Up untill i was about 6 or 7

My earliest thoughts are of having to go to a strange building and having to sit very quiet and still for what seemed like ages. There was singing, there was a man on a stage talking. Then we went home. This happened twice a week. On another time, we went to a house again where I had to sit still and keep quiet. Every now and then i remember going to this big cinema hall, again having to sit quiet and still. This went on for all day for two/three days, and my mum would buy me a new colouring book and pens. There where a lot of people at this hall, and again there where lots of singing, and people on a stage doing a lot of talking. I also remember what would happen if i didn't sit still or quiet. Either Dad would lean over and hit me, or my sister. Or worse still he would drag me out of the toilets at the back, or a back room and wallop me. We were supposed to be listening to these people talking about God.

Being dragged out was worse, because you knew you were in big trouble, and it would end in pain. Getting hit in the hall was bad, it was well embarrassing.

I can remember spending a lot of time drawing. I can remember the song book, and some weird diagrams on the sheet music in the song books, they looked like ducks. I can remember a lady who was an opera singer, she had a really loud voice, you could hear her at the big meetings in the cinema hall.
I remember going to what I thought was a football ground, it was Twickenham. I also remember going to what used to be an old cinema or a theatre. Going to these places were good, I used to get a new colouring book and pencils. However as I got older this changed. I was expected to write notes about what was going on.

An early memory is of having to draw dinosaurs at school, Bishopswood infants, so I would have been 6-7 years old. Because my parents believed in the bible, and in their bible there is no mention of dinosaurs, I had to take my bible in an explain to my class why I did not believe in Dinosaurs. Can you imagine how embarrassing that was. It was a green bible, really big it seemed. I won a competition with the picture i painted, i remember it being announced in assembly, that took some of the embarrassment away. I won a voucher, which i bought some proper football boots, my first ever proper pair, and my picture was displayed at Boundary Hall. I can also remember sitting in the library at Christmas times. Looking through the windows at the other kids singing songs. I wondered if god was going to be angry because I was watching them. Birthdays were a time of telling people I did not celebrate birthdays, all they kept asking was ' you don't get no presents!'. Christmas time was spent looking out of my bedroom window at my mates house, JP, and all the lights and the tree with loads of presents around them, it was a very, very upsetting time, and I would go to sleep hoping that it would all be over very quickly.

Getting dressed up smart, a shirt and tie, and knocking on peoples doors and talking about the bible. I can remember knocking on a door near where i lived and always going in for a cup of tea (m's).
As i got older it got more embarrassing, meeting your school mates who would always ask questions as to what I was doing. Eventually i got to know where most of them lived and managed to try and dodge going to those doors. Then there was missing football, all my friends played football and they were in a team Calleva. I kept getting asked to play for them, I loved football. Every Saturday morning, except when the weather was really bad, instead of going to play football with my mates from school, I had to go out on what was called 'door to door service'. Every Saturday I really hoped it would rain, and also Sundays.

Most of the time people were not at all interested. Some were really down right rude and abusive. However I was told Jesus did this, so I would also have to do this. Why? Well from an early age I was taught that my reason for living was to serve God. God had made humans, Adam and Eve, and they had sinned. However God had given us another chance, he had sent his son Jesus to earth as a sought of repayment so that we may be given the chance to live forever on a paradise earth. There were certain conditions to qualifying for this though. Namely you had to be part of this religion and follow all the rules, or you would get destroyed at armageddon. Pretty scary stuff when you are growing up. So as much as I hated what I was doing I had to, otherwise I would die forever. So giving up playing football and living forever on a paradise earth seemed worthwhile. Another downside to this was my friendship with my mates at school. Well I never ever had one. The religion also taught that anyone who wasn't in the religion was bad, and all association must be kept to a minimum. This meant for me being their friends whilst at school, because I had too. However when school finished I was only to associate with the people in my religion. This was very disheartening, I was the only one in my religion in the village I was brought up in, all the others lived miles away. One good thing came out of this though, I was allowed to played with some of my mates from school.

However there were limitations on that. No guns, soldiers, knives and swords. I did however dabble in this, and a few of my closer mates obviously had these things and played them. I can remember once playing soldiers with my mate, JP, and my dad had come looking for me to get me in. I cycled round the corner carrying this rifle and almost ran my dad down, I dropped the gun and cycled home as fast as I could. I got a good slap for that, and wasn't allowed out for a while.

As a youngster I can really remember sleepwalking a lot, and having very disturbed sleep. A couple of times I had woken up going through the front door of my house. We had a brook in front of the house, so looking back I shudder to think what may have happened. I can even remember waking up at my nan's outside with her dogs chasing me around. I didn't particularly enjoy night time and the darkness, I had lots and lots of nightmares. One that I vividly remember is being chased, I remember waking up with my mum coming in my room and I am climbing on top of my wardrobe. I also regularly dreamt about ghosts, and as I fell asleep I could always hear lots of voices shouting, and regularly I would get this feeling which is hard to describe. It was like having my bed in the middle of an extremely large room and I was very scared of the amount of space I was in. I would try to hide under the covers to make it go away.

Purpose

Throughout my life, even as a child i have always wondered what is the purpose of life. Even now i have many questions, and i have always struggled to find a medium to find out the answers. When i talk about the purpose, i mean many things. The situations you find yourself in, the people you meet, why do you like this music and not that, why does this culture interest me, what happens after life? I could go on and on.



So my purpose for writing this blog. Well first and foremost, i believe it will help me, a kind of self-counselling process. You will help me, you will have had similar experiences and i hope you will comment on these and how you have moved on from them. I am also hoping that together we can help other people who are going through similar experiences.



Please approach anything i write with an open mind, and if i offend any one i will apologise now. Whatever i write are my own experiences and feelings. If you do not like what you are reading, please leave. I will finish this opening with the words of Dr Spock and the Vulcans 'live long, and prosper'.