SHIBOLLETH

By the time he had started school, Sean Connery had lost all sense that the world was a good and just place. Every weekday morning now he ducked his head, like so many other children, beneath the blue tarpaulin that served as the entrance to his new academic life. Imagination, that precious childhood commodity, had been effectively eliminated through a steady procession of rules, deadlines and restrictions imposed upon him by people who supposedly knew better. For instance, bedtime:

Sean Connery: I dinnae tired.
Joseph Connery: Get tae bed, ya wee nid.
Sean Connery: But I dinnae tired!
Joseph Connery: Are ye tryin to get ma nadge? (removes belt)

School, which Sean had thought might provide welcome respite from his frankly repressed home life, proved to be quite the opposite. On his first day of school, in the first minute, really, a large boy came up to Sean and hit him right in the face.

Sean Connery: Wha'd ya doosh me fer?
Large Boy: Ya looked gay, wi ya shirt tucked in.
Sean Connery: What's your name?
Large Boy: What's yers?
Sean Connery: Sean Connery.
Large Boy: Ye feckin liar. He's a fillum star.
Sean Connery: That's me name! Besides, the fillum star's first name is Thomas.
Large Boy: Feck off ya chav.
Sean Connery: Aye. Thomas Sean Connery.

The large boy hit him again. Sean Connery could do nothing else but run home. When his father found out Sean had not stayed at school, he flayed him good and proper.

Later that same year, Thomas Sean Connery, on the set of Darby O'Gill and the Little People, received a very strange message. It was during his a break in filming when Connery's co-star, Jimmy O'Dea came over and sat next him. He explained that he had been walking through the mail room when a letter caught his eye. Jimmy handed Connery an envelope, with the words To Thomas Sean Connery, from Sean Thomas Connery written in bright blue crayon on the front.

Jimmy O'Dea: Seems a young lad's written you from Edinburgh.
Thomas Sean Connery: Really. Isn't that schumthing.
Jimmy O'Dea: You really should read it, Sean. It's quite moving. He's got the most awful home life, and it really seems like a cry for help.
Thomas Sean Connery: You don't schay.
Jimmy O'Dea: Have a look at it Sean, it'll break your heart. Maybe you can do something for him.
Thomas Sean Connery: You're blocking the schun, Jimmy.
Jimmy O'Dea: Won't you at least read the letter?
Thomas Sean Connery: Are you trying to get my nadge? (removes belt).