I have no comp1aints. By and large, I spent a happy early childhood My parents were kind and caring, looking after us children very well (albeit with the help of governesses, par for the course at the time) and doing their very best for us, as they saw it That it did not always turn out as well as they expected and deserved was not their fault.
Initially, I liked school and was a good pupil, but this changed when I was about ten: things started to go wrong, and I began to loathe and fear it In spite of private coaching. I ended up for much of the time near the bottom of the class, having eventually to repeat one year. Matters improved somewhat when, at the age of 15, I changed to Salem, the well-known German boarding school whose headmaster, Kurt Hahn, subsequently founded Gordonstoun. I was able, mainly by luck, to make up the lost year and eventually to complete my A levels fairly satisfactorily before my 18th birthday. In fact, I was still 17 during my first term at university.
But school was only the beginning of my troubles: one year into my law studies, I developed a fairly severe neurosis, which among other difficulties resulted again in an almost complete inability to do any real work. Eventually matters got so bad that I underwent psychoanalysis (as I shall describe later). I cannot say that this gave me an immediate insight into the causes of my difficulties, but I think I have since been able to piece together their main origin: my famous father, the violinist Carl Flesch.
Famous parents are an undoubted problem for most children. When you are little, being the son of an outstanding person is an undiluted pleasure» The fame rubs off on you; you get more than the usual attention from strangers as well as friends of the family who cherish the connection with you, not for your own but your parent's sake, But there is an undoubted reverse side of the coin: it prolongs the conscious as well as subconscious belief in the parent's infallibility. For a baby parents are, of course, all-powerful and all knowing. Normally, this feeling begins to wear off at quite an early age and the older the child gets, the more it realises that father and mother have their faults and weaknesses too, by no means know everything and can even be outwitted. This is a normal and healthy development leading to an ever-increasing sense of independence. With a famous father, on the other hand, the belief in his immense powers is unduly prolonged. After all, everybody tells you how wonderful he is, and proofs are all around you.* Thus, the onset of independence is retarded. The child remains "the son of, or the daughter of the famous so-and-so", instead of becoming an individual of its own. And this can be very damaging indeed.**
What are the consequences? Long-term, if you are not careful, this habit of automatically feeding off the position of your parent can accompany you throughout life; I remember the son of the pianist Artur Schnabel once introducing me to an acquaintance with the words: "May I introduce the son of Carl Flesch." We were both in our fifties and both our fathers had long departed this life, but for him the old habit remained. We had been friends since our early childhood, but clearly there was to his mind nothing more interesting about me than that I was the son of a famous musician.
This can be pretty ridiculous, but harmless. One often-embarrassing by-product, though, is the reference to the famous father if the person to whom you are being introduced has no idea who the famous man really was. Very awkward, both for the other person and "the son of” himself. I wish people wouldn't do it.
But I digress. Other more immediate consequences of the father's outstanding position can be far more serious. There are in my view three possible reactions on the part of the son, once he has absorbed the outstanding position of the parent. If he has a strong personality, he will go his own independent way or possibly even try to emulate the parent in, as it were, "peaceful combat" and without a feeling of animosity. This, of course, is the best possible option, only available to the offspring who can successfully deal with his …..

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