Post by snugglebunny on Dec 24, 2017 12:46:30 GMT
On 6 July 1946, 2 soon-to be-famous persons and 1 very ordinary fella arrived in the world. They were:
George W Bush
Sylvester Stallone
Snugglebunny - moi!
My place of birth was Bolton in the County of Lancashire, England.
I was the number 2 son. I’d had an elder brother who died just a few days after his birth in 1944. I mention this because this sad occurrence led to a series of events that were to have a major effect on my own upbringing.
My parents were simply Mum & Dad.(We say Mum, not Mom!)
Dad was 25 when I arrived, Mum was 24.
Dad had been in the RAF during the war. He’d joined up in 1940 and assigned to Bomber Command. He became a bomb-aimer and altogether flew on 43 bombing sorties over Germany.
When I arrived Dad was still in the RAF, so my earliest years were spent in mainly female company, my mother and both sets of grandmothers eager to take part in my development.
We had lots of relatives living within walking distance. Grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, most all of our extended family were within a mile or two. So there were frequent family get-togethers, particularly at Christmas.
Life was good. I was at school at age 5 where our seating position in our class was dictated by how clever we were deemed to be. I sat at the “top table” and quickly learned how to read. In 1953, when I was 6, all the children at school were presented with gifts to celebrate the crowning of Queen Elizabeth the Second.
My home life was good too. Both my parents were ardent football (soccer) supporters, so, every other week of the football season, I would be farmed out to one relative or another so that they could watch the game while I played happily with my cousins.
My parents partied a good deal. Dad’s RAF pals were always visiting us so there was loud music late into the night while Dad would perform his favourite party trick of drinking all the water out of the flower vases.
Eventually Dad was demobbed from the RAF, but not before they had re-trained him in the difficult and demanding job of an air-traffic controller.
Meanwhile, Dad would make model aeroplanes, ships, windmills, cranes and trains – would you believe it, supposedly all for me! I never got to touch them much either.
Yep, I was a happy child, although my mother had a heavy right hand which she wasn’t averse to using on me whenever I transgressed.
Then one memorable day, my Mum and Dad sat me down and told me that my dad’s new occupation meant that we would soon be moving house. We were going to leave the North of England and move “down south”.
London!
So we moved south to London.
Actually it was a London suburb. Close to London Heathrow Airport, my Dad needed only to hop on the 116 bus, change to the 90B in Hounslow and he was there in less than 30 minutes.
The inevitable change of school brought me many problems, not least being my own broad Lancashire accent. Also, the school was a good 12 months ahead of the one that I had left, so I was quickly demoted from bright star to bottom-of-the-class dunce.
Mum was also very stressed. She missed Lancashire, the family too, and also found the southerners of England damned unfriendly.
I was later to learn that the death of my elder brother in 1944 had a lot to do with her unhappiness.
When my brother had died years previously, my Dad had been granted 48 hours compassionate leave by the RAF.
That first night, in 1944, when the Lancaster flew on another bombing run over Germany without my Dad on board, the plane had been shot down.
The crew were listed as Missing, presumed killed.
My Dad had been distraught and also full of guilt.
My grandmother – his mother – had been dabbling in Spiritism and suggested that Dad saw a spirit medium with a view to getting in contact with his dead crew. This would be in 1945.
Eventually Dad complied, he agreed to see a spirit medium.
The spirit medium went into a trance and said that she was now in contact with the skipper of the shot-down Lancaster. She stunned my Dad when she said that his name was McKay. She described in detail how McKay had witnessed the death of himself and his crew.
The whole thing shook Dad up considerably.
So now here we are, 9 years on in 1954. I’m almost 9 years old, Mum is highly stressed most of the time and Dad is working hard at London Heathrow.
Then, in late 1954, my Dad received a letter that had come from overseas.
The letter was from a chap called McKay and had been written just a few weeks previously.
Skipper Mc Kay hadn’t died in the crash of the Lancaster. He’d parachuted to safety and spent the rest of the war as a POW. He just wasn't dead - he was very much alive!
So now my Dad was really shaken up. He needed some answers.
But where to start looking?
So my Dad has been kept off a doomed Lancaster bomber by the death of my elder brother and has also spoken to the “dead” skipper whom he now finds to be very much alive. Spooky!
That winter was a real chiller. Our water froze solid, cars were unstartable, the airport was closed temporarily.
My Mum took solace in the Playhouse cinema in Feltham and in the never ending consumption of mint imperials along with a deep addiction to cigarettes.
One night, whilst she was at said cinema, there was a knock on the front door. I was sent to answer it. My dad was in the attic attempting to unfreeze the water pipes by means of a lighted gas-poker attached to the garden hose which was in turn attached to the kitchen stove.
I opened the door to be confronted by a tall, hook-nosed man (in retrospect he looked like Abe Lincoln) who wanted to speak to one of my parents. Oh God I thought, he must have come to complain about me.
Well, no. I heard Dad say, whoever you are, come inside, it’s far too cold to talk on the doorstep.
At which point I lost all interest and went back to reading my comic books. The witnesses had entered our home and I was to remain blissfully unaware until...
...Until several weeks later when my dad announced that we were going to “a meeting” and that I was going too and I had better practice sitting still for a whole hour! Oh crikey, this was terrible!
Years later I learned what had happened that icy evening when the witnesses first called. My Dad had said to the witness, Leslie, that if he could answer just 1 question satisfactorily, he would look further into this strange religion.
So, Dad had told Leslie all about Mckay and the spirit medium and how McKay was dead then suddenly alive and living in Canada.
And Leslie had the answer...
Demon impersonation!
Because demons were wicked they were also imperfect and because they were imperfect they often made mistakes and because this particular demon who was impersonating McKay hadn’t done his homework properly, he had made a fundamental error in not checking up that McKay was definitely dead. Silly demon.
My Dad bought it 100%.
We were part of a religion and from here on in, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
So, I'm now 9 years old.. Now my dad became totally obsessive about all things JW. He got hold of Rutherfords old books and old records. The hissy American voice boomed continuously out of our old radiogram. Dad took me to one side and explained that if I was a good boy I would live forever. He began to criticise my reading of comic books. He berated me daily for not reading the day’s text. He criticised my friends for what they were and worst of all he hated the way I used to kick up about being forced to attend meetings. He was totally, totally obsessed with the witnesses. It dominated everything. Mentally, it was like having a bucked of cold water thrown over me every day. He talked about absolutely nothing else.
One day, when Leslie called to take us to yet another public talk and this time the Watchtower study too – 2 bloody hours!!– I raised merry hell. This time Leslie fixed me with a stare and said:
“Satan is working through that child”
My mother was devastated. She’d been gradually brain-washed by dubbism but her interest was way lower than Dads. I hadn’t a clue who Satan was so I wasn’t troubled overmuch. Mother was still smoking furiously, Dad was puffing his pipe and smoking cigarettes too as well as spending more and more time with witnesses drinking beer in the Load of Hay public house.
Eventually, the time came for us to attend our first circuit assembly at Epsom Baths. My Dad had decided to be baptised at the assembly on the Saturday morning. Mum had decided to attend the Friday night session with just me as Dad was at work. This being our first assembly, Mum didn’t know the ropes and thought it would be OK to smoke.
Dad was duly baptised and immediately asked for a cigarette. He continued to smoke for over a year afterwards although Mum gave it up immediately after her own baptism at Twickenham in 1955. It was no big deal back then, smoking was something mature persons didn’t do, but Dad hung grimly onto his pipe.
Meanwhile, Dad’s obsession with dubbism got worse and worse. I loathed the whole damn thing with a passion, but now, at 10 years old I was finally beginning to accept the idea that it was me who was at fault and that if Armageddon came anytime soon I wasn’t going to make it. I was going down. I accepted the religion as the truth but loathed it too. All the drip drip drip from my Dad and the 5 meetings a week were slowly writing on the blank canvass of my brain. I was no good.
Eventually Dad gave up smoking and qualified as a Ministerial servant. He was then part of the threesome that then formed a judicial committee. Within 3 years -1958 - he would become a PO of his own congregation. The Feltham congregation of Jehovah's witnesses!
And little old me was meanwhile struggling with early adolescent issues and feeling like a total worm amidst all the goodness that was around me.
Maybe I should get baptised..
It’s now 1957 and things are happening fast!
My mum has now adopted the JW religion as her sole raison d’etre and has become quite militant. Bombastic in fact. Now she’s the one who adopts judgementalism and walks around with the hoity-toity air of a dedicated servant of “The Most High God”(her words). Quite frankly, she becomes a total pain in the neck and passes judgemental comments and criticisms of everyone and everything that isn’t connected to dubbism. She also becomes very, very prissy.
Next, my grandmother joins up! She’s considered as a weak sister because she still enjoys the godspot on TV with all of the hymn singing and all. However around this time it’s announced that there’s going to be an International Assembly at Yankee Stadium New York and grandma wants to go there. What’s more she’s intends to take me along too! On a ship to New York!
Hmm..maybe there is some fun in this religion after all..
Autumn 1957, and we have a family meeting. The 3 of us. Jehovah has blessed Mum & Dad with a gift. A baby is on the way. A new brother or sister for Michael!
So now as well as a trip to America I’m going to be elder brother to a sibling. I’m delighted.
I’m now out of my primary school and attending Longford Secondary school having flunked my 11+ exam. I’m still A-streamed, much to my astonishment, but a couple of our teachers seem to be ex-military psycho drop-outs so I’m caned on a regular basis for cheek and talking when I should be listening. Caned on the hand, not on my derriere. The teachers know that I’m of JW stock so use this fact to demand that I behave in a more suitable fashion. Very embarrassing.
Now my Dad becomes the PO of Feltham congregation and our house becomes the hub of JW activity. No telephone yet, so folk drop in with their problems whenever they feel like it. It’s the group centre and focal point for the ministry work, something that I hate to take part in, but I know that I have to go door-knocking in order to survive the big A. I remember knocking on one door with my Watchtower in hand and finding it being answered by a class mate. That was good for my street cred!
So many conflicts...I’m a social and lively animal that’s being stifled with this religion. I start to have nightmares, and begin ripping at my finger nails. It’s abuse of the worst sort and my parents haven’t got a clue. If I’m unhappy it’s because I’m not doing enough for the religion!
And then...I have a baby brother, Timothy. He’s a bonny little kid and when he yells at meetings I get to take him out from the meetings in his pram – freedom!
As well as being a bouncing baby, Tim is also a Gift From Jehovah, a Reward For Faithfulness and, just like Abraham, My Dad’s very own Joseph, A Child Granted in Old Age (Dad was only 38 but already painfully patriarchal).
So now I’ve got a brother at last and am looking forward to going to America in just a few weeks.
How fitting it would be if I was to be baptised at The Divine Will Assembly in America!
Or not..
July 15, 1958. Grandma and I take the train to Southampton. There we board the TS Arosa Star and set off for the USA. Although the ship has been chartered by the WTBTS, my grandma has paid extra for a first-class cabin for us both.
The ship is full of JW’s, half of them Brits, the other half German. Many of the Britwits seem very poor, their cabin conditions are appalling and some of the kids seem to have mental health issues. I guess that the ship was just a microcosm of witnesses generally. No matter, I enjoy the voyage hugely and am highly amused by the German brother who takes the days text in the ships lounge while puffing on a cigarette.
Once in New York, we are driven to our accommodation in the heart of the Bronx. The whole place seems to be in a state of disrepair. Grandma has £500 stitched into a secret pocket in her corsets - we were only allowed to take £50 sterling out of the UK back then - and generally spoils me rotten. We attend the assembly for 6 of the 8 days. I’m baptised at Orchard Beach and then grandma whisks me off to Coney Island for an afternoon of fun. That part was great!
Now, at age 13, I’m back in England and back at school. I have a general sense of unease which is compounded by a 14 year old girl in our congregation getting a public reprimand for fornication. My dad actually read out her misdoings while the girl just sat and sobbed. Later my dad told me that he knew something was wrong in the congregation because meeting attendance had slipped, a sure sign that Jehovah’s blessing was being restricted because of wrongdoing.
So now I sit at the meetings noting the attendance in case my own fascination with my developing body was also restricting Jehovah’s blessing and affecting the numbers. Oh dear, such guilt to have heaped on a 13 year old kid!
Now I started to confess to anything I could think of that might be restricting the spirit so as I could receive absolution. I confessed to breaking a fence, putting a cricket ball though a window, driving a motor-scooter under-age and a hundred and one things, just to make sure that I am clean and free from Jehovah’s condemnation. Looking back now I can see how this sort of obsessiveness gets implanted into the psyche of young witnesses and might get so entrenched that it can affect them for the rest of their lives.
My dad became frustrated with my anxiety and started to reprimand me for being anxious! Then he went to the pharmacy and bought me Sanatogen nerve tonic, this, BTW, had also been prescribed to my mother in an attempt to calm her down too.
At age 14 I’m a total mess. I’m preparing all my meetings thoroughly, going out in the ministry twice a week, conducting a home Bible study and taking an active roll in the ministry school. I just can’t be happy with myself no matter what I do.
If only this religion wasn’t The Truth.
Then a few things occur that actually raise my self esteem considerably. I discover a penchant for carpentry and shine brightly in our weekly woodwork day at school. My maths teacher, Mr Hawkes, also takes me under his wing and quickly fills in all the blank spots that I missed 7 years earlier when we first moved to London. I also find that I understand trigonometry with ease. Plus, I’m given permission by our art master Mr. Dyson to take the GCE exam in art at 14 instead of 15 because they think that I’m good enough. I pass!
So now I’m 15, 6 feet 1inch tall and extremely interested in girls. I’ve decided to stay on at school – I could have started work then – and become a fifth-former, studying carpentry, physics and French. My mind is so busy that I don’t experience the profound depression that I endured at 14.
Now things get quite weird. I have a JW friend, Brian, who is nuts about motorcycles and I catch the bug too. Then the 2 of us meet up with a couple of girls in the local chip shop and get invited back to their house. It’s all very innocent. Later we discover that the girls are Pentecostals, so I get cold feet but Brian hangs in there!
As my first term as a fifth-former comes to an end, Dad says that he’s been chatting to "brother" Darnell who is a section leader in a local engineering firm, Elliotts. So says dad, armageddon’s just around the corner, no point in furthering my education, why not go to work and have bro Darnell as my boss? Added to which, every worker in bro Darnell’s section is also a JW, and guess what? They spend their break time studying the day’s Bible text!
So, in January, following many protestations from my school teachers who are concerned about me not completing my education, I start full time work for which I receive the princely sum of five pounds two shillings and sixpence per week. I give my parents £3 per week and keep the rest.
I get to 16 and I’m now allowed to stay out until 9:30. After much nagging I finally convince my parents that I must have a motorcycle and purchase an old BSA 500. I’m still best mates with Brian and we go to the meetings together on our bikes and then sometimes ride out to The Old Manor in Camberley. It was like we switched hats every few hours from JW’s to young desperados. By this time I’ve kissed a few girls –old world girls!–and thrive on the intrigue and romance. Most non-meeting nights we hang out around Bedfont Green chatting to the likes of Terry Bryant whom we envied for his BSA Road Rocket..
But there’s a cloud on the horizon. Dad’s restless, he’s looking for something else and decides we need to move “where the need is great” as a sort of UK missionary and thus please the mighty Jehovah who looked down and saw everything.. Oh dear here we go again..
So. He gives up being Presiding Minister of the Feltham Congregation. Then he resigns as an air-traffic controller and gives up any rights to a pension in return for a 1-off payment of 1 years salary. We are going to live in Yeovil, Somerset in a caravan, on a trailer park!!! Oh boy.
The move was a disaster. It was awful. We were cold, broke, friendless and unemployed much of the time. Mum was ratty as hell, Timothy got ill and the local congregation were like a bunch of territorial savages. I’ve turned 17 and JFK has just been shot. Then, within a few months, Dad receives enlightenment!
We were unhappy because the Watchtower society had originally wanted us to move to Weston super Mare but my parents had preferred the trailer park in Yeovil. We’d not done as Jehovah had wanted and that’s why it wasn’t working out in Yeovil.
So, we were now going to move to Weston super Mare to put things right!
The next weekend we drove up to WSM to check the place out. Mum loved it and so did I. Dad liked it too, so we decided to stay a little longer and visit the local congregation in time for the Watchtower study.
It was the biggest Kingdom hall that I had ever been in and the congregation was almost 200 strong. I sat down with my parents and tried to put on a suitably spiritual air. I glanced to the left of me across the centre aisle and found myself looking into the eyes of the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen in my life..gosh - a real Claudia Cardinale type!
Suffice to say that we moved to Weston super Mare where Dad immediately took over as PO.
The pretty girl – call her Marianne -I’d seen on my first visit said that I looked just like Billy Fury and would I like to come round sometime to listen to her 45’s? You bet I would!
So we moved to WSM and Marianne and I became an item, but under an incredibly severe regime of chaperoning. I’d recently got my full driving licence and as soon as was 18 I began driving a lorry for a local building supplies merchant. I received a full man’s wage so I was able to run my own car.
Marianne came from a dreadfully dysfunctional witness family. She was also as moody as hell herself. Her dad was my dad’s assistant and totally, absolutely inflexible about anything. He’d got 5 kids in total and everyone of them would have left the JW’s by the time they hit 20. Her mother was rated as number 1 troublesome person in the KH and she was absolute poison. She’d go out in the ministry and often took a bag of old clothes with her which she’d try and sell with her Watchtowers as she went along.
We were in WSM for almost 3 years. I saw my dad postpone a Saturday JW meeting because it clashed with the soccer World Cup Finals. This was, for me, the start of a love affair with football that endures to this day. I settled well in Weston and drove lorries for several building companies, all under 3 tons as that was the limit for under 21's.
Soon, dad was unhappy and he needed to do something to please Jehovah and so get rich blessings again. He needed to move again to "where the need was great". We were going to Portsmouth! Portsmouth? Where the hell was that? Half the place seemed to be bomb sites, to me it resembled Middlesborough by the sea.
But what about Marianne? We were engaged by this time but her dad refused to give us permission to marry (we were both under 21) and he still refused to even let us go to the cinema unaccompanied. Maybe I should move, along with mum and dad, and Marianne could then leave home and move near to where our new home was to be? Hmmm..that could work.
So that’s what happened. I was aged 20 when we moved to Portsmouth and duly set about trying to impress the local congregation where dad took over as PO. Marianne moved near to us although her father threatened to physically restrain her. Around this time my dad really leant on me to become a full-time JW minister – gawd, and I hated knocking bloody doors!
I was given 2 ministerial servants positions, became a popular public speaker, took the WT study and sometimes conducted group studies.
In between all this, I’d found a place to hide my car so that no-one could see it with its steamed-up windows..
The inevitable eventually happened! After 3 years of being an item.
Marianne confessed and the s*it hit the fan. Splat!
We were both placed on a kind of probation - called "restrictions" nowadays. The conditions were that Marianne returned to WSM forthwith and that we were never, ever to be alone together. I was removed from WT study conducting, being a Ministerial Servant, taking group studies, giving public talks, saying prayers and full-time pioneering. I was relegated to being a turd in a swimming pool, the lowest of the low. Mum and dad walked around with tears in their eyes for weeks. Brother Tim picked up on it and would give me sidelong grins from time to time.
I’m 21 now and qualified to drive heavy trucks. I take a job with a brick company in Southampton and am happy to spend as much time away from home as possible. If I’m away on meeting nights, then so much the better. I basically just want to settle down with Marianne, but I’m starting to have doubts about living with her moodiness. However, it’s another year before she gets to 21 so I just grit my teeth and try to work through.
Then, a few months after she’s sent back home, I get a letter from Marianne to tell me it’s all over. It’s all my fault of course, I’m basically a total dead loss and no longer worthy of her.(she’s actually fluttered her eyelashes at a young brother from Bristol who tells her how she deserves to be treated as though she were a princess). Wow. And then I feel an unexpected sense of freedom..
To my own astonishment I'm not grief-stricken by Marianne dumping me. I'm more concerned with a feeling of now what?
I have money in the bank, little attachment to JW’s or my parents and there is a big wide world out there.
So now I face up to the fact that I can't stay living with my parents for much longer. I've always paid more than my share into the family pot, so leaving home won't cost anymore than remaining. But where to go?
The situation took care of itself. News that I was now officially un-betrothed flew around the Hampshire congregations. A couple of families with daughters of marriageable age “dropped by” the house. I got invited to a bethel (JW-speak for Wathtower HQ) boy’s weekend party which consisted of the bethel boys getting smashed before taking the last train back to the bethel on Sunday evening. And then I was invited to another “party” in Havant.
Some party! I’d been set up to go out in a foursome. It was a blind date. Oh dear - here we go again!
My blind date partner - call her Cindy - was blond and perky and full of fun. And a pioneer! We hit it off quite well. We went on a pub-crawl and finished up in The Jolly Sailor near Southampton (the same pub in which TV's Howards Way was filmed). It always seemd slightly strange to me that JW's were prudish about almost everything except the consumption of alcohol. Pubs were a way of life for many.
My parents welcomed Cindy with open arms. After the sulky Marianne, a chatterbox like Cindy was made very welcome. Hmm...Mum and Dad were being pleasant to me again, although I was still under restrictions from my 'blip' with Marianne.
So Cindy and I became officially engaged and were married in December 1968. I was 22, she was 20.
Almost immediately Cindy became pregnant, she felt grim most of the time so didn’t want to go to meetings. We had a son, Mark then later we had a daughter, Samantha. The downside of our marriage was that we had absolutely nothing in common whatsoever. Cindy was volatile, unpredictable and could be very violent. She had no boundaries at all and would even row in the street. Once, at a dinner party hosted by us, she struck another JW lady around the face. They’d disagreed on the identity of the England football manager! (the visiting witness lady was correct BTW, Dave Mc Kay was never the England manager).
Added to which, she’d taken to hitting me around the face. She was always pathetically sorry after each incident but I was later to earn how she had been on the receiving of violence herself as a child. It seemed to me that just about everyone I knew who’d had a JW upbringing was a totally emotional wreck, me included.
The violence had become known to the local elders, so they called around to see me. I was sporting a big black eye when they came in, so I lied as to how it had occurred. No good. They pounced on it and reprimanded me for not keeping my wife "in subjection". Thanks, fellas, that really helped.
It just got worse and worse. She scratched my car, scratched me, threatened me with a knife, hit me with a broken glass so that I had to have stitches, it just went on and on. I remember once sitting down in a transport cafe for hours and letting a feeling of total despair wash over me. I knew that I could be an irritating bugger at times but surely I didn’t deserve all this crap?
So we both started to play the field a bit. Just parties, a smoochy dance with someone else or a quick kiss in the kitchen with another lady or fella. Nothing more though, nothing for which one could be disfellowshipped. Not yet anyway..We’re now getting into 1972. At this point, my meeting attendance is down to zero and my PO contacts my dad expressing his concern that I’m falling away from the JW’s. Most JW's are anticipating armageddon's arrival in 1975, but I'm not remotely convinced. Added to which, I’m occasionally sneaking off to a remote pub out in the countryside to enjoy a quiet pint and a cigar. I liked smoking cigars!
I’m also having real issues with JW beliefs centering around a loving god killing off millions of people and the injustice of disfellowshipping (excommunication). I imagine myself trying to explain both of these witness tenets to someone who is rational and all I can see is incredulity that anyone could accept such cruelty. My dad offers to give me a private Bible study to address these issues. I don’t take up the offer.
Witnesses are now contacting me to urge me to hang in there Michael, only 3 years to 1975. He that endures to the end..etc etc.
I’m working in a sales environment now and have had some degree of success. I’ve kept quiet about the JW connection and am thoroughly enjoying the experience of being accepted as a normal person by my workmates. It’s at this point that I begin to realise that these “old world” associations are a damned sight more pleasant and straightforward than any JW folk with whom I’ve been associating. Plus, there’s no judgementalism!
Partying now becomes a way of life for us. Cindy and I actually get on better now because we aren’t in each other’s faces so much. I’ve taken to smoking Dunhill cigarettes and even have a gold Dunhill lighter to complete the image. We’re also associating with an ex- witness couple, Mike and Pam, who were disfellowshipped a year before. Mike teaches me a few guitar chords and I try to sing and strum Leonard Cohen and Tom Paxton. Can’t manage Kristoffersen though!
Eventually a letter arrives from the Leigh Park Judicial Committee. Bro Hooper, you are accused of associating with disfellowshipped persons! Earlier I’d walked around the local District assembly with my DF’d pal, it seemed the best way of getting my message across.
I didn’t attend the Judicial Committee, nor did I attend the next arranged meeting, so I was disfellowshipped in absentia. My parents shunned me for a number of years after that, as did all my witness friends. By this time I'd become an ardent Portsmouth FC fan and attended every home match. So I kept busy and gradually made new friends.
Eventually, Cindy found herself someone else and we split up..the break-up was horrendous and as I continued to have some contact with Cindy as the mother of 2 of my children, I’m skipping right over the rest of 1972 and leaving an entire 6 months out of this story. Our divorce would take over 8 months to be finalised and it was definitely not a good time!
But sunshine was on the horizon and all the negative stuff I’d experienced was going to be more than adequately compensated for!
My parents were gutted by the divorce and by my disfellowshipping. Once again, dad decided to move where the need is great and get more blessings,(ho-hum, yawn) so this time they were off to Matlock in Derbyshire.
I stayed in Portsmouth and rented a flat in the Southsea area. I wasn’t short of company and was now spending time with Mike and another ex called Larry. I’d also really got into Irish folk music and was often to be found swinging my beer in a bar with some other ex’s who’d been part of the “Portsmouth Dirty Dozen” who had all been excommunicated too. On Sunday nights we'd have a riotous evening at Southsea's Coral Reef Bar singing along with Jon Isherwood, Noel Murphy, John Fitzgerald and sometimes Jasper Carrot.
I was now also in the motor trade! I’d go with Mike to Southampton car auctions, buy an old wreck and tart it up so I could sell it at a profit. I concentrated on British sports cars so I’d always got something flashy to travel around in. I had a number of Sunbeam Alpines, a frog-eye Sprite, MG Midgets and an MGB.
By early 1973 I’d also polished up my wardrobe, grown my hair fashionably long and got some Ray-Ban specs. And a purple suede jacket. The biz! Then, one day, Cindy contacted me totally out of the blue. Mike, let's try and be civil to one another, how about just the two of us go out for the evening? Hmmm, I thought, ...well OK, let's meet up in the Barley Mow in Southsea for a drink - oh yes, I've just had my membership through for Club Tiberius Casino, let's go take a look there as well.
So that's what we did. Suitably armed with a five-pound note, I paid my first ever visit to a casino as a member. I quickly learnt how to play roulette and after an hour was around £30 up, which I duly split 50-50 with Cindy. We then made our way to the lounge area. I saw a waitress on the far side, so I wandered over to order coffees and a cigar. Oh my..
The young lady turned round and smiled at me. I was totally dumbstruck. I'd never seen anyone so attractive in all my life. She had an extraordinarily pleasant voice and took my order for coffees and a cigar. A few minutes later she came over to the table where Cindy and I were sat. I put a 25p chip in the little silver bowl on the ladies tray and then caught Cindy looking at me with one eyebrow raised above the other.
Hah, you like her, don't you said Cindy, not unpleasantly. I replied that I did actually think that she was a stunner. Then feeling brave, I said that was the kind of girl that I should have married. Snuggy, said Cindy, she is way, way out of your league! Well yeah...I guess she was.
But she wasn't!
I became a regular visitor to the Casino from then on. Sometimes I'd scrape together a whole pound and play roulette with just 10p chips. By this time the lady was working behind the casino bar, so it was easy to just sit on a bar stool opposite and make small talk while drinking whisky and American Dry. I could make my drink last for hours!
I learned that she’d been a nurse previously and had suffered with glandular fever, so the doc told her to get a job in an outgoing situation so as to help lift the depression associated with the illness. I also found out that she liked folk music and my God, she was a Pompey fan! WOW!
However, I also discovered that she was only 19 and was painfully aware that casino staff dating clients was an absolute no-no. I didn't even know her name. Also, I was aware that if did ask her out and she refused, there would be no second chance so I had to be content with spending many weeks just sat at that bar talking. I didn’t want to blow it!
But I was putting a devious plan into operation..
I kept on telling her about this amazing folk club in Southsea that put on a really entertaining show on Sunday nights. Again and again I told her about it and how great it was and how she should really pop in there sometime. This went on for some considerable time
And then, one Sunday night.. she turned up at the club with her cousin!
It was the first time that I’d seen her not wearing the casino outfit. She was wearing old jeans and a baggy top and still looked sensational. Then she offered to buy me a beer. Buy me a beer? Gosh. Girls never did that in 1973, they just looked for the loo and somewhere to sit while the fellas bought the drinks.
I discovered that her name was Christina and that she had 2 brothers and that she wasn’t living at home. Her two brothers had left the area, so there was no-one to accompany her to football matches. Oh dear.
I bet you can see where I was headed with this information... :-)
So off we went to Fratton Park and we saw Portsmouth beat Nottingham Forest 2 - 0. Then we went out on a friends boat for the day. Then I heard her sing. She'd strum a guitar and sing stuff by Cat Stevens and could even play and sing Don MacLean's American Pie all the way through. At the time I wasn't looking for a heavy involvement and just enjoyed Chris's company. We'd drive around in my old Hillman Minx singing Kris Kristofferson songs as we went. We were companiable together and stayed just good friends for a long time. It was just what I needed. Just what she wanted too. An easy-going pleasant friend,undemanding and non-judgmental. A soul mate. The first girl I'd actually liked as well as fancied.
I wrote to my parents in Derbyshire. Their shunning of me meant that our contact was almost nil. I told them that I had a special friend. My dad wrote back and said that he hoped that she was kind. Later he wrote again and spoiled it all by saying that we must marry immediately so that I could become "clean in Jehovah's eyes" as the first step to me making my way back as a JW. Pfft.... Fat chance poppa.
I eventually saw my parents again. By this time they were really leaning on me so I finally told them that, no, I wasn't coming back and that was for the simple reason that I simply didn't believe a word of their religion, and that futhermore, I never had believed it in my heart either! They were shocked. They'd really thought that I was just being temporarily rebellious. It hadn't occurred to them that I wasn't a JW for the clear reason that I didn't accept it as the truth and had never, ever wanted to belong in the first place. It wasn't the truth! I'd just been imprinted with their beliefs when I was a child. Armageddon never came in 1975. All their prophecies failed.
By now my divorce from Cindy was almost through. By this time she'd also been disfellowshipped. Chris and I moved in together and rented a house in Lee-on-Solent. Her parents treated us well, as did her brothers.
We got married on December 7th, 1973 and honeymooned in Jersey. My parents would only attend the wedding if I guaranteed that no ex-witnesses were present at the ceremony or reception and that it wasn't a church wedding. I regret to say that I agreed to their demands and that my father gave a little pro-witness speech at our reception which just about embarrassed everybody.
I was in regular contact with my children with Cindy, and they adored Chris too. 43 years on and they still do!
We decided to have a family. Chris always reckons that watching Jaws at the cinema is what brought on our eldest, Simon, 3 weeks too soon.
Later we had James. Then Ben. At that point I was offered a job back in WSM which I accepted. We're still in Weston today.
Our boys have grown into fine young men and we are immensely proud of them all. We see them and their ladies on frequent occasions. I have a sensation of having taken a major part in the re-building of my family. In the early 90's, once they were all into education, Chris went to uni. She got her BA at Bristol and later an MA at Bath, and then became a lecturer at WSM college. She retired last year.
Dad died in 1984 aged just 62. My parents were then living in social housing and alweays short of money. Such a come-down for a once professional man! Mum died in 2010, still wondering what was delaying armageddon. We'd got closer, Mum and I, and she was finally able to accept my choice not to be a JW. It grieved me to hear that she wasn't expecting to have got so old.
Brother Tim left the witnesses when he was 17. He'd loved his neighbour a little too well and was thrown out of the JW's. He too said that he always hated the whole thing. We see a great deal of one another at holiday times. He designs model aircraft and makes unusual stringed instruments. Ex-wife Cindy died just a few months ago. I attended the funeral, not just for Mark and Sam's sake, but for mine too. Cindy's JW siblings - who had shunned her for years - were told to stay away from the funeral. They did.
So now I'm 71 and Chris is 64. We have six grandchildren. She's still my best friend. Sometimes, if I prime her with a couple of whiskies, she'll play guitar and sing Cat Stevens stuff to me just like she did when she was 19 years old.
So life really did turn right round for me in my mid 20's. I finished up with a lovely family and a great social circle. And I'm very, very grateful. I'm a very lucky fella!
That's it!
George W Bush
Sylvester Stallone
Snugglebunny - moi!
My place of birth was Bolton in the County of Lancashire, England.
I was the number 2 son. I’d had an elder brother who died just a few days after his birth in 1944. I mention this because this sad occurrence led to a series of events that were to have a major effect on my own upbringing.
My parents were simply Mum & Dad.(We say Mum, not Mom!)
Dad was 25 when I arrived, Mum was 24.
Dad had been in the RAF during the war. He’d joined up in 1940 and assigned to Bomber Command. He became a bomb-aimer and altogether flew on 43 bombing sorties over Germany.
When I arrived Dad was still in the RAF, so my earliest years were spent in mainly female company, my mother and both sets of grandmothers eager to take part in my development.
We had lots of relatives living within walking distance. Grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, most all of our extended family were within a mile or two. So there were frequent family get-togethers, particularly at Christmas.
Life was good. I was at school at age 5 where our seating position in our class was dictated by how clever we were deemed to be. I sat at the “top table” and quickly learned how to read. In 1953, when I was 6, all the children at school were presented with gifts to celebrate the crowning of Queen Elizabeth the Second.
My home life was good too. Both my parents were ardent football (soccer) supporters, so, every other week of the football season, I would be farmed out to one relative or another so that they could watch the game while I played happily with my cousins.
My parents partied a good deal. Dad’s RAF pals were always visiting us so there was loud music late into the night while Dad would perform his favourite party trick of drinking all the water out of the flower vases.
Eventually Dad was demobbed from the RAF, but not before they had re-trained him in the difficult and demanding job of an air-traffic controller.
Meanwhile, Dad would make model aeroplanes, ships, windmills, cranes and trains – would you believe it, supposedly all for me! I never got to touch them much either.
Yep, I was a happy child, although my mother had a heavy right hand which she wasn’t averse to using on me whenever I transgressed.
Then one memorable day, my Mum and Dad sat me down and told me that my dad’s new occupation meant that we would soon be moving house. We were going to leave the North of England and move “down south”.
London!
So we moved south to London.
Actually it was a London suburb. Close to London Heathrow Airport, my Dad needed only to hop on the 116 bus, change to the 90B in Hounslow and he was there in less than 30 minutes.
The inevitable change of school brought me many problems, not least being my own broad Lancashire accent. Also, the school was a good 12 months ahead of the one that I had left, so I was quickly demoted from bright star to bottom-of-the-class dunce.
Mum was also very stressed. She missed Lancashire, the family too, and also found the southerners of England damned unfriendly.
I was later to learn that the death of my elder brother in 1944 had a lot to do with her unhappiness.
When my brother had died years previously, my Dad had been granted 48 hours compassionate leave by the RAF.
That first night, in 1944, when the Lancaster flew on another bombing run over Germany without my Dad on board, the plane had been shot down.
The crew were listed as Missing, presumed killed.
My Dad had been distraught and also full of guilt.
My grandmother – his mother – had been dabbling in Spiritism and suggested that Dad saw a spirit medium with a view to getting in contact with his dead crew. This would be in 1945.
Eventually Dad complied, he agreed to see a spirit medium.
The spirit medium went into a trance and said that she was now in contact with the skipper of the shot-down Lancaster. She stunned my Dad when she said that his name was McKay. She described in detail how McKay had witnessed the death of himself and his crew.
The whole thing shook Dad up considerably.
So now here we are, 9 years on in 1954. I’m almost 9 years old, Mum is highly stressed most of the time and Dad is working hard at London Heathrow.
Then, in late 1954, my Dad received a letter that had come from overseas.
The letter was from a chap called McKay and had been written just a few weeks previously.
Skipper Mc Kay hadn’t died in the crash of the Lancaster. He’d parachuted to safety and spent the rest of the war as a POW. He just wasn't dead - he was very much alive!
So now my Dad was really shaken up. He needed some answers.
But where to start looking?
So my Dad has been kept off a doomed Lancaster bomber by the death of my elder brother and has also spoken to the “dead” skipper whom he now finds to be very much alive. Spooky!
That winter was a real chiller. Our water froze solid, cars were unstartable, the airport was closed temporarily.
My Mum took solace in the Playhouse cinema in Feltham and in the never ending consumption of mint imperials along with a deep addiction to cigarettes.
One night, whilst she was at said cinema, there was a knock on the front door. I was sent to answer it. My dad was in the attic attempting to unfreeze the water pipes by means of a lighted gas-poker attached to the garden hose which was in turn attached to the kitchen stove.
I opened the door to be confronted by a tall, hook-nosed man (in retrospect he looked like Abe Lincoln) who wanted to speak to one of my parents. Oh God I thought, he must have come to complain about me.
Well, no. I heard Dad say, whoever you are, come inside, it’s far too cold to talk on the doorstep.
At which point I lost all interest and went back to reading my comic books. The witnesses had entered our home and I was to remain blissfully unaware until...
...Until several weeks later when my dad announced that we were going to “a meeting” and that I was going too and I had better practice sitting still for a whole hour! Oh crikey, this was terrible!
Years later I learned what had happened that icy evening when the witnesses first called. My Dad had said to the witness, Leslie, that if he could answer just 1 question satisfactorily, he would look further into this strange religion.
So, Dad had told Leslie all about Mckay and the spirit medium and how McKay was dead then suddenly alive and living in Canada.
And Leslie had the answer...
Demon impersonation!
Because demons were wicked they were also imperfect and because they were imperfect they often made mistakes and because this particular demon who was impersonating McKay hadn’t done his homework properly, he had made a fundamental error in not checking up that McKay was definitely dead. Silly demon.
My Dad bought it 100%.
We were part of a religion and from here on in, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
So, I'm now 9 years old.. Now my dad became totally obsessive about all things JW. He got hold of Rutherfords old books and old records. The hissy American voice boomed continuously out of our old radiogram. Dad took me to one side and explained that if I was a good boy I would live forever. He began to criticise my reading of comic books. He berated me daily for not reading the day’s text. He criticised my friends for what they were and worst of all he hated the way I used to kick up about being forced to attend meetings. He was totally, totally obsessed with the witnesses. It dominated everything. Mentally, it was like having a bucked of cold water thrown over me every day. He talked about absolutely nothing else.
One day, when Leslie called to take us to yet another public talk and this time the Watchtower study too – 2 bloody hours!!– I raised merry hell. This time Leslie fixed me with a stare and said:
“Satan is working through that child”
My mother was devastated. She’d been gradually brain-washed by dubbism but her interest was way lower than Dads. I hadn’t a clue who Satan was so I wasn’t troubled overmuch. Mother was still smoking furiously, Dad was puffing his pipe and smoking cigarettes too as well as spending more and more time with witnesses drinking beer in the Load of Hay public house.
Eventually, the time came for us to attend our first circuit assembly at Epsom Baths. My Dad had decided to be baptised at the assembly on the Saturday morning. Mum had decided to attend the Friday night session with just me as Dad was at work. This being our first assembly, Mum didn’t know the ropes and thought it would be OK to smoke.
Dad was duly baptised and immediately asked for a cigarette. He continued to smoke for over a year afterwards although Mum gave it up immediately after her own baptism at Twickenham in 1955. It was no big deal back then, smoking was something mature persons didn’t do, but Dad hung grimly onto his pipe.
Meanwhile, Dad’s obsession with dubbism got worse and worse. I loathed the whole damn thing with a passion, but now, at 10 years old I was finally beginning to accept the idea that it was me who was at fault and that if Armageddon came anytime soon I wasn’t going to make it. I was going down. I accepted the religion as the truth but loathed it too. All the drip drip drip from my Dad and the 5 meetings a week were slowly writing on the blank canvass of my brain. I was no good.
Eventually Dad gave up smoking and qualified as a Ministerial servant. He was then part of the threesome that then formed a judicial committee. Within 3 years -1958 - he would become a PO of his own congregation. The Feltham congregation of Jehovah's witnesses!
And little old me was meanwhile struggling with early adolescent issues and feeling like a total worm amidst all the goodness that was around me.
Maybe I should get baptised..
It’s now 1957 and things are happening fast!
My mum has now adopted the JW religion as her sole raison d’etre and has become quite militant. Bombastic in fact. Now she’s the one who adopts judgementalism and walks around with the hoity-toity air of a dedicated servant of “The Most High God”(her words). Quite frankly, she becomes a total pain in the neck and passes judgemental comments and criticisms of everyone and everything that isn’t connected to dubbism. She also becomes very, very prissy.
Next, my grandmother joins up! She’s considered as a weak sister because she still enjoys the godspot on TV with all of the hymn singing and all. However around this time it’s announced that there’s going to be an International Assembly at Yankee Stadium New York and grandma wants to go there. What’s more she’s intends to take me along too! On a ship to New York!
Hmm..maybe there is some fun in this religion after all..
Autumn 1957, and we have a family meeting. The 3 of us. Jehovah has blessed Mum & Dad with a gift. A baby is on the way. A new brother or sister for Michael!
So now as well as a trip to America I’m going to be elder brother to a sibling. I’m delighted.
I’m now out of my primary school and attending Longford Secondary school having flunked my 11+ exam. I’m still A-streamed, much to my astonishment, but a couple of our teachers seem to be ex-military psycho drop-outs so I’m caned on a regular basis for cheek and talking when I should be listening. Caned on the hand, not on my derriere. The teachers know that I’m of JW stock so use this fact to demand that I behave in a more suitable fashion. Very embarrassing.
Now my Dad becomes the PO of Feltham congregation and our house becomes the hub of JW activity. No telephone yet, so folk drop in with their problems whenever they feel like it. It’s the group centre and focal point for the ministry work, something that I hate to take part in, but I know that I have to go door-knocking in order to survive the big A. I remember knocking on one door with my Watchtower in hand and finding it being answered by a class mate. That was good for my street cred!
So many conflicts...I’m a social and lively animal that’s being stifled with this religion. I start to have nightmares, and begin ripping at my finger nails. It’s abuse of the worst sort and my parents haven’t got a clue. If I’m unhappy it’s because I’m not doing enough for the religion!
And then...I have a baby brother, Timothy. He’s a bonny little kid and when he yells at meetings I get to take him out from the meetings in his pram – freedom!
As well as being a bouncing baby, Tim is also a Gift From Jehovah, a Reward For Faithfulness and, just like Abraham, My Dad’s very own Joseph, A Child Granted in Old Age (Dad was only 38 but already painfully patriarchal).
So now I’ve got a brother at last and am looking forward to going to America in just a few weeks.
How fitting it would be if I was to be baptised at The Divine Will Assembly in America!
Or not..
July 15, 1958. Grandma and I take the train to Southampton. There we board the TS Arosa Star and set off for the USA. Although the ship has been chartered by the WTBTS, my grandma has paid extra for a first-class cabin for us both.
The ship is full of JW’s, half of them Brits, the other half German. Many of the Britwits seem very poor, their cabin conditions are appalling and some of the kids seem to have mental health issues. I guess that the ship was just a microcosm of witnesses generally. No matter, I enjoy the voyage hugely and am highly amused by the German brother who takes the days text in the ships lounge while puffing on a cigarette.
Once in New York, we are driven to our accommodation in the heart of the Bronx. The whole place seems to be in a state of disrepair. Grandma has £500 stitched into a secret pocket in her corsets - we were only allowed to take £50 sterling out of the UK back then - and generally spoils me rotten. We attend the assembly for 6 of the 8 days. I’m baptised at Orchard Beach and then grandma whisks me off to Coney Island for an afternoon of fun. That part was great!
Now, at age 13, I’m back in England and back at school. I have a general sense of unease which is compounded by a 14 year old girl in our congregation getting a public reprimand for fornication. My dad actually read out her misdoings while the girl just sat and sobbed. Later my dad told me that he knew something was wrong in the congregation because meeting attendance had slipped, a sure sign that Jehovah’s blessing was being restricted because of wrongdoing.
So now I sit at the meetings noting the attendance in case my own fascination with my developing body was also restricting Jehovah’s blessing and affecting the numbers. Oh dear, such guilt to have heaped on a 13 year old kid!
Now I started to confess to anything I could think of that might be restricting the spirit so as I could receive absolution. I confessed to breaking a fence, putting a cricket ball though a window, driving a motor-scooter under-age and a hundred and one things, just to make sure that I am clean and free from Jehovah’s condemnation. Looking back now I can see how this sort of obsessiveness gets implanted into the psyche of young witnesses and might get so entrenched that it can affect them for the rest of their lives.
My dad became frustrated with my anxiety and started to reprimand me for being anxious! Then he went to the pharmacy and bought me Sanatogen nerve tonic, this, BTW, had also been prescribed to my mother in an attempt to calm her down too.
At age 14 I’m a total mess. I’m preparing all my meetings thoroughly, going out in the ministry twice a week, conducting a home Bible study and taking an active roll in the ministry school. I just can’t be happy with myself no matter what I do.
If only this religion wasn’t The Truth.
Then a few things occur that actually raise my self esteem considerably. I discover a penchant for carpentry and shine brightly in our weekly woodwork day at school. My maths teacher, Mr Hawkes, also takes me under his wing and quickly fills in all the blank spots that I missed 7 years earlier when we first moved to London. I also find that I understand trigonometry with ease. Plus, I’m given permission by our art master Mr. Dyson to take the GCE exam in art at 14 instead of 15 because they think that I’m good enough. I pass!
So now I’m 15, 6 feet 1inch tall and extremely interested in girls. I’ve decided to stay on at school – I could have started work then – and become a fifth-former, studying carpentry, physics and French. My mind is so busy that I don’t experience the profound depression that I endured at 14.
Now things get quite weird. I have a JW friend, Brian, who is nuts about motorcycles and I catch the bug too. Then the 2 of us meet up with a couple of girls in the local chip shop and get invited back to their house. It’s all very innocent. Later we discover that the girls are Pentecostals, so I get cold feet but Brian hangs in there!
As my first term as a fifth-former comes to an end, Dad says that he’s been chatting to "brother" Darnell who is a section leader in a local engineering firm, Elliotts. So says dad, armageddon’s just around the corner, no point in furthering my education, why not go to work and have bro Darnell as my boss? Added to which, every worker in bro Darnell’s section is also a JW, and guess what? They spend their break time studying the day’s Bible text!
So, in January, following many protestations from my school teachers who are concerned about me not completing my education, I start full time work for which I receive the princely sum of five pounds two shillings and sixpence per week. I give my parents £3 per week and keep the rest.
I get to 16 and I’m now allowed to stay out until 9:30. After much nagging I finally convince my parents that I must have a motorcycle and purchase an old BSA 500. I’m still best mates with Brian and we go to the meetings together on our bikes and then sometimes ride out to The Old Manor in Camberley. It was like we switched hats every few hours from JW’s to young desperados. By this time I’ve kissed a few girls –old world girls!–and thrive on the intrigue and romance. Most non-meeting nights we hang out around Bedfont Green chatting to the likes of Terry Bryant whom we envied for his BSA Road Rocket..
But there’s a cloud on the horizon. Dad’s restless, he’s looking for something else and decides we need to move “where the need is great” as a sort of UK missionary and thus please the mighty Jehovah who looked down and saw everything.. Oh dear here we go again..
So. He gives up being Presiding Minister of the Feltham Congregation. Then he resigns as an air-traffic controller and gives up any rights to a pension in return for a 1-off payment of 1 years salary. We are going to live in Yeovil, Somerset in a caravan, on a trailer park!!! Oh boy.
The move was a disaster. It was awful. We were cold, broke, friendless and unemployed much of the time. Mum was ratty as hell, Timothy got ill and the local congregation were like a bunch of territorial savages. I’ve turned 17 and JFK has just been shot. Then, within a few months, Dad receives enlightenment!
We were unhappy because the Watchtower society had originally wanted us to move to Weston super Mare but my parents had preferred the trailer park in Yeovil. We’d not done as Jehovah had wanted and that’s why it wasn’t working out in Yeovil.
So, we were now going to move to Weston super Mare to put things right!
The next weekend we drove up to WSM to check the place out. Mum loved it and so did I. Dad liked it too, so we decided to stay a little longer and visit the local congregation in time for the Watchtower study.
It was the biggest Kingdom hall that I had ever been in and the congregation was almost 200 strong. I sat down with my parents and tried to put on a suitably spiritual air. I glanced to the left of me across the centre aisle and found myself looking into the eyes of the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen in my life..gosh - a real Claudia Cardinale type!
Suffice to say that we moved to Weston super Mare where Dad immediately took over as PO.
The pretty girl – call her Marianne -I’d seen on my first visit said that I looked just like Billy Fury and would I like to come round sometime to listen to her 45’s? You bet I would!
So we moved to WSM and Marianne and I became an item, but under an incredibly severe regime of chaperoning. I’d recently got my full driving licence and as soon as was 18 I began driving a lorry for a local building supplies merchant. I received a full man’s wage so I was able to run my own car.
Marianne came from a dreadfully dysfunctional witness family. She was also as moody as hell herself. Her dad was my dad’s assistant and totally, absolutely inflexible about anything. He’d got 5 kids in total and everyone of them would have left the JW’s by the time they hit 20. Her mother was rated as number 1 troublesome person in the KH and she was absolute poison. She’d go out in the ministry and often took a bag of old clothes with her which she’d try and sell with her Watchtowers as she went along.
We were in WSM for almost 3 years. I saw my dad postpone a Saturday JW meeting because it clashed with the soccer World Cup Finals. This was, for me, the start of a love affair with football that endures to this day. I settled well in Weston and drove lorries for several building companies, all under 3 tons as that was the limit for under 21's.
Soon, dad was unhappy and he needed to do something to please Jehovah and so get rich blessings again. He needed to move again to "where the need was great". We were going to Portsmouth! Portsmouth? Where the hell was that? Half the place seemed to be bomb sites, to me it resembled Middlesborough by the sea.
But what about Marianne? We were engaged by this time but her dad refused to give us permission to marry (we were both under 21) and he still refused to even let us go to the cinema unaccompanied. Maybe I should move, along with mum and dad, and Marianne could then leave home and move near to where our new home was to be? Hmmm..that could work.
So that’s what happened. I was aged 20 when we moved to Portsmouth and duly set about trying to impress the local congregation where dad took over as PO. Marianne moved near to us although her father threatened to physically restrain her. Around this time my dad really leant on me to become a full-time JW minister – gawd, and I hated knocking bloody doors!
I was given 2 ministerial servants positions, became a popular public speaker, took the WT study and sometimes conducted group studies.
In between all this, I’d found a place to hide my car so that no-one could see it with its steamed-up windows..
The inevitable eventually happened! After 3 years of being an item.
Marianne confessed and the s*it hit the fan. Splat!
We were both placed on a kind of probation - called "restrictions" nowadays. The conditions were that Marianne returned to WSM forthwith and that we were never, ever to be alone together. I was removed from WT study conducting, being a Ministerial Servant, taking group studies, giving public talks, saying prayers and full-time pioneering. I was relegated to being a turd in a swimming pool, the lowest of the low. Mum and dad walked around with tears in their eyes for weeks. Brother Tim picked up on it and would give me sidelong grins from time to time.
I’m 21 now and qualified to drive heavy trucks. I take a job with a brick company in Southampton and am happy to spend as much time away from home as possible. If I’m away on meeting nights, then so much the better. I basically just want to settle down with Marianne, but I’m starting to have doubts about living with her moodiness. However, it’s another year before she gets to 21 so I just grit my teeth and try to work through.
Then, a few months after she’s sent back home, I get a letter from Marianne to tell me it’s all over. It’s all my fault of course, I’m basically a total dead loss and no longer worthy of her.(she’s actually fluttered her eyelashes at a young brother from Bristol who tells her how she deserves to be treated as though she were a princess). Wow. And then I feel an unexpected sense of freedom..
To my own astonishment I'm not grief-stricken by Marianne dumping me. I'm more concerned with a feeling of now what?
I have money in the bank, little attachment to JW’s or my parents and there is a big wide world out there.
So now I face up to the fact that I can't stay living with my parents for much longer. I've always paid more than my share into the family pot, so leaving home won't cost anymore than remaining. But where to go?
The situation took care of itself. News that I was now officially un-betrothed flew around the Hampshire congregations. A couple of families with daughters of marriageable age “dropped by” the house. I got invited to a bethel (JW-speak for Wathtower HQ) boy’s weekend party which consisted of the bethel boys getting smashed before taking the last train back to the bethel on Sunday evening. And then I was invited to another “party” in Havant.
Some party! I’d been set up to go out in a foursome. It was a blind date. Oh dear - here we go again!
My blind date partner - call her Cindy - was blond and perky and full of fun. And a pioneer! We hit it off quite well. We went on a pub-crawl and finished up in The Jolly Sailor near Southampton (the same pub in which TV's Howards Way was filmed). It always seemd slightly strange to me that JW's were prudish about almost everything except the consumption of alcohol. Pubs were a way of life for many.
My parents welcomed Cindy with open arms. After the sulky Marianne, a chatterbox like Cindy was made very welcome. Hmm...Mum and Dad were being pleasant to me again, although I was still under restrictions from my 'blip' with Marianne.
So Cindy and I became officially engaged and were married in December 1968. I was 22, she was 20.
Almost immediately Cindy became pregnant, she felt grim most of the time so didn’t want to go to meetings. We had a son, Mark then later we had a daughter, Samantha. The downside of our marriage was that we had absolutely nothing in common whatsoever. Cindy was volatile, unpredictable and could be very violent. She had no boundaries at all and would even row in the street. Once, at a dinner party hosted by us, she struck another JW lady around the face. They’d disagreed on the identity of the England football manager! (the visiting witness lady was correct BTW, Dave Mc Kay was never the England manager).
Added to which, she’d taken to hitting me around the face. She was always pathetically sorry after each incident but I was later to earn how she had been on the receiving of violence herself as a child. It seemed to me that just about everyone I knew who’d had a JW upbringing was a totally emotional wreck, me included.
The violence had become known to the local elders, so they called around to see me. I was sporting a big black eye when they came in, so I lied as to how it had occurred. No good. They pounced on it and reprimanded me for not keeping my wife "in subjection". Thanks, fellas, that really helped.
It just got worse and worse. She scratched my car, scratched me, threatened me with a knife, hit me with a broken glass so that I had to have stitches, it just went on and on. I remember once sitting down in a transport cafe for hours and letting a feeling of total despair wash over me. I knew that I could be an irritating bugger at times but surely I didn’t deserve all this crap?
So we both started to play the field a bit. Just parties, a smoochy dance with someone else or a quick kiss in the kitchen with another lady or fella. Nothing more though, nothing for which one could be disfellowshipped. Not yet anyway..We’re now getting into 1972. At this point, my meeting attendance is down to zero and my PO contacts my dad expressing his concern that I’m falling away from the JW’s. Most JW's are anticipating armageddon's arrival in 1975, but I'm not remotely convinced. Added to which, I’m occasionally sneaking off to a remote pub out in the countryside to enjoy a quiet pint and a cigar. I liked smoking cigars!
I’m also having real issues with JW beliefs centering around a loving god killing off millions of people and the injustice of disfellowshipping (excommunication). I imagine myself trying to explain both of these witness tenets to someone who is rational and all I can see is incredulity that anyone could accept such cruelty. My dad offers to give me a private Bible study to address these issues. I don’t take up the offer.
Witnesses are now contacting me to urge me to hang in there Michael, only 3 years to 1975. He that endures to the end..etc etc.
I’m working in a sales environment now and have had some degree of success. I’ve kept quiet about the JW connection and am thoroughly enjoying the experience of being accepted as a normal person by my workmates. It’s at this point that I begin to realise that these “old world” associations are a damned sight more pleasant and straightforward than any JW folk with whom I’ve been associating. Plus, there’s no judgementalism!
Partying now becomes a way of life for us. Cindy and I actually get on better now because we aren’t in each other’s faces so much. I’ve taken to smoking Dunhill cigarettes and even have a gold Dunhill lighter to complete the image. We’re also associating with an ex- witness couple, Mike and Pam, who were disfellowshipped a year before. Mike teaches me a few guitar chords and I try to sing and strum Leonard Cohen and Tom Paxton. Can’t manage Kristoffersen though!
Eventually a letter arrives from the Leigh Park Judicial Committee. Bro Hooper, you are accused of associating with disfellowshipped persons! Earlier I’d walked around the local District assembly with my DF’d pal, it seemed the best way of getting my message across.
I didn’t attend the Judicial Committee, nor did I attend the next arranged meeting, so I was disfellowshipped in absentia. My parents shunned me for a number of years after that, as did all my witness friends. By this time I'd become an ardent Portsmouth FC fan and attended every home match. So I kept busy and gradually made new friends.
Eventually, Cindy found herself someone else and we split up..the break-up was horrendous and as I continued to have some contact with Cindy as the mother of 2 of my children, I’m skipping right over the rest of 1972 and leaving an entire 6 months out of this story. Our divorce would take over 8 months to be finalised and it was definitely not a good time!
But sunshine was on the horizon and all the negative stuff I’d experienced was going to be more than adequately compensated for!
My parents were gutted by the divorce and by my disfellowshipping. Once again, dad decided to move where the need is great and get more blessings,(ho-hum, yawn) so this time they were off to Matlock in Derbyshire.
I stayed in Portsmouth and rented a flat in the Southsea area. I wasn’t short of company and was now spending time with Mike and another ex called Larry. I’d also really got into Irish folk music and was often to be found swinging my beer in a bar with some other ex’s who’d been part of the “Portsmouth Dirty Dozen” who had all been excommunicated too. On Sunday nights we'd have a riotous evening at Southsea's Coral Reef Bar singing along with Jon Isherwood, Noel Murphy, John Fitzgerald and sometimes Jasper Carrot.
I was now also in the motor trade! I’d go with Mike to Southampton car auctions, buy an old wreck and tart it up so I could sell it at a profit. I concentrated on British sports cars so I’d always got something flashy to travel around in. I had a number of Sunbeam Alpines, a frog-eye Sprite, MG Midgets and an MGB.
By early 1973 I’d also polished up my wardrobe, grown my hair fashionably long and got some Ray-Ban specs. And a purple suede jacket. The biz! Then, one day, Cindy contacted me totally out of the blue. Mike, let's try and be civil to one another, how about just the two of us go out for the evening? Hmmm, I thought, ...well OK, let's meet up in the Barley Mow in Southsea for a drink - oh yes, I've just had my membership through for Club Tiberius Casino, let's go take a look there as well.
So that's what we did. Suitably armed with a five-pound note, I paid my first ever visit to a casino as a member. I quickly learnt how to play roulette and after an hour was around £30 up, which I duly split 50-50 with Cindy. We then made our way to the lounge area. I saw a waitress on the far side, so I wandered over to order coffees and a cigar. Oh my..
The young lady turned round and smiled at me. I was totally dumbstruck. I'd never seen anyone so attractive in all my life. She had an extraordinarily pleasant voice and took my order for coffees and a cigar. A few minutes later she came over to the table where Cindy and I were sat. I put a 25p chip in the little silver bowl on the ladies tray and then caught Cindy looking at me with one eyebrow raised above the other.
Hah, you like her, don't you said Cindy, not unpleasantly. I replied that I did actually think that she was a stunner. Then feeling brave, I said that was the kind of girl that I should have married. Snuggy, said Cindy, she is way, way out of your league! Well yeah...I guess she was.
But she wasn't!
I became a regular visitor to the Casino from then on. Sometimes I'd scrape together a whole pound and play roulette with just 10p chips. By this time the lady was working behind the casino bar, so it was easy to just sit on a bar stool opposite and make small talk while drinking whisky and American Dry. I could make my drink last for hours!
I learned that she’d been a nurse previously and had suffered with glandular fever, so the doc told her to get a job in an outgoing situation so as to help lift the depression associated with the illness. I also found out that she liked folk music and my God, she was a Pompey fan! WOW!
However, I also discovered that she was only 19 and was painfully aware that casino staff dating clients was an absolute no-no. I didn't even know her name. Also, I was aware that if did ask her out and she refused, there would be no second chance so I had to be content with spending many weeks just sat at that bar talking. I didn’t want to blow it!
But I was putting a devious plan into operation..
I kept on telling her about this amazing folk club in Southsea that put on a really entertaining show on Sunday nights. Again and again I told her about it and how great it was and how she should really pop in there sometime. This went on for some considerable time
And then, one Sunday night.. she turned up at the club with her cousin!
It was the first time that I’d seen her not wearing the casino outfit. She was wearing old jeans and a baggy top and still looked sensational. Then she offered to buy me a beer. Buy me a beer? Gosh. Girls never did that in 1973, they just looked for the loo and somewhere to sit while the fellas bought the drinks.
I discovered that her name was Christina and that she had 2 brothers and that she wasn’t living at home. Her two brothers had left the area, so there was no-one to accompany her to football matches. Oh dear.
I bet you can see where I was headed with this information... :-)
So off we went to Fratton Park and we saw Portsmouth beat Nottingham Forest 2 - 0. Then we went out on a friends boat for the day. Then I heard her sing. She'd strum a guitar and sing stuff by Cat Stevens and could even play and sing Don MacLean's American Pie all the way through. At the time I wasn't looking for a heavy involvement and just enjoyed Chris's company. We'd drive around in my old Hillman Minx singing Kris Kristofferson songs as we went. We were companiable together and stayed just good friends for a long time. It was just what I needed. Just what she wanted too. An easy-going pleasant friend,undemanding and non-judgmental. A soul mate. The first girl I'd actually liked as well as fancied.
I wrote to my parents in Derbyshire. Their shunning of me meant that our contact was almost nil. I told them that I had a special friend. My dad wrote back and said that he hoped that she was kind. Later he wrote again and spoiled it all by saying that we must marry immediately so that I could become "clean in Jehovah's eyes" as the first step to me making my way back as a JW. Pfft.... Fat chance poppa.
I eventually saw my parents again. By this time they were really leaning on me so I finally told them that, no, I wasn't coming back and that was for the simple reason that I simply didn't believe a word of their religion, and that futhermore, I never had believed it in my heart either! They were shocked. They'd really thought that I was just being temporarily rebellious. It hadn't occurred to them that I wasn't a JW for the clear reason that I didn't accept it as the truth and had never, ever wanted to belong in the first place. It wasn't the truth! I'd just been imprinted with their beliefs when I was a child. Armageddon never came in 1975. All their prophecies failed.
By now my divorce from Cindy was almost through. By this time she'd also been disfellowshipped. Chris and I moved in together and rented a house in Lee-on-Solent. Her parents treated us well, as did her brothers.
We got married on December 7th, 1973 and honeymooned in Jersey. My parents would only attend the wedding if I guaranteed that no ex-witnesses were present at the ceremony or reception and that it wasn't a church wedding. I regret to say that I agreed to their demands and that my father gave a little pro-witness speech at our reception which just about embarrassed everybody.
I was in regular contact with my children with Cindy, and they adored Chris too. 43 years on and they still do!
We decided to have a family. Chris always reckons that watching Jaws at the cinema is what brought on our eldest, Simon, 3 weeks too soon.
Later we had James. Then Ben. At that point I was offered a job back in WSM which I accepted. We're still in Weston today.
Our boys have grown into fine young men and we are immensely proud of them all. We see them and their ladies on frequent occasions. I have a sensation of having taken a major part in the re-building of my family. In the early 90's, once they were all into education, Chris went to uni. She got her BA at Bristol and later an MA at Bath, and then became a lecturer at WSM college. She retired last year.
Dad died in 1984 aged just 62. My parents were then living in social housing and alweays short of money. Such a come-down for a once professional man! Mum died in 2010, still wondering what was delaying armageddon. We'd got closer, Mum and I, and she was finally able to accept my choice not to be a JW. It grieved me to hear that she wasn't expecting to have got so old.
Brother Tim left the witnesses when he was 17. He'd loved his neighbour a little too well and was thrown out of the JW's. He too said that he always hated the whole thing. We see a great deal of one another at holiday times. He designs model aircraft and makes unusual stringed instruments. Ex-wife Cindy died just a few months ago. I attended the funeral, not just for Mark and Sam's sake, but for mine too. Cindy's JW siblings - who had shunned her for years - were told to stay away from the funeral. They did.
So now I'm 71 and Chris is 64. We have six grandchildren. She's still my best friend. Sometimes, if I prime her with a couple of whiskies, she'll play guitar and sing Cat Stevens stuff to me just like she did when she was 19 years old.
So life really did turn right round for me in my mid 20's. I finished up with a lovely family and a great social circle. And I'm very, very grateful. I'm a very lucky fella!
That's it!