Mum left him on the High Street

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• Christopher Nightingale and the tin-can bomb

  In brief: At age ten, Ajahn Brahm and his chemistry-wizard friend Christopher Nightingale make a bomb in a tin can and set it off in the local park.…

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  I know one of the most stupid things I did as a kid, only 10 years of age, and one of my best friends, I still remember his name, Christopher Nightingale. He was a wizard chemistry and together we made a bomb. We made a bomb in a tin can. And my goodness, it worked. We let it off in the local park. It went bang. And we thought we were so good and so wonderful. I was so proud of just how loud that went. Until the park keeper caught the both of us. We were in big trouble after that. But you know, those were the days when it's just kids being kids. You know, if I made a bomb these days, kids made a bomb these days, they get sent to Guantanamo Bay as terrorists. Those innocent days of my youth. But it was dangerous. I could have killed myself or blown off a hand or something.

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• Telling the kids what their dad got up to

  In brief: Visiting his brother, Ajahn Brahm tells his young nephew and niece about all the naughty things their father did at their age; fascinated,…

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  I did that to my brother once I was visiting him he had you know a son and a daughter they're about you know six and eight or something and I still my brother was doing something else in his house and I started talking about to my nephew and niece what my brother got up to when he was their age all the naughty things he did and they were really fascinated tell us some more about our dad because he never tells us that foreign and then he came into the room he said what are you telling my children I've been doing all these years trying to teach them not to do those things which he did himself and I knew because I was there at the time

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• My father's resolution

  In brief: His father never spoke of his own father in Liverpool. At 14 or 15 Ajahn Brahm finally gets it out of him: 'Your grandfather was a…

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  My father... he was a very kind man. But he would never tell me about my paternal grandfather, my father's dad. And it was frustrating for me every time I asked him, "How was my grandfather like, in Liverpool?" He then asked me, "Be quiet". And then eventually when I was about 14 or 15, I got it out of my dad. I was persistent, "You got to tell me because this is my family. I never saw them because they died during the second World War before I was born. So, how was my paternal grandfather like, and that is when my dad said, please excuse the word, but this is what he said. He said, "Your grandfather was a bastard." He said it was just so much pain in him. That shocked me. I said, "Why?" He said he was not a sexual offender, but a physical offender. He would come home, almost every evening, drunk. He was a plumber. He'd come back drunk, and he'd take off his belt. He'd whip any kid, which you know, he came across. And then he would start beating his wife, my dad's mum. My dad often said that, the pain of just the end of the belt for no reason at all, just my father was drunk. That would never hurt as much as seeing his mother beaten, for no reason at all. He said that really hurt, because he could do nothing to help someone he loved, my paternal grandmother, whom I never saw. But why I say this story for is what my father did about that. He was a child at the time, he could do nothing, except to make this resolution. He told me, he shared it with me this time. He said, "When I was at the end of a beating for no reason, just because my father was drunk, I made this resolution that if ever I survive and have kids myself; and of course he did, me and my brother. If ever I survive, I will never ever do that to my kids. I won't use corporal punishment at all. I'd always remember that. Because I remember several times, brother and I were naughty, just ordinary kids. And sometimes, he'd come into our bedroom with a slipper. He just couldn't do it. He'd just put the slipper down and walked out, because he remembered just what it was like for him.

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• Razor blades sewn into the flat cap

  In brief: His father, apprenticed as a bricklayer in late-1920s East End London, was taught first to sew razor blades into the peak of his flat cap…

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  the first thing he was taught on the building site was how to sew razor blades in the peak of his flat cap. So, if any police or anyone gave him any trouble, he would slash them with like hidden sharp edges. And many places in the East end of London were no-go areas for police

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