My Family and Me.

My family are a bit special, belonging to a smallish but determined group, fundamentalist, evangelical Christians. Neither my mum or my dad came from such backgrounds but they were both born-again Christians before they met. And my dad, back from the war and after a short spell as a policeman in the London Police, became a London City Missionary. This organisation set up back street missions in the poorer parts of the city with the aim of converting people to their sort of Christianity.

Although not as isolated as say the Jehovah Witnesses, as I grew up, all our friends, the people we saw, were of the same beliefs, and it was not until I went into hospital for three spells when I was eight that I began to realise that everyone was not like us, in fact most people were not. Shortly after this we moved house and I went to a new school where I was no longer one of a group who had grown up knowing each other, I was alone with kids who didn't know me or my family. I found that to survive I had to join a gang, and to join that gang I had to buy cigarettes from the leader and although, at around the same time, both my sister and I claimed to have been 'born-again', it was at this time that I started to question the family's beliefs.

This continued when I moved on to grammar school where peer pressures were even stronger and it really got to the point where my home life and life outside of the home became 2 different things. It was quite easy because my parents had no contact with my school friends who came from all over the London Borough of Croydon where we lived. But then things changed dramatically after my first year there when we moved right away, down to Sidmouth, a small town on the East Devonshire coast.

Beautiful Sidmouth where my dad had his small church for about 30 years.

I remember it was magic to get away from the big city which I felt had some dangers I was going to have to face. And starting at a new, mixed grammar school with only 400 students as opposed to my boys only, over a thousand students in London, was quite easy at first. But very quickly it became known that my father was a reverend and by year 3 I was becoming known as a 'comedian', someone who was willing to try the patience of the teachers and was 'funny'. I knew this had to be my way because I was not sporty or thick but was definitely 'bright'. On the other hand, soon it seemed that everybody in Sidmouth knew that I was the son of a minister. At that time, fundamentalists were very strict. Alcohol and smoking were definitely out, the television was regarded with suspicion and the cinema, dancing, everything a growing teenager wanted to get into were considered sinful. And if I went to the cinema, my dad would know about it before I even got home.

So, my double life continued. I got baptised by immersion, a necessary rite of passage in the church whilst being over-joyed that I was given the job of walking our collie dog on Sunday afternoons which got me out of one of the three church sessions every Sunday. And this walk gave me a smoking opportunity too. Several boys from my class (but no girls) were by now attending my dad's church, brought in by the YMCA in which my dad ran the best boys' club in town with its full-size snooker table and sports teams. But I tended to run with the boys who didn't come. Then, of course, sex reared its head along with alcohol so that by the age of 16 my double life was becoming a strain with lies coming off my lips like a constant stream of duplicity. And during the holidays, when I could live away from home in the hotel where I worked, I worked on becoming as much of a rebel as possible as drugs became the next addition in a small way along with a love of pop music, longer hair and fashionable clothes.

The church ran a sort of discussion group, aimed at the younger set, and that was difficult to escape and a couple of my school mates that I got on with also would attend and there were a couple of slightly older girls who had the same mind set us ours. I remember one evening, when we were discussing the problems of President Nixon and American attitudes to their black population, hearing a good christian person saying that Nixon had to be supported because he was a born-again christian. And one of our girls said that she knew that the worst treatment of black Americans happened in the Bible-belt, full of supposed born-again people. This was a game-changer for me. I no longer wanted to belong to such a group and I couldn't wait to get away from home to live my own life....I didn't want to upset my parents so I had to just get away.

The whole family together....A rare photo.

And get away I did, to London and to a new life. Mind you, I spent some time living with my mum's sister, Auntie Doris and her family who were also born-again Christians and had to attend their local church and picked up a girlfriend there and so a life of duplicity had to continue. When I left there, I had to be in a hall of residence for my first year and that was a christian one but I avoided all the religious activities. 

Now during this time, my mum read a letter I had written to my sister which talked about drugs I could get for her. She took it to the police and I gave up talking to her. I was by now living in a flat in Chelsea with my new French girlfriend and living the full hippy lifestyle. When my dad came to see me for my 21st birthday to give me an electric shaver, I had a full beard and was coming down from an acid trip. Dad tried to keep the relationships going but I was not keen. 

My dad watching me milk one of our goats.

Then I announced that we were getting married in Bristol and dad arranged for one of his friends to allow us to get married in his church and my dad wanted to marry us. That was a difficult day because, outside of my parents, all the other guests were our hippy friends and, as they were driving us towards our honeymoon destination, staying with my dad's sister on the Isle of Wight, my mum went on about us spoiling her day so I flipped and said we would get out and walk. My mother then addressed a horrible letter to Simone, my new wife, and it was only the loving reception from my Auntie Nancy, non-Christians, that helped me refrain from giving them a statement of my feelings about their religion.

It was when we had a baby that relations started again. They helped us find a cottage in the country in North Devon, bought us a car and would visit regularly although we had some near misses as far as culture clashes were concerned.

When we moved to France we kept in touch and mum and dad came for a rather unsuccessful visit and then dad came again alone which was a success. He had told me that he would be watching carefully and would know if I was developing well which from time to time he told me I was.

Now my sister, after a bad acid trip, got back into the family religion which made our relationship difficult because, if anything she was more extreme than my parents. My parents wanted me and my sister Lou to get on well but it wasn't easy, not helped by her husband who was difficult to like.

With my parents at Lyme Regis in the late nineties.

When we moved back to the UK, we used to visit regularly and I, in fact, spent a difficult 3 months living with them but living my own way and not attending the church at all. I had said that I couldn't stand organised religion, that my beliefs were my own private affair.

Things softened as my parents grew old. I even bought my dad Sky TV so he could watch his beloved sports, including the football match on Sunday afternoons, a far cry from the days of his deciding what programmes we could watch and never allowing watching on a Sunday. I discovered that my mum was interested by the world and always was interested in discussing politics, economics and such things in the news.

My sister and I at my parent's house in the 1990's.

Dad died when I was on holiday in France with my second partner, Liz, and her family. I was the last person he spoke to, on the phone, and I felt we were at peace with each other. Relations had improved somewhat with my sister too as she felt less obliged to constantly preach to me. Then, I spent nearly 3 years looking after my mother and was the last person to speak to her before she passed on quietly in Exeter Hospital. We had really got to know each other during that time and, although I think she kept her faith, she was no longer dominated by the human elements of it. And she accepted my right to my own beliefs. And, in spite of some difficulties, my sister and I keep in touch by email.