I was very sad to read in the paper about the chef Antony Worrall Thompson’s recent arrest for shoplifting. I am not a particular fan of AWT but I am always saddened to see any human being in distress, which, for whatever reason, he clearly is.  It’s slightly depressing that the petty misadventure of a ‘celebrity’ chef has reached the front pages of the quality press, but I guess that’s the world we live in.

AWT is a TVchef, writer, broadcaster and presenter, as well as owning two restaurants and a pub. It would appear that he had been having some severe financial difficulties which, in 2009, resulted in his closing four out of his six restaurants, although he claims that he is not in financial trouble now, but is working long hours and is under a lot of strain.

It’s hard to say why people spontaneously steal stuff.  It’s also hard to define why people do bizarre things when they are under stress or possibly suffering from depression.  There is a significant gulf between a person who has kleptomania and someone who has a mental aberration.

‘Kleptomania’, according to the OED is “an irresistible tendency to theft in persons who are well-to-do, a supposed form of insanity.”  The Oxford Medical Dictionary says, “pathologically strong impulse to steal, often in the absence of any desire for the stolen object.  It is sometimes associated with depression.”

So kleptomania and just nicking stuff are very different.  All of us either knew someone at school or themselves who nicked the occasional thing from a newsagent or the chemist, often sweets or make-up which they either couldn’t afford or just wanted to steal for the thrill of it.    This behaviour usually fades away, either because it loses the thrill, they rediscover their moral compass, or they are caught and terrified into never doing it again.

In AWT’s case it sounds as though he is suffering some kind of emotional distress or pre-occupation as he clearly has no need to steal for financial reasons.  I have done some extraordinary things when I have been seriously stressed out and pre-occupied where I have performed actions of which I have no memory whatsoever.

When I was splitting up from my partner, there were several occasions where I would drive to a place to which I drove every day, but completely failed to recognise where I was or how I had got there.  I sat in my car feeling really frightened because I didn’t know how to get to a place that was familiar and had to ask a passer-by where I was, or simply keep driving until a I found somewhere I recognised.

On another occasion, I walked into a shop with a list in my hand and was unable to read any of the items on it or remember why I had gone to the shop in the first place.  These are the actions of a mind in disarray.  A temporary condition, but terrifying nonetheless.

When I read about his case in the paper this morning, it brought to mind an incident when I was in the Lower Sixth at school.  There was a sudden spate of stealing from our study bedrooms.  Initially it was sweets and tuck boxes but later it became bits of jewellery, money and the sort of little personal items which are so treasured by children who are away from home.

Several people were under suspicion, including a couple of Indian girls who were newly arrived from Mombassa; fresh off the boat as they say, ill at ease in an English boarding school and terribly lonely.  I liked them very much and absolutely knew it wasn’t them, but the accusations made them very miserable. No-one was ever caught.

Years later, my best friend from school was visiting me from abroad and confessed that she had been the thief.  I was so shocked I could barely speak.  She had taken all the things and hidden them in a hoard under her bed, not eating the sweets or spending the money, just guarding it like a dragon with its hoard.

She was a hard working high achiever and she had won the Form Prize every year of her school life.  She was brilliant at sport, good at art, good at music, destined for great things.    Her father had abandoned the family when she was young and her mother had struggled to bring up five children on her own.  They were not a warm family and the siblings were very critical and unsupportive of one another.

She became anorexic in the 5^th year but the school refused to acknowledge that their star pupil was wasting away before their eyes – after all she was still winning everything, so what was the problem?  Eating nothing but a bowl of All Bran and water all day was ignored, as was her obsessive exercising way into the night and her inclination to eat a whole bag of sugar before a games lesson so that she would run faster than the rest of us.

In the Upper 6^th she was offered an unconditional place at Cambridge and the school nearly wet itself with excitement as not many girls even went to University at that time.  She didn’t take it, choosing instead to go to a Red Brick university which provided a course that would benefit her chosen career.  The school’s response was to deny her the Gold Medal she richly deserved, the highest academic honour at our school, the recipients having their name in gold on a huge wooden honours board in the hall.  She was shattered.

During our conversation about the thieving, she admitted that, at the time, she had no idea why she was doing it, she just wanted to have other people’s things for herself.  After many years of therapy, she began to understand that it was about control and about taking to yourself things which represented the personal and the wanted.  She felt as though she dare not stop achieving or she would be worthless in the eyes of her teachers and classmates.  She had few friends but she had her certificates to prove that she was a good person.  She had no qualms about the other girls being accused, this only proved that she was brilliant at stealing as well.

The anorexia and the stealing were symptoms of the same thing; the actions of an abandoned and pressured child trying to steer her own boat.  Abandoned and neglected children will frequently manifest some form of mental illness at some point in their lives if they receive no help with their emotions.  Sometimes it emerges early on, but often the pain lies buried and hidden, until something happens to trigger the memory and all hell breaks loose.

I know nothing about Antony Worrall Thompson’s personal circumstances, I’ve never met him and I’m being presumptuous even talking about him.  However, having read the reports in as broad a spectrum of newspapers as I could muster, he has clearly been having a difficult time.  He spoke of the stress of moving house, the death of two close friends, giving up smoking, anaemia, long working hours, his inability to relax and his age.  He was sent away to boarding school when he was barely more than a toddler, his parents split up around the same time and his father was then absent until he was 21.

Call me an old softy, but I’m sad for him.  I hope that this episode will be the trigger that will help him return to a more balanced and happy life.  Because, like the rest of us, he is a real person and I wish him well.