《My harsh lesson in love and life》.doc

My harsh lesson in love and life Observer writer and interviewer Lynn Barber was an innocent 16-year-old schoolgirl when she met an older man and began a relationship that lasted two years. By day she was a diligent student; by night Simon charmed her with dazzling stories, expensive restaurants and foreign films. And then came a rude awakening. In this exclusive extract from her memoir - now made into a film starring Carey Mulligan and Rosamund Pike - she describes her introduction to an adult world of sexuality and betrayal and how she was damaged by her suitors lessons in life I met Simon Goldman in 1960 when I was 16 and he was - he said - 27, but was probably in his late 30s. I was waiting for a bus home to Twickenham after a rehearsal at Richmond Little Theatre, when a sleek maroon car drew up and a man with a big cigar in his mouth leant over to the passenger window and said, Want a lift? Of course my parents had told me, my teachers had told me, everyone had told me, never to accept lifts from strange men, but at that stage he didnt seem strange, and I hopped in. I liked the smell of his cigar and the leather seats. He asked where I wanted to go and I said Clifden Road, and he said fine. I told him I had never seen a car like this before, and he said it was a Bristol, and very few were made. He told me lots of facts about Bristols as we cruised - Bristols always cruised - towards Twickenham. He had a funny accent - later, when I knew him better, I realised it was the accent he used for posh - but I asked if he was foreign. He said: Only if you count Jews as foreign. Well of course I did. I had never consciously met a Jew; I didnt think we had them at my school. But I said politely: Are you Jewish? I never would have guessed. (I meant he didnt have the hooked nose, the greasy ringlets, the straggly beard of Shylock in the school play.) He said he had lived in Israel when he was your age. I wondered what he thought my age was: I hoped he thought 19. But then w