Being born British, and 100% C of E (Church of England - Cake or Death?) religion and spirituality played a very minimal role in my upbringing. I went to regular non-parochial schools, made fun of those that didn't, and palled around with Jewish and Hindu mates without batting an eye. My parents tried in my earlier years to have the family go to church on a somewhat more regular basis than most, i.e. not just Christmas and Easter, but it just sort of petered out over time. I seem to recall that the last time we all went as a family it was to a regular Sunday morning service at a beautiful and picturesque local church in my home county of Kent. The reason I remember it so vividly after all of these years was because it was disrupted by one of the parishioners having a loud and violent seizure midway through the sermon.
Had I been old enough to have seen 'The Exorcist' ( I wasn't - plus it hadn't been filmed yet) I would have sworn to you that this old woman, helplessly flailing around the floor, had been possessed by demons that were intent on ripping themselves out of her body right there and then. I mean seriously, the only thing missing was the rotating head and the pea-soup. I don't mind telling you I damned near crapped myself. It didn't help that the person who had suffered that seizure was the local village
Crazy Lady. In retrospect she was probably a very lonely old soul, but she scared the shit out of all of us kids because she had crazy eyes and she had hair growing out of her moles. (I swear to you I am not making this up. Just typing this is giving me the heebie-jeebies remembering what she looked like). She scared us so much that we used to cross the busy main road in the village so as not to get in her path if she was spotted walking back from the local shops.
I was probably somewhere around the ripe old age of ten when that all happened, but I can sit here now, nearly forty years later, and remember it like it was yesterday. I don't think that was the sole reason (soul reason?) we stopped going to church, and I don't recall it being announced officially that the whole 'Let's go and say thanks to God and Jesus every week' experiment was over, but I like to think that my parents thought that my brother and I had been sufficiently scarred by that incident that we wouldn't need to go back. It's a real shame in a way because the church this all happened in really is a very pretty little country church, but my pace always quickened a step or two anytime I ever passed it from that day forward.
My only other truly memorable church memory happened about ten years later. I was on a visit back home from studying in America, probably early 1980's, and I had gone down the pub with an old mate of mine to catch up (as you do). After we had been thrown out of the boozer at closing time by the lovely landlady we staggered back to his mum's house to have a few more. By the time we were done polishing off his mother's booze, it was probably one o'clock in the morning, and I still had a walk of a mile or so to get back to my parents place. There was only one small problem. Between his mum's place, and my folks abode stood a church. Not the same church as before, a different one. There was nothing wrong this church either, it too was a very pretty, standard sort of English country church, a little larger than the other one perhaps, but there were no horror stories or ghostly tales of hauntings about it in the village. But neither one of us big, strong, 20 year-old young men wanted to walk past this church late at night because it was too
scary. Now, you have to remember that this is in England, which means that the church itself is typically surrounded by a graveyard. In fact, this one had a grave-yard on the other side of the main road that ran next to the church, as well as the main one by the church building itself, so in effect I was going to have to walk through the
middle of the graveyard to get home.
I came up with a cunning plan.
I suggested to my mate (for the purposes of this piece I shall call him Mike, if for no other reason than because that's what his name is), that he accompany me home, past the church, he could then have a quick coffee at my folks place and then he could head back home by himself. Alas, dear reader he too saw through that plan. He was not too sozzled to figure out that my suggested course of action would mean that even though we would have each other for moral support and courage as we passed the church on the way to my folks place, he would have to walk past the church on his way back to his mum's place,
by himself. In turning my suggestion down I seem to recall Mike suggested I perform an act upon myself that is both physically, and anatomically impossible. He may very well have also questioned my mental capacity and my parent's marital status as well, I can't be sure, but the over-riding fact was that it was most definitely a no-go.
Resigned to my fate I finally screwed up enough courage to head out the door and begin my trek back
chez mes parents. As I got closer to the church, quietly cursing Mike under my breath with every step, I was thankful that it was a brilliantly lit night courtesy of what seemed like a very low-hanging moon, not quite full, but close. The moonlight helped ease my sense of foreboding as I walked around the bend and the church and the graveyard came into view. My pace quickened a little and reflexively I started to whistle. Yes, it's corny I know, but if you want to know why that phrase came into being, I suggest YOU try walking past a graveyard in the dead of night (okay, that one was deliberate) and not whistle, or hum. Trust me, you will do
anything to make some sort of sound to break the still, oppressive quiet of nothing more than a late night breeze rustling a few leaves, and what you'd swear was either the sound of bending boughs in the trees or the faint sound of a coffin-lid slowly creaking open on the other side of that headstone over there in the corner....
Anyway, I was about half-way through the graveyard when all of a sudden the clock bell rings out with two ear-shatteringly loud chimes from the church tower. I'm not sure if I screamed out loud or not, but I do recall that I immediately dropped my ciggy and started running at full clip. I didn't stop until I could see the lights of my parents house in the distance getting closer. That was about three quarters of a mile away just so you know, a distance I couldn't run today if you offered me a million dollars and a blow-job from the Hollywood Starlet of my choice as a reward.
Once I arrived safely in the bosom of
Casa de Mum & Dad I found, annoyingly, that I had become immediately sober, and so as soon as my heart-rate had settled down, and now that I no longer needed the obligatory post-booze-fest aspirin-and-a-gallon-of-water, I shuffled off to bed and cursed my mate Mike for opting to stay safely at home under the covers, most likely having a wank, rather than offer support to his friend.
I checked my underwear the following morning and was heartily impressed to find them unsoiled by my previous evenings' frightening escapade. As I sat down to tuck into a damned fine English breakfast, both Mum and Dad asked after the events of the previous night. I skipped over the bits where I struck out with all of the ladies, but gave them the full blow-by-blow details about the walk/run home. They found it vastly amusing that my best friend had told me to stop being such a big girl's blouse and walk home by myself, and were even more impressed that I had been able to actually get the key on the door upon my arrival, but they exchanged quizzical looks when I told them about the church bells ringing out. They both looked at me and asked if I was sure that the bells had rung out, and I said "Of course they bloody did! That's why I ran all the way here!" to which they replied, almost in unison, "Well that's a little odd, the church clock hasn't worked for years, dear..."
I suddenly realized I needed to check my underwear again...and then I excused myself from the breakfast table....
