Like many children of similar age and ilk to myself I was brought up to say my prayers although overall our household would not have described itself as particularly religious for the times. It was simply that most of us leaned closer to organized religion in those days and largely we were aware of which spiritual groups our friends and neighbours favoured. A great many were what we then loosely termed Church of England although my cousin Pat was heard to proclaim on more than one occasion that in fact we were each and every one of us Church of England whether we liked it or not because that’s where we lived and nobody could argue with that. The fact that our family was firmly Roman Catholic and she and her mother were at least arbitrary Mass attendees made little difference to her logic on this matter. To be honest Pat was not a particularly cogent thinker. But to be totally fair to her we were back then a community that felt it necessary to attach itself to more precise views and attitudes than would be deemed necessary today. For instance we were expected to take definite Sides when it came to events like the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race each Spring and we did so with enthusiasm though none of us had ever witnessed it except glimpses from time to time on Pathe News and had little idea of the complexities of it. What we did know was that we either supported the Light Blues (Cambridge) or Dark Blues (Oxford) and we stayed that way. The boys might even organize fights in support of their team. Considering that none of us were ever likely to have anything to do with either university in retrospect there seems little common sense in all the excitement the race generated. Little wonder then that our religious affiliations were demonstrated equally ardently.
A
scant few of our neighbours resolutely described themselves as Chapel and had
aunts and uncles with exotic names like Bronwen and Rhys who spoke with funny
accents and were disapproved of for some reason by my mother. A few were involved in The Salvation Army
known as The Sallies where the men learned to play musical instruments to amuse
us with carol concerts at Christmastime and were wholeheartedly approved of. Then there were the Baptists and the
Methodists who seemed interchangeable at times each running Sunday Schools to
which all local children were welcome. A
mere handful of residents identified themselves as followers of Judaism and
none of these lived in the streets around York Road, favouring instead the
smarter houses in Robinia Avenue or even those in London Road near the
Library. Well who wouldn’t? My grandmother said that you could always
trust the Jews to fall on their feet and rise to the top like double
cream. I had little idea what she meant
by that and she wasn’t the kind of grandparent who went in for undue
explanations so I didn’t ask. But I did
begin to realise, as we all did, that because Adolf Hitler and his cronies had
hated the Jews with a vengeance and we hated him, we were obliged to support
them. At school Billy Elliot who was
known for being what my mother called quick on the uptake, announced that it
was the Jews who had killed Jesus and looked around to see what effect this had
on us. We were as one quite silent,
exchanging apprehensive glances and Mr Clarke said to get back to reading The
Golden Fleece and not to be so inane Billy because nobody could be sure of that
and anyway nobody thinks you’re clever. I did
think he was clever but I wondered what inane meant.
Followers
of Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism were generally absent from the ranks
of the Northfleet underclasses at the time and years were to pass before I
became aware of any. There was certainly no local building known as
a Temple and in any case that term in itself we only associated with New
Testament stories about the life of Jesus which we came across on a regular
basis when we lined up for Sunday School.
It would have been unheard of
back then for anyone to describe themselves as a Pagan or even realise that
Paganism had anything to do with spiritual beliefs. Few admitted to Atheism or Agnosticism
primarily because although such beliefs existed they were not something anyone
tended to boast about and perhaps just a bit like harbouring divorce or
illegitimacy in the family. We were
completely aware that unpleasant family facts were better ignored than
discussed.
The
principal spiritual camps were decidedly Catholic or Anglican both as familiar
as Christopher Robin himself to us at least as far as bedtime prayers were
concerned. The two groups were also
proudly different and easily identified by their local schools where large
groups of students cheerfully despised each other and created offensive couplets
and verses with which to incite local hostility. We had a vague idea that the school adjacent
to Northfleet High Street known as The Board School was not affiliated with
either church but were ignorant as to how this idea actually worked and had
little will to find out. My friend
Molly, from a less devout family than my own said that in her experience there
was bound to be a church of some kind lurking behind the Board School no matter
how little importance appeared to be placed upon it.
By
the time I was three years old I had confidently learned The Lord’s Prayer,
later observing that my version differed only minimally from that tripping from
the tongues of the Anglican children. Fast on its heels came a firm grasp upon Hail
Mary then Matthew, Mark, Luke & John and Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. The only one of these verses unfamiliar to
my classmates at St Botolph’s was that pertaining to Mary, Mother of God
because Protestant schools did not place as much emphasis upon her place in the
Holy Family as we Catholics did.
As
I became a more confident rote learner our household vespers themselves became more
protracted. Praying was not something
that I disliked because I assumed that the ritual of kneeling in prayer before
sleeping was simply what everyone did.
In those early days my mother supervised to make sure that my interpretation
of wording was correct and I can only assume that surprising as it later seemed
to me, her own mother had done the same which would have been quite an
undertaking with the many children involved.
It was most important to my mother that there were should be no
mondegreens. I think my only one was the
ubiquitous ` blessed art thou amongst women’ which for generations of Roman
Catholic five and six years olds was so easily distorted into ` blessed are now
the monks swimming’. I nightly conjured up teams of monks all robed
and minus hair and seeming intent upon contesting for an Olympic team. Later my brother was to deftly turn `Jesus
makes us fishers of men’ into `Jesus makes us vicious old men’ which he
declined to abandon for some years. The
accompanying images in this case were quite menacing.
Old
habits die hard and it was years before I completely discarded bedtime prayers
although I neglected to kneel on a regular basis once I reached my teens and
failed to teach my own children any of the routines that my mother taught me. The end of day observance itself I
conformed to until at least my mid-twenties.
This was most probably because I was in the habit of tacking on to the
end of the ritual particular entreaties to God to look after members of my
family and of course to take very good care of me! Even when a growing doubt as to the actual
existence of a Christian deity trickled through my thoughts on the matter I was
never able to totally desert the idea. A basic belief in the hereafter coupled with
the presence of a genial creator has always seemed like a harmless enough notion
to me though I do find myself wondering how many of today’s children are
familiar with evening prayers or have any thoughts at all on the idea of a
Divine Being. As for myself I am still
hovering on the fence of debate as to the existence of God – though I definitely
don’t Not believe!
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