Editing Harold Pinter (section)

===Early life and education===
Pinter was born on 10 October 1930, in [[Metropolitan Borough of Hackney|Hackney]], east London, the only child of British Jewish parents of Eastern European descent: his father, Hyman "Jack" Pinter (1902–1997) was a ladies' tailor; his mother, Frances (née Moskowitz; 1904–1992), a housewife.<ref name=GussowConv103>Harold Pinter, as quoted in Gussow, ''Conversations with Pinter'' 103.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pinter |first=Harold |title=Harold Pinter: An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center |url=https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uthrc/00108/hrc-00108.html |access-date=2021-04-27 |website=legacy.lib.utexas.edu |language=en}}</ref> Pinter believed an aunt's erroneous view that the family was [[Sephardi Jews|Sephardic]] and had fled the [[Spanish Inquisition]]; thus, for his early poems, Pinter used the pseudonym ''Pinta'' and at other times used variations such as ''da Pinto''.<ref name=Billington1>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 1–5.</ref>  Later research by [[Antonia Fraser|Lady Antonia Fraser]], Pinter's second wife, revealed the legend to be apocryphal; three of Pinter's grandparents came from Poland and the fourth from [[Odesa]], so the family was [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazic]].<ref name=Billington1/><ref name=JewishBackground>For some accounts of the significance of Pinter's Jewish background, see Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 2, 40–41, 53–54, 79–81, 163–64, 177, 286, 390, 429.</ref><ref name=Woolf1>[[Cf.]] {{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2007/jul/12/theatre.haroldpinter |title=My 60 Years in Harold's Gang |first=Henry |last=Woolf |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=12 July 2007 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://www.webcitation.org/5zu6rYC0X?url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2007/jul/12/theatre.haroldpinter |archive-date=3 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}; Woolf, as quoted in Merritt, "Talking about Pinter" 144–45; {{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/howard-jacobson/howard-jacobson-harold-pinter-didnt-get-my-joke-and-i-didnt-get-him-ndash-until-it-was-too-late-1297593.html |title=Harold Pinter didn't get my joke, and I didn't get him – until it was too late |first=Howard |last=Jacobson |work=[[The Independent]] |date=10 January 2009 |publisher=[[Independent News & Media|INM]] |location=London |issn=0951-9467 |oclc=185201487 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://www.webcitation.org/5zu70UVpG?url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/howard-jacobson/howard-jacobson-harold-pinter-didnt-get-my-joke-and-i-didnt-get-him-ndash-until-it-was-too-late-1297593.html |archive-date=3 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Pinter's family home in London is described by his official biographer [[Michael Billington (critic)|Michael Billington]] as "a solid, red-brick, three-storey villa just off the noisy, bustling, traffic-ridden thoroughfare of the [[Lower Clapton]] Road".<ref name="Billington, Harold Pinter 2">Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 2.</ref> In 1940 and 1941, after [[the Blitz]], Pinter was [[Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II|evacuated]] from their house in London to [[Cornwall]] and [[Reading, Berkshire|Reading]].<ref name="Billington, Harold Pinter 2"/>  Billington states that the "life-and-death intensity of daily experience" before and during the Blitz left Pinter with profound memories "of loneliness, bewilderment, separation and loss: themes that are in all his works."<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 5–10.</ref>

Pinter discovered his social potential as a student at [[Hackney Downs School]], a London grammar school, between 1944 and 1948. "Partly through the school and partly through the social life of Hackney Boys' Club&nbsp;... he formed an almost [[Wiktionary:sacerdotal|sacerdotal]] belief in the power of male friendship. The friends he made in those days – most particularly [[Henry Woolf]], Michael (Mick) Goldstein and Morris (Moishe) Wernick – have always been a vital part of the emotional texture of his life."<ref name=Woolf1/><ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 11.</ref>  A major influence on Pinter was his inspirational English teacher Joseph Brearley, who directed him in school plays and with whom he took long walks, talking about literature.<ref>A collection of Pinter's correspondence with Brearley is held in the [[Harold Pinter Archive]] in the British Library.  Pinter's memorial epistolary poem "Joseph Brearley 1909–1977 (Teacher of English)", published in his collection ''Various Voices'' (177), ends with the following stanza: "You're gone.  I'm at your side,/Walking with you from [[Clapton Pond]] to [[Finsbury Park]],/And on, and on."</ref>  According to Billington, under Brearley's instruction, "Pinter shone at English, wrote for the school magazine and discovered a gift for acting."<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 10–11.</ref><ref>See also "Introduction by Harold Pinter, ''Nobel Laureate''", 7–9 in Watkins, ed., '' 'Fortune's Fool': The Man Who Taught Harold Pinter: A Life of Joe Brearley''.</ref>  In 1947 and 1948, he played [[Romeo Montague|Romeo]] and [[Macbeth (Macbeth)|Macbeth]] in productions directed by Brearley.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 13–14.</ref>

At the age of 12, Pinter began writing poetry, and in spring 1947, his poetry was first published in the ''Hackney Downs School Magazine''.<ref>Baker and Ross 127.</ref>  In 1950 his poetry was first published outside the school magazine, in ''[[Poetry London]]'', some of it under the pseudonym "Harold Pinta".<ref name=RansomColl>{{cite web |url=http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uthrc/00108/hrc-00108.html |title=Harold Pinter: An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center |last=Staff |work=[[Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center]] |publisher=[[University of Texas at Austin]] |year=2011 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604035449/http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uthrc/00108/hrc-00108.html |archive-date=4 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 29–35.</ref>

Pinter was an atheist.<ref>"The Meeting is a about the afterlife, despite Pinter being well known as an atheist. He admitted it was a "strange" piece for him to have written." Pinter 'on road to recovery', BBC.co.uk, 26 August 2002.</ref>