South East England - love of the greater number cooling off (page 10)

truthseeker

The congregations in Chichester are poles apart - the south is unfriendly and cold, the north has more going for it. It's been a few years since I went to either one.

great names there, never went to Camber, my first C/A was at Wimbledon Town Hall a lovely turn of the century building now a shopping precinct, then Dorking now a car park, and the faceless out of town Haysbridge where I got baptized

cantleave

I loved Dorking Assembly Hall - the fact it was called Embassy the cigarettes my dad smoked!!!!

nelly136

*Camber was great. Everyone headed for the snooker room or the beach, great fun*..........or the mermaid inn on the pub crawl.

besty

I was in London between 1997 and 2008. most of that time in London Penge - Crystal Palace was in our territory. Not many happy memories of CP. I had no history there and I was already mentally out so it was just boredom for me. The best bit was it only took 15 minutes to get home.

London Penge was a pretty friendly hall. Mixed half and half. Until I got DF'd for apostasy the elders pretty much left me alone doing nothing - perfect. We were pretty active socially and had many happy times.

Before that I was in London Twickenham for about a year. (Why did I always end up living near the DC stadiums?) Twickenham was an older cong - less 'integrated' and much more boring than Penge. Nothing much happened there. Except my flatmate getting a talking to for being over-amorous with a few of the young sisters. LOL. We had a few wild(ish) parties. One time I was fed up with the people not leaving so I threw about 20 coats and jackets out on the ground outside. Whilst I was doing that there were 2 other 'brothers' fighting outside....oh well.. I went back inside and went to bed. We had one of London's wealthiest suburbs in our territory - Richmond. Only one older brother and his wife lived there in a small apartment - out of a population of almost 200,000 people - can you believe that? erm yes Paul, you were in a religion that discourages higher education.....DUH.

Before that (1997) I was in London Willesden for about 6 months. We had Tony and Sandra (????? - surname escapes me) from Bethel - he was a big wig in charge of the HLC - they were Bethel lifers, he had a dry sense of humour and she was nice enough, but you know the type. Only 2 things I remember about Willesden - 1 - we shared a KH just off the Kilburn High Rd (Dyne Rd) with 3 other congs, so we had the 3pm Sunday slot. Next up we would have moved round to 6pm so that was part of the reason for leaving - 6pm Sunday meeting - thats not right. The other thing was our CBS was in an overheated apartment that housed a large family. It was the only meeting that I didn't fall asleep in - the smell kept me awake.

We were assigned to HB for all CA's and SAD's - just another 4 houses = 1 hotel in WTS Monopoly. Don't walk on the grass. Wipe your feet before you come inside. Don't save seats in the cafeteria. Take your rubbish home. Make sure your car party is full. Don't come here on days your cong is not assigned. No this is not a high control group. I hear the recent makeover involves lots of marble and brass, and free labour with tax free donations....hmmm.

sweet pea

I have fond memories of growing up a JW in the SE. But then my family was very social and popular. We weren't stony broke and we weren't stinkin' rich. Just pretty average, I guess. However, my first congregation Keston had a reputation for being made up of all the snobby well off JW's and there were no children my age so all my friends were older - I looked up to them but never felt completely accepted and in their league. We had two main influential powerful family dynasties - the Davidsons and the Hunts. We also had the Rastall family - David, Lorna, Jonathan and Andrew and their adopted daughter (?). They were a lovely family, albeit uber-spiritual. When I was 16 we moved to West Wickham congregation, they shared Keston's KH but couldn't have been more different a cong - much more down to earth and a lot less well off . . . not a very exciting cong but a few more kids my age at least. As soon as I was old enough, whilst still living at home, I moved to Penge - a pretty fun congregation. Lots of different nationalities and funny characters, more social events and some great speakers that helped the meetings go by quicker. I would consider it a pretty friendly cong and although a London cong, technically still the South East.

Being on the Quickbuild team as a youngster was also a lot of fun - everywhere we went we all had a laugh and there was a great bond between us all and the local congregations all looked after the workers very well and were particularly friendly.

Dorking, Camber, Hayesbridge, Twickenham and Crystal Palace assemblies - fond memories of the doughnuts and ice creams at Dorking, waitressing at Camber and the food tickets at Twickenham. There also seemed a much more friendly community spirit when there was food service. Once that went, the whole thing started to fall apart. The org seems to clamp down on everything that's fun, doesn't exactly bring out the best in people.

My last memory of Hayesbridge was after the renovation when it suddenly resembled a Barclays conference centre (before the marble floors though). Some idiot had designed the mothers and babies room to be the most uncomfortable, un-baby friendly place you could imagine. Being an exhausted mother with a new baby and a toddler struggling to be Miss Perfect JW that was my tipping point . . .