cheek was proper. Since then I have observed terrible bullying at school, in the army, in the workplace and in homes.

Many would say it's to do with original sin and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Recently a biblical scholar on TV devoted to searching for evidence of the historical existence of Eden asked a rabbi whether he believed in Adam and Eve. He said "Yes, their sinfulness defined our relationship with God."?She asked a Catholic priest: "Yes," he said, "Their fall from grace explained the establishment of the holy church to help people to resist sinfulness".

Both religions have a lot of rules governing our behaviour. Does this explain a five year old hitting another five year old? Or the violence we observe and experience so frequently?

I believe the Adam and Eve story is an allegory not literally true but a primitive attempt to explain our evil thoughts and actions. Trouble is the Devil seems to be doing very well. Hordes of children are still leaving for the unknown to escape war.

– Roger Horsfield, Bream.