The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas Read Online Free

daily sessions.’ It was an early example of how not to teach. ‘When I finally gave the piano up I played the trumpet to join the school orchestra, and because it was my own choice I loved it. I was very loud but not particularly good.’
    At the age of seven Michel met a German girl his age who initiated him into the mysteries of sex. ‘She was a sweet little girl and we used to play together. She wanted to play a doctor and nurse game that was new to me and we went to the basement of her building. So we had fun, naked. But we were surprised by an old man who saw us en passant and walked away. It was terrible for me to be discovered like that. Terrible! I felt so guilty and ashamed!’ Michel was so bothered by the experience that he confessed everything to his aunt. ‘Idessa sat down with me and talked very simply about growing up and sex and love. She told me there was no reason to feel shame. She said that sex should be connected to love to make it meaningful and beautiful. “But not now! Wait until you grow up.”’
    Other interests were encouraged, perhaps to steer the youngster away from precocious sex, and an early love of animals developed. ‘I grew up identifying with all life, and this extended to animal life. I developed a love and an understanding for animals, and ended up with dogs, cats and eighteen birds.’ He was given a canary named Mouki. ‘A wonderful singer! We were friends, and I always left the door to his cage open. In the morning when I had breakfast I would call him and he would come and perch on the table.’
    A mate was found to keep Mouki company, and other birds followed. The family apartment in Breslau had a large balcony overlooking a garden and Michel and his birds colonised it. Half of the balcony was turned into a gigantic birdcage, modelled on one seen on a visit to the zoo, complete with grass, elaborate perches and a live tree. The outside cage was connected directly to Michel’s bedroom through a window. ‘I developed good personal relationships with all the birds, and they would fly around my room. I called to them individually and they would perch on my finger.’
    The childish interest developed into a passion, and eventually led to a life-changing insight. At the age of eleven Michel was taken on a summer holiday in the mountains. His room had a terrace, and he discovered a bird’s nest with eggs under the eaves. At first the birds flew off at his approach, but slowly they grew accustomed to his presence. ‘I was very curious so every day I sat at a respectable distance until they finally accepted me. I watched the chicks hatch and saw how the parents taught them. They taught them. In bird language. The chicks learned to react to certain sounds - there were sounds for danger, so that they would keep quiet, and others for food when they were about to be fed. This was language, communication. And I learned with the little birds and found it fascinating.
    ‘They had to learn how to fly, and to be daring. Some of the chicks were timid, some courageous. The very timid ones had to be pushed out of the nest. I observed definite individual behaviour in each chick almost as soon as it hatched.’ These observations led to the conclusion that most animal behaviour was learned, not instinctive. It was an insight that changed the way he thought - that one of the powerful innate drives in all living beings is the urge to learn.
    He became absorbed in mythology and devoured books on the subject. His imagination had been captured by the Romans and Greeks at an early age; as he grew older he was inspired by the romantic heroes of German mythology. He took a handsome leather-bound volume of Legends of the Gods: Treasures of German Mythology from the bookshelves of his uncle’s library, and read by torchlight beneath the sheets long into the night. [14] ‘They were stories about values and about heroes who stood up for those values. I completely absorbed these Nordic heroes. Siegfried