she was strange; in fact, the whole family was strange.  Her Mother would blow hot and cold, confusing the life out of me.  One day I was welcome to visit their home - next day I was banned!

Trying to be friends with Janet was like creeping around a volcano that might erupt any minute.  I never knew when something I would say would upset her; then she would go all huffy and storm off into the house!  That would be the last I would see of her that day, apart from peering at me out of the bedroom window! She would tell her Mother that I had been mean to her or some such tale and her Mother would come out and berate me, telling me I was a horrible little girl and wasn’t to play with Janet again or go near their house; she frightened the life out me   – even when I grew into a teenager I could not talk to her without feeling uncomfortable.

The years passed and I made other friends at school, but around the time I reached eleven years of age, I heard on the grapevine that there was a girl of about my age (she was one year older) coming to live in the empty house two doors away from ours. I was over the moon!  We met in the street one day, shyly introduced ourselves and were instant friends. So Pat Bird arrived to live in Spring Gardens and from then on we proceeded to giggle and laugh our way through puberty years.  At first I don’t think her parents exactly approved of me.  You see I went to a Secondary Modern School but Pat went to Grammar School. This meant that she was considered cleverer than I was and I think her Mum, who had high hopes for Pat’s future, thought that I would be a bad influence.  But no matter we became firm friends spending all our free time together. Summer holidays were a blast; some days we cycled far and wide and others we took trains and ferries to outdoor swimming pools in faraway places.  I can still see us at the New Brighton pool, swimming in time to the records that were being played over a loud speaker, “Zambezi” by Eddie Calvert was one. We always had a picnic with us and some spending money for a ride at the fairground; and we laughed, Oh how we laughed!

I don’t know how it came about but in amongst all the fun places we took off to, we suddenly decided to go to church together. Pat’s parents, like mine, did not go to church, although they professed to be Christians and Protestants.  So, despite our families, we ended up at St. Andrews Church of England every Sunday, attending the 10:30 a.m. Matins service.  I can see us now, running like mad up the hill of Damfield Lane, late as always, hearing the bells of the church peeling out over the fields.  We would clatter through the church door just as the service was starting and be rewarded with a dark disapproving look from the Vicar - the very Reverend Peter Barnes.  In all the Sundays we attended I do not remember him speaking to us once.  Maybe a brief nod once in a while as we sidled past him out of the door; but as we spent a large part of the service in fits of giggles, maybe we got off lightly!  Not one of the congregation members came up to speak to us neither and there was no fellowship after the service as there is at the churches these days.  After the service everyone filed out of the church, had “a few words with the Vicar” and went their separate ways.  Undaunted we carried on going, sometimes even going back for Evensong at 6:30 p.m.  This was my favourite service, especially in the summer when the setting sun would shine through the windows and the sound of the well known hymns played by the organist created a wonderful sense of peace.

I find myself looking back now and thinking: if Peter Barnes had taken the trouble to get to know us, if we had received some sign of welcome and friendship from the adult members of the church, would what happened in the ensuing years have been prevented? It is obvious to me now that we needed a foundation for our faith, living examples of the love of God and Jesus and demonstrations of what being a Christian really meant; but we didn’t receive it. 

Despite this lack of warmth and fellowship, Pat and I decided we should be confirmed; in order to do this we had to attend confirmation classes.  Unfortunately for us, the instructor was the Curate (a vicar in waiting).  I can’t remember his name, but he was a strange looking man.  He had a shock of yellow coloured hair that stood out from his head like a blond afro, plus he was tall and very pale - one would almost think he was an African Albino.

He had absolutely no idea how to teach faith and Christianity to a bunch of teenagers.  There were several of us, boys as well as girls, in the class, all fourteen going on fifteen years of age. The classes took place of an evening after supper and week after week we sat there staring at him or the window, or ceiling or altar and day-dreamed as he reeled off the scriptures.  I cannot remember one word he said, nor, I am sure, can any of the other participants.  Every so often he would make an attempt at a joke, which was as colourless as his complexion; then he would look at us all, waiting for the laughter.  Out of our inborn politeness he was rewarded with an occasional titter.  As he intoned, he would pace slowly backwards, forwards, then backwards again, getting ever closer to the altar steps.  Pat and I were absolutely convinced that one day he would fall over them - backwards.  The only thing we got out of the lessons was fits of giggles all the way home over his strange behaviour.  The lessons were a total bore; not one teenager asked him a question the whole six weeks - no interesting discussions, no debates, no curiosity; we just sat there like a bunch of mutes hardly daring to breathe let alone speak!  As he did not encourage any participation, at the end of the six weeks, not one of us was prepared to take on the responsibility of being Christians.  I certainly was not aware that I would be receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.

However, confirmation day arrived: June 28^th, 1957; I was one month shy of my fifteenth birthday.  I remember I wore a white dress with a lilac-coloured sash.  I think my Aunt Ivy, my father’s older sister, borrowed it for me.  She was the only one of the whole family who took any interest in what I was doing and she came to the church to see me confirmed.  Not my Mum, not my dad, not even my sister whom I loved dearly; I really do not remember if they even talked to me about it.  The service was carried out by the Bishop of Liverpool.  I remember he gave all the participants little cards.  I kept mine in a bible my Aunt Dorothy (my dad’s other Sister) had sent me, Xmas 1956. I still have it.  I wrote on it: “The Bishop of Liverpool said ‘Be Strong’”.  Eph 6:10. “Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Not bad words to take along life’s road but they were the only remarkable ones I could remember from the whole experience.  The strange thing is verses 11 – 18 of that same book and chapter have become one of my favourite passages in the Bible. “Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil – the breastplate of righteousness – the helmet of salvation – the sword of the spirit – wonderful, stirring words from Saint Paul.

So, Pat and I were now able to attend Holy Communion.  To accept the bread and wine, we had to go up to the altar rail and kneel on the step.  Most often, the state I was in was one of abject humiliation rather than feeling the Holy Spirit.  You see, I had holes in the soles of my shoes and I knew the people in the front pew could see them! Still the celebration of the last supper always held something special for me.

On December 11^th 1957, when I was only fifteen, my father died of cancer – he was 49 years old.  My Aunt Ivy, who had always dominated over my mother, insisted that the preliminary service be held at her house and the funeral procession to set off from there to the cemetery, where he was interred.  She claimed it was what my father had wanted.  He had never willingly attended church in his life, so I guess she felt that there was no point now that he was dead.  Reverend Peter Barnes was asked to officiate at the house service, which he did, but I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t pleased about it.  Even then he hardly acknowledged me or gave me words of comfort for the loss of my father.  In later years my mother told me that Dad had been something of an agnostic if not an atheist at times, plus that he had expressed a wish to be cremated.  As it was, he was placed in the final slot of a family grave of six; there was no room for Mum to be buried with him! 

By this time, I had left school and started work.  Pat was supposed to be continuing at school for the equivalent of High School education and preparation for university, but she wanted to be like me, out earning some money; as a consequence, she eventually quit school and went to work for the government as a civil servant.  Her Mother was bitterly disappointed and again I think she felt that it was the coming to Maghull and Pat’s friendship with me that was responsible for the turn of events.

Of course, Pat and I now had started dating.  At sixteen I was dating an Italian boy who was, quite naturally, Roman Catholic.  I began to be intrigued by the Catholic religion and one night when we were out walking, I came across a crucifix lying in the gutter, which I picked up and decided to keep.

A scant year later, Pat also lost her father.  He collapsed in Hall Lane with a heart attack and by the time someone got to him he was dead.  This was a terrible blow to Pat’s Mum; she was a lost soul.  He couldn't have been much older than my dad. 

Sometime later, Pat started dating a young man, John, who worked in the same office as she. During their courtship, John had arranged a foursome outing; a blind date for me, with a friend of his whose name was Patrick.  He seemed quite nice so we went on some dates by ourselves. Some months later, Pat came round to our house in tears to tell me she was pregnant.  I was shocked!  Of all the girls I knew, Pat was the last one I expected to get into this kind of trouble.  Of course, this was the late 50’s and when a girl got pregnant it was expected that the couple get married.  Her poor Mother was now totally heartbroken – her husband gone and now her only child marrying out of necessity, and to a Catholic boy!

I continued dating Patrick and in time he asked me to marry him and I said “yes” for all the wrong reasons and I decided to change my religion to Catholic. This was achieved and eventually we married; I was barely nineteen years old and truly this decision was to affect my spiritual development profoundly for the future.

I never became a devout catholic; I did enjoy the Mass, but Holy Communion was so different for me as the bread and wine was represented by one round wafer, referred to as “The Host” or “Eucharist”.  The service was in Latin and there was no singing of hymns.  I was accepted into the church after attending very boring initiation classes.  The Priest at my local catholic church, Father Godfrey, was Irish and somewhat supercilious.  I learned to genuflect, cross myself and for a short while, even sang with the choir. Although at that time Catholics did not sing hymns, at times the mass would be sung by the choir; somewhat similar to when we sing the liturgical responses during our traditional service. When Patrick and I married we even received a Papal blessing.  One year later my daughter, Donna, was born and at two months old was baptized into the Catholic Church.

Three years later Patrick and I separated.  This is not a story about why my marriage failed so I am not going into detail but sufficient to say that for many months I was to suffer torture, as his family - Mother and Sister threatened to take Donna away from me and even turned up at my home one night, attacking me, yelling at me and pushing me around.  Needless to say, legally they couldn’t carry out their threats but they certainly frightened the life out of me. However, life eventually settled down with me as a single parent raising Donna by myself.  Patrick went back to live with “Mum” who he had never really left.

From then on I did not go back to church.  I couldn’t reconcile myself with some of the aspects of the Catholic religion having converted for all the wrong reasons and not from a religious conviction. Unfortunately, neither did I go back to my own church.  I wasn’t sure I was entitled to; I had learned from the Catholic Church that to be divorced, which Patrick and I eventually were, was a mortal sin and to be in mortal sin meant that your soul was not going to heaven.  This knowledge did not bother me – I guess I didn’t believe it or was starting to feel that it was all just talk anyway. For the next few years I walked some dark paths, at one point landing myself in trouble that threatened my future in a big way, but fortune was smiling on me and gave me the means to extricate myself from the consequences.  Or was it someone else helping me?  Now, from this standpoint in my life, I believe that it was God intervening on my behalf.

Sadly, I lost touch with Pat; she remained with John for some years, giving birth to three daughters and then the inevitable happened and they too separated.  I say inevitable, because neither of us should have married those men.  All four of us came from such different backgrounds and with immensely different religious practices that only deep love and intellectual, mature commitment on our parts could have prevented the marriages from disintegrating.

After a few years by which time Donna was six years of age, I eventually met Don, and we married in a civil registry office. Like me, Don had been baptized in the Church of England but for him also, there was no religious grounding at home.  So, we raised the two children, my daughter Donna, who Don adopted, and our own son Spencer, without any faith or religious practices at all, except what they received at school.  On the plus side, both of us had been raised with strict discipline and principles and these we passed on to our children and they grew up into responsible, intelligent adults, both capable of making their way in the world and building good lives for themselves; but they, like us, were not taught to walk with Jesus and to have faith.

I eventually became quite agnostic, very much influenced by the beliefs and opinions of my peers.  By then, in England, people were becoming sophisticated and intellectual and started to question Christianity and the Bible.  For many years I didn’t go near any church to worship and in fact not for one minute did I give God, faith, Christ or salvation, a single thought. There was an occasion when we were invited to attend the wedding of a friend’s daughter. I stood rigidly in the church, refusing to bow my head or close my eyes in prayer.  I couldn’t sing the hymns; I couldn’t even recite the Lord’s Prayer. I had closed my mind to God.

Next month I will present the third and final part of my journey – when I will relate how I came back to faith.

Here is another short cut - to the final Epistle...