[guide.chat] In Reply To: My story.
- From: "M BOWKER" <bowker288@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Guide Chat" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2012 17:10:56 +0100
Very interesting James. All these storys are going to make good reading. It is
going to show how at different times of life things changed. I will be starting
my story soon. Looking forward to part two.
Malcolm. Well, I was born in September, 1960. There seems to have been a
genetic problem with me; I was born with a defective pituitary gland, a
malformed right eye with about ten percent vision, and a blob where my left eye
should have been. There were other problems, but I'll get to that later.
Dad was a coal miner, as were all his brothers. He hadn't kept good health
since suffering T.B. in the 1940's, and, when lung cancer developed, partly
because he was exposed to so much coal dust, he couldn't fight it,and died in
1964. So I was dependant on my mum, and granddad, to bring me up. Due to an
oversight at the hospital, I wasn't registered blind, but partially sighted.
That meant I went to the local primary school, where I had no support at all,
except to be shoved in front of the blackboard - which I've never yet seen.
However, some of the teachers realised I loved reading, and tried to help me
read using large print ( I found out later that they used their own money to
buy the books - the education authority didn't recognise partial sight as a
disability. Like most V.I. kids in mainstream schooling, I got bullied, and,
being a boy, it was sometimes physical. What didn't help, either, was that I
kept putting on weight. We found out eventually that this was due to the
pituitary problem, but that didn't help much at the time. You had to learn to
take it, and hide the tears - so I did.
Out of school, my main delight was the Boys' Brigade. I loved the B.B.,
which I joined when I was seven. The officers became father substitutes, and I
discovered that the things we did didn't need full sight.
I made friends there, and rose through the ranks, gaining all the awards I
could.
At secondary school, one of my teachers was passionate about ancient
history, and he took us down to London in 1972 to the British museum, to see
the Tutankhamun exhibition. Although I couldn't see much, what I could see
sparked an interest in history and archaeology that has never left me. I
decided there and then that I was going to get to University somehow and study
the subject. At the same time, another teacher had me think about economics and
politics, working out my opinions, as opposed to those of the press or telly.
So I started studying both Modern Studies and economics - and I'm still very
interested in both today.
One of the best stress busters at school for me was the chess club. We met
each interval, and at lunchtime, and for an hour or so after school. Chess
could be an outlet for aggression when I couldn't take part in P.E. We did
quite well, reaching the Scottish schools finals one year. I ended up as runner
up, beaten by a future Grand Master, no less.
( well, not exactly beaten, more massacred! )
Studying, though, was a headache - literally. With no visual aids or
magnifiers, except a cheap one I bought myself, reading was a
nightmare....where sighted kids spent two hours a night on homework, it took me
seven or eight. Even then, I failed mathematics, simply because I couldn't read
the textbooks or see blackboard.
By my mid teens, I was passionate about history and politics: I was also a
confirmed atheist. This got me a few strokes of the belt from teachers because
I'd managed to dodge assembly a few times. It didn't help much with the B.B.
either - the B.B. is a Christian organisation, and I was most definitely not!
When we went on church parade, I always had my trusty miniature transistor
radio and earpiece to hand!
I got through my O grades pretty well - science, English, politics/Modern
Studies, economics and of course, history. Fifth year, my seventeenth year,
beckoned. So, I joined the Church.
Don't be daft - of course I wasn't converted! You see, to be a B.B.
officer, you had to be a Church member. So, I joined - and never darkened the
door again after parroting the promises. Then, to train us up, the B.B. Captain
gave potential leaders classes to teach the younger Boys. The one he gave me
was International - about the work of the B.B. overseas, in the third world. He
suggested I read the fifth book of the New Testament in the Bible; Acts - about
the expansion of the early church. So, I read it, made notes, and got on with
my life....not!
A verse stuck in my mind like a broken record - a verse about receiving
the Holy Spirit and being filled with power. It wouldn't get UNstuck! It just
stayed there, niggling. This was stupid - just plain daft! only words in an
old text. But they wouldn't go away.
So, one night - Guy Fawkes Night - 1977, I felt a complete numpty, saying
to a God I didn't believe in "Look, if this is for real, give me a decent
night's sleep."
( You need to realise I'd had weeks of poor, interrupted sleep. )
I woke up next morning late for school after a fantastic night's sleep!
So, that night, in my bedroom, feeling a twit, I said "Lord, if you're really
there, do something in me."
He did. I felt, rather than heard, the words "I'm here". And He was, and still
is.
All the loneliness I'd felt as a kid, all the frustrations and the put-downs,
went, like mist in the morning. I was aware without a shadow of a doubt that I
was no longer alone, and never would be again.
They haven't come back.
End of part one.
Jim
PTL!
Skype jim.liddell6
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