My Mum dragged me into the playground and I found myself surrounded by hordes of children, all different ages, all chattering or shouting or tearing around screaming their heads off, nearly knocking me over in the process. I was petrified. There were a few mums around as well as mine, obviously accompanying first timers also. I stared around me, bewildered; none of this was how my sister had described school to me. She had told me it would be fun! This didn’t look like fun. I turned to my mum to tell her I didn’t like it and wanted to go home! Horror of horrors she wasn't there! Pushing my way through the mele I made for and out of the school gate, screaming “Where’s my Mum! Mum don’t leave me!” My voice reaching a crescendo that would shatter glass! She stopped, sighed and came back to drag me once more into the playground, realizing her plan to just slip away was not going to work. She wasn’t an overly demonstrative woman, so hugs and assurances that it was all going to be fine and she would be back at four o’clock, were not forthcoming. But at least she stayed until the bell and the teacher of the first year “infants” had rounded us all up.

So began my education at St. Andrews, Maghull Church of England School. Albeit that it was affiliated with the Anglican Church, it was a state supported school, run by the Lancashire County Council.

Maghull, the small town where I was raised, was just outside the Liverpool boundary, so I guess you could say I was a Lancashire lass! As it was a Church school, religious instruction was a mandatory requirement, so I can remember as far back as my first year, the morning “prayers” that all students had to attend. We had to learn and recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed and sang hymns such as All Things Bright and Beautiful. For many years I couldn’t hear that hymn without getting a feeling of dread at the pit of my stomach. Infant school was a source of fear and dread for me; I never overcame that initial impression of somewhere I did not want to be. If I could have explained how I felt, I would have said the whole idea depressed me. I was teased unmercifully by the children in my class and would dissolve into tears as soon as they looked at me. I was despised by the teachers too; well, I probably wasn’t despised by them but I felt like I was and most of them had an intolerant attitude towards me and I felt unhappy around them. I was such a wimp! The headmaster, Mr. Higham, petrified me — he had only to look at me to reduce me to a quivering, wet blob! Mind you, he really was not a nice man — very much the autocrat and strict disciplinarian. Needless to say I didn’t learn very well while at that school. But I did enjoy the “RI” lessons.

I loved the stories of the Old Testament, learning how there was a God, and he made the heaven and earth in six days. Six days! Then he made Adam and Eve and they sinned and were cast out into the darkness from the Garden of Eden. We learned about Abraham who suddenly fathered a son when he was a very old man and then obeyed God when he was asked to sacrifice his child. Oh my! I really thought that Isaac was going to die when I first was told that story. Then God said “Abraham, Abraham, don’t kill him! You have proved you fear me” or words to that effect. In class I would sit and dream of climbing Jacob’s ladder wearing Joseph’s coat of many colours! I was horrified when I first learned the story of how Joseph was mistreated by his brothers. How they threw him down a pit and then went home with his coat all soiled with goat’s blood to tell their father that Joseph was dead! But later Joseph became a high minister and got to Lord it over all his family — in a nice way. Yeh! for the brow-beaten guy who gets to makes it big!

Then there was Moses in the bulrushes; Oh my! A tiny baby whose mother had to abandon him to save his life. David and the giant, Goliath, who he killed with a stone from a sling! The wise King Solomon, who threatened to slice a baby in half to settle a dispute between two women; both claiming the child was theirs. As soon as he raised the knife, one of them cried “No, don’t kill him, I will withdraw my claim”. As soon as she spoke, he knew she was the real Mother. This was heady stuff!

I read about Ruth, Rachel, Esther and Jonah and the whale. But the really exciting story was the Nativity and the birth of Jesus, Son of God. I never tired of hearing the story of the shepherds in the field and the three Kings, from a far off land bearing gifts and the Baby Jesus asleep in hay in a manger! How wonderful it all seemed to me. I loved learning and singing the carols and to see the decorations in the school.

Throughout those early years I learned about Jesus the man: his parables, his healing, his teachings and kindness. How I loved him and so wanted to see him. I would pray fervently that he would come back to earth soon. I day-dreamed of seeing him and sitting at his feet and hearing him tell his stories. We had to learn the Beatitudes; for years I could recite every one, in order, word perfect. Plus, we had to learn the Apostle’s Creed. To this day I can say it without reading it. But in our version, we said “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church”. Our teacher explained that in this context, “Catholic” meant universal; the “Catholic Church” was really the “Roman Catholic Church”; a totally different meaning. Of course, back in the 1940’s Britain was a predominantly Protestant nation; our legacy from King Henry VIII, but we children were not immune from the politics of the different denominations. The Catholic Church and its school were situated not far from our own and on our way home from school we would sling insults at each other: “Here come the Proddy Dogs!” “Watch out for the Catty Cats!” We even walked on the opposite side of the road from each other! What hope was there for peace among Nations?  When finally, our teacher got to the story of the crucifixion, I was horrified! How could they? How could they kill such a good, kind man? My child’s mind could not conceive of such cruelty, especially to “the Son of God”!

My parents were not religious at all. I think my mother believed in some fashion but she never went to church. I don’t remember much being said in our home about the Bible or God and Jesus. They did celebrate Christmas, and I guess at some point they must have tried to explain to me what Christmas was all about, but to me, until I went to school, it was much more about Father Christmas and getting presents than the birth of Jesus.

It was probably while I was at junior school that I got to go to Church for the first time. I think my whole class was taken over to the church for Harvest Festival, which in Britain, was the name given to Thanksgiving. At the age of 10, I joined the Brownie guides and, wearing my uniform, proudly took part in parades through the town, which always ended up at the church for a service. I can remember listening to the hymns and loving the stain glass windows and the pictures of Jesus and other saints within them. St. Andrews was a very old Norman church, built around 1600. It had the square tower of the Norman tradition in which was housed a set of bells that would peel out before the Sunday services or weddings. I can still hear their song: “Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong!” over and over, up and down the C scale. On a clear summer morning you could hear them from miles away.

Its interior was very old fashioned, with stone pillars (you could hide behind so the Vicar couldn’t see you) and a mounted pulpit that had a stone balustrade all around it, which was accessed by three or four steps. There were two steps leading up to the chancel, but at the top was a brass rail which went completely across; it was a given that ordinary mortals should not go beyond this holy barrier! The choir pews were to each side of the altar and on the far left was the organ with its pipes reaching to the roof. Behind the altar was an enormous stained glass window; it was beautiful with scenes of the Baby Jesus, halo around his head, being held by his Mother, the Virgin Mary. I can remember impressions of rich reds, blues, greens and every other colour from the rainbow.

There was a wonderful sense of peace within its walls, and it carried a smell which too seemed holy: a dusty musk, derived from the incense used at Holy Communion and the damp that pervaded the whole building. I remember when the sun shone in through the upper windows it would capture particles of dust swirling around in its rays. Within the church grounds was the original chapel that dated back to 1200’s. It was kept locked, but when we were kids, my friends and I loved to peer through the windows and read the headstones of the graves that surrounded it. It was never used, but it was in remarkable condition; in 2007 we took a trip back to Maghull and this building was, and is, still standing.

When I was eleven, I moved up to a Secondary School. Attending this school gave me the chance to leave behind the reputation I had developed of being a wimpy dunce! I started to feel more confident and consequently bloomed; plus, I had the added bonus of the headmaster being a totally different person from Mr. Higham.

Every Christmas season the school put on a Nativity play and in my first year I was over the moon to be chosen to play a small part in it. I was one of the children in the village where Mary lived; but wonder of wonders I was also asked to sing a song — it was The Skye Boat Song. Since I grew up I have never understood how the teacher directing the play, could tie in a Scottish song about Bonnie Prince Charlie fleeing the Jacobite’s, in a small boat with Flora MacDonald, with the Immaculate Conception! But hey, I was a new girl getting to sing solo and still too young to question it.

It was about this time that I started to take more interest in church going and religion. I had no one with whom to go to my own church, so I visited churches of other denominations with various friends. I attended the Baptist church for a while and got to see the bath that was beneath the floorboards in the Sanctuary. It was fully tiled, about 10’ x 6’ in size and had steps leading down into the water. It gave me the willies! I also learned the hymn “I will make you fishes of men” — but not much more!

The father of my best friend Joan, was a member of the Christadelphion sect. I even went with them to meetings for a while. (I just googled it and discovered it’s regarded as a “cult”). I knew nothing of that back then, I was just trying it out! The one church I didn’t go to was the Catholic Church. That was to change in years to come, but before then I was to become an avid church goer to the church I regarded as my own, St. Andrews Anglican. This came about because of new neighbours that moved to our street. Their arrival heralded the start of a path I walked which wrought big changes in my life within a few short years.