When Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was growing up in South Africa, he was picked for his primary school football team.
But come the day of the match, he didn't want to play, he recalled during a visit last week to Rosh Pinah School in Edgware.
He was worried how his peers would react when he went into the changing room to put on his kit and they saw his tzitzit. Couldn't he leave them just this once, he asked his rabbinic dad. "Absolutely not."
The time duly came to change and, sure enough, his Jewish garment was spotted. "Look, he is wearing lucky strings," said a comrade.
The youthful Mirvis went on to lead his team to victory, scoring both goals. And from then on, "before every game, all the boys wanted to check I was wearing my lucky strings."