In a year marked by rising racist attacks and the weaponisation of religion, one journalist embarked on a deeply personal quest. Jonathan Margolis decided to track down the school bully who had tormented him for his Jewish faith as a child, to see if old wounds could ever truly heal.
A Childhood Shadowed by Prejudice
Growing up in a Jewish household in east London, Jonathan Margolis’s early life was untroubled by his faith. That changed abruptly at age 11 when he won a scholarship to Bancroft’s, a minor public school. Suddenly, his Jewish identity became a target.
“A small core of my schoolmates were obsessed with ‘Yids’ and ‘Jew boys’,” Margolis recalls. The abuse was relentless: Fagin impressions, hissing to signify gas chambers, pennies thrown down as insults. He was physically beaten up twice simply for “walking around while Jewish.”
Among the tormentors was Johnnie Dickens, a big, tough boarder and fellow scholarship boy from London’s East End. While never violent, Dickens was “incredibly persistent” with his antisemitic jibes. For decades, Margolis wondered what had become of him, speculating that his docker father might have been a follower of pre-war fascist leader Oswald Mosley.
The Unexpected Reunion and Remarkable Apology
Curiosity piqued anew by headlines about Nigel Farage facing allegations of racist bullying at a similar school, Margolis finally tracked Dickens down. He found him to be a retired, much-loved headteacher and local funeral celebrant in Hampshire. After an initial message went unanswered, Margolis braced himself and made a phone call.
The response was stunning. “I want to come right out, publicly and say how embarrassed and ashamed I am about how I was back then,” Dickens declared, refusing anonymity. He described his younger self as a “totally ignorant little d***” who acted out to look cool, insisting he had no hatred in his heart.
“This kind of thing never happens,” Margolis notes, contrasting Dickens’s candour with public figures who dismiss past behaviour as “banter.” In Yiddish, he says, Dickens proved himself a mensch—a proper, honourable person.
Understanding the Bully and a Lesson for Today
The two men, now grandfathers, met in a pub near Swindon station. The gentle, thoughtful man Margolis encountered was a revelation. Dickens explained the brutal boarding school culture of the 1960s, where a harsh pecking order left even a big boy like him crying incessantly. A transformative school trip to the Belsen concentration camp at age 16 changed his outlook forever.
He also confessed to a childish jealousy over the Parker pens Jewish boys received at their barmitzvahs. Today, a charitable and cultured man, he helps villages in Gambia and laments the lack of comparative religion classes in their youth. “If someone had explained to me the differences and commonalities… it could have made all the difference,” he said.
Margolis reflects that the boy Johnnie Dickens was “not even remotely an antisemite,” but rather a clever lad led astray in a tough environment. This insight leads him to a broader point about contemporary issues.
He sees not an unstoppable flood of Jew-hatred, but a “massive amount of ignorance,” particularly among Gen-Z, where dislike of Jews has become “this year’s fashionable look.” He criticises those who chant slogans like “from the river to the sea” with little understanding of their meaning or historical weight.
On Christmas Eve 2025, this story of remorse and reconciliation offers a poignant message. “To be upfront and explain doesn’t make someone look shady or weak. If anything, it can be something to be admired,” Margolis concludes. He has extended an open invitation to the real Johnnie Dickens, even offering a traditional Friday night dinner in his honour. In a troubled world, their meeting stands as a powerful testament to the possibility of peace and understanding.
