IWe were going to Church In 1983 My Dad decided to go back to Church I was 7 years old and it seemed like a normal Sunday morning . My father is West Indian and a creature of habit and unlike most West Indians I know , he hates being late . My brother Clive and I were dressed in our best clothes , me in my little handmade dress with sewn in bib , he in a blazer and tie . You see my Dad was a backslidden Christian . Today we say out of fellowship .
The trigger to Dad returning to Church was a dream . Dad hates snakes , it ’ s a deep rooted cultural thing , Africans and West Indians don ’ t do snakes ! Dad dreamed that a big snake was attacking him , ready to devour him and he awoke screaming , “ in the name of Jesus ” and kicked my mother right out of bed . You can interpret this anyway you like .
Stoke Road Pentecostal , Mount Zionwe arrived in a Black Pentecostal Church ; tambourines , tongues , Hammond organ and guitar . My life had changed forever . I ’ m 7 , I don ’ t ask questions , I avoid eye contact and physical contact . In fact I quite like to think I ’ m invisible because I ’ m painfully shy . I ’ m the child that hides behind the sofa when visitors come and then have to sit there for hours because I ’ m too shy to come out and too daft to work out that saying hello in the first place would have been a lot less painful !
I soon recovered from the culture shock , in fact you can ’ t be shy in a West Indian Church . The Church filled in lots of gaps in my life history and as I grew older I understood that my Dad went way back in the Church .
I was raised in Porthill , my Dad was one of the few black people in the village and until now the only black people I had met were my Godmother , my Grandad once , and when Dad went to get his haircut he only went to the black barbers and popped in to the American to hang out with some really
Church Means Family
old black guys who called him C ! His name is Leroy !
I had up until now , a relatively English upbringing . I went to a primary school which was predominantly white although the headmistress encouraged all the ‘ different ’ children to play together until my Mum went in to reeducate her !
I was raised in a strict home . My Mum had a tough life from a working class background and was mega strict . My Dad arrived at the age of 17 in a strange country with promise of work and was greeted with signs like no Blacks , no Polish and no Irish - that ’ s the polite version ! Life was tough but I was 7 so what did I know ? All I knew was that everyone else ’ s parents let their kids have bikes , let them play on the streets , sleep over at their friends houses and eat sweets and chocolate every day . My Dad was a Miner and we had strict routines . If we were naughty we were belted , simple - obey or feel pain . I quickly learned the rules . My older brother kicked against them ; he got belted more , duh !
My new found identity brought along with it a new sense of pride . Sometimes I got picked on because of my colour , other times I was verbally bullied but I was better than them so I thought because I was a Christian ! Pastor Henry faithfully preached the gospel and began to home in on the group of young people quickly growing up in his Church with Church Kid Syndrome and boy I had got it bad . I had developed a superiority complex which meant I had become a bit like marmite ; you either loved me or hated me ! The Pastor loved me I was one of his favourites so it came as a shock when he began preaching hellfire and damnation at me . What had I done wrong ?
At about the age of 12 God began to really move in our Church . I remember the Sunday morning that I came to
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20 | SHARE | MAGAZINE January - March 2017