Part IV – How To Meet A Wife In Six Weeks
I mentioned a while back my Dad had a pretty bad accident when he was a kid. He was lucky to live. In those days with his injuries they laid you flat out on a hospital bed and let God decide whether you made it or not. There was simply nothing they could do for serious head injury, bleeding on the brain etc. In Dad’s case he was unconscious 2 weeks and then woke up. He had a severe stammer, but was otherwise good to go. Nobody woke him up – he wasn’t cured – he just woke up. But he was unstable and unprepared for the rigours of life. He could not hold down a job for more than a few years maximum. He was able to fall out with employers in a heartbeat. Andrew and I used to gently tease him as we got older by asking him to describe a job he had that we knew nothing about. He would always grin sheepishly and ask if he had told us about the time he was a <insert weird job here>. We counted them one time. Well over 70 jobs – a new one every 6 months. He also had a persistent desire to move house, which my Mum indulged – the location location locations were 35, give or take. And of of course congregations – a round dozen or so of those. So that adds up to a lot of stress for a normally adjusted person – for someone carrying a brain injury it’s vicious. Thankfully they settled down after they moved to Perth in 1977 – we only had 2 homes there until I left home myself in 1993. So Dad basically struggled to function with the day to day dramas of life. So joining a cult high control group fundamentalist sect Restorationist Millennial American Adventist off-shoot religion was not the worst thing that could have happened to him. It definitely provided stability, purpose and a positive framework for him to find his place in. A shame it was and is all lies, but there was significant upside for my Dad. However the real shame was he could have probably found the inner peace and fulfillment and credibility and status he was seeking in any number of communities – maybe it was imperative for him to back a horse, any horse, than not to be in the race. Hugh Morrison 1934 – 2006 R.I.P.
It’s January 31 st 1997 and I’m hauling two bags through Heathrow Airport. Melinda Messenger had great things in front of her and the tiny country of Albania was breaking in two. I can’t remember if Andy had agreed to come and meet me or if I had said I would see him at his apartment, where I would have exclusive use of his sofa to sleep on. Arrangements with Andy could be open to review at any time - most things were prefaced with ‘maybe’ so there was deniability when it went upside down later on. Anyways, everything I needed for my new life in London was in the bags. My apartment in Scotland was under the command and control of Andrew so I knew it was in safe hands. A few weeks earlier I had travelled to London for a job interview at the company Andy worked it. They had an Apple Reseller business and my job was to be the same as Andy’s – answering the phone and trying to sell computers, printers etc to the callers. I knew I had the job before the interview so the poor HR girl ended up a bit flustered – she wasn’t used to a car sales veteran from Scotland interviewing her. So I had to get up to speed with IT equipment specifications pretty quick – it was a competitive ‘fastest finger first’ boiler room to get the incoming calls and you didn’t want to waste any time or calls by not being ready with the answers. All good fun. After 18 months I had more than doubled my starting salary and introduced a new credit payment scheme which significantly grew the business for all the sales guys. But there was nowhere for me to go careerwise there so I had decided to take a new job with American giant 3M.
But that was all in the future. And in the present Andy and I were partying hard most nights. And going to all the meetings, where I would invariably fall asleep. I was sleeping on Andy’s sofa in his apartment so a Kingdom Hall chair was about as comfortable and I had to get zzz’s where I could. Life was busy. One Friday night we all went out after work – this was central London and I was enjoying the bright lights. Anyway I got into a drinking competition with a few colleagues. Had to show them how the Scots can drink. There was no clear winner and I ended up being escorted out by a few colleagues who were pacing themselves more responsibly. I didn’t know this at the time but they had taken me back to their apartment where for reasons I won’t go into they had to shower me down, and then threw me into a spare bed to sleep it off. So I woke up in a strange bed – rephrase that – I normally woke up on Andy’s sofa – and as I came too I realized I wasn’t alone in the bed. There was a large hairy black arm attached to a huge black body in there with me. So I was a bit non-plussed as to what exactly may have transpired the evening before to find me naked in bed with a strange black man in a house I didn’t recognise. Hey- welcome to my life. I called Andy for tech support. He figured out where I was and came to collect me. (The black guy was a colleague I hadn’t met before and had similarly succumbed to the falling down juice, so we were an odd couple, but for one night only). I didn’t realize on that Saturday morning that I was going to meet my wife-to-be later that day.
Andy and Phil, the other guy who lived in the apartment, had arranged to meet some JW friends in a salsa club in central London that night. After a bit of persuasion from them I agreed to go along. So we were downstairs in the club and I was recovering from the previous night with the help of a four pint pitcher of lager. Andy was strutting his funky stuff on the dancefloor and Phil was invading the personal space of any girl he could back into a corner. So we offered a variety of options for the ladies. I became aware of a couple of girls coming down the stairs and I recognized one of them. We had met in London a few years back and then she had also stayed with us for a long weekend in Falkirk – we had a friend in common. As I watched her coming down the stairs I knew she was unaware of me staring at her. I was staring at her because I had made the decision to marry her. If she had stared back she would have seen a vacant looking guy standing on his own (with a 4 pinter) and I may have had a harder time selling my plan to her. Eventually we got talking and comparing notes and arranged to keep in touch – us 3 lads and Sam and her friend.
After meeting up a few more times ‘in a group’ I decided it was time for the big speech. I rehearsed it a few times on Andy and he always agreed it was quite compelling. So I gave it a shot. Initially Sam was not keen on the idea – she had just broken up with another guy and had decided to live the life of a nun for a few months at least. Just as well she wasn’t a mind reader, although later on I would find out this was a skill she expected of me. But I persisted as I had decided the outcome of the conversation and eventually I got the sympathy vote and she agreed we could become an item. Perfect – Stage 1 complete. And I had only been in London 6 weeks.
I would go down and stay at Sam’s house most weekends. She lived in a very big house on a beautiful street with her Mum and Dad. I was still sleeping on Andy’s sofa so was glad to get my own bed (and a huge room) at the weekends. I was still sleeping at the meetings, much to Sam’s embarrassment. I toyed with the idea of claiming a sleep disorder but as she knew I was in the pub most nights it seemed a bit unnecessary to gild the lily.
After about 6 months of this I proposed. We were at an all day rock concert at Crystal Palace and I’d had a few beers. One of our favorites Paul Weller had just come on stage – I casually asked Sam to marry me. She went off to sit down and cry – it was too much excitement in one day. Anyway she said yes, so we were all set. A few years later I bumped into Mr Weller on the street and we got chatting - I mentioned I had proposed at one of his gigs and he seemed quite pleased that he had been somehow involved in my life.
By this time Andy and I had moved apartment from North London to West London. Because I was seeing Sam most weekends Andy I had started to drift apart as friends. My fault. I was doing my thing being deeply in love with Sam and her large spare bedroom and Andy had to be left to his own devices. He was seeing a few girls from the local congregations and I knew them vaguely but wasn’t really interested in making new friends. Sam and I were busy making wedding plans and looking for our own place so there wasn’t much time left over. And Sam had all her friends so I pretty much slotted into her social scene. Six months later we were married by an old family friend in a KH white wedding - me and 6 lads from Scotland in kilts. I think it was the first wedding at that KH deep in south London where both bride and groom were in skirts. Mum, Dad and Andrew came down for the wedding naturally, along with some other good friends of mine. Because Andy had hired a kilt for the occasion he had decided to go out in Richmond the night before to show it off. Needless to say it turned into a late night and he woke up the next day with no idea where or when my wedding was taking place – I got a frantic phone call from him asking the details – he was late and missed the service - DUH. To save money we had the reception at Sam’s Mum and Dads house. They had enough space for a marquee and there was an ornate Italian orangery attached to the main house so we had a beautiful location for our special day.
After 18 months of splitting my time between two congregations I would now have to settle down and do the 5 meetings a week proper routine – and heaven forbid maybe some field service. Sam and I hadn’t gone out in service together before getting married – I wasn’t interested in going out and she didn’t push it. But things had changed – I was now a proper member of her congregation and I was not keen on the idea of ‘privileges’. I can’t recall exactly what we agreed about having children or not - all I can remember now is that I felt the burden of having to grow up. About a year later I got a sharp reminder from Scotland that you can run but you can’t hide. ‘Reaching out’ was apparently going to be a disease that would be passed father to son, like it or not.
Part V – 10 Years, 2 Shepherding Calls And 2 Kids (will post when I write it)