A few people have asked how JWD came about and what my own story is and while I've posted it in bits and bobs, I've never tried to tell it as a story so here goes ...
Living in suburbia
I was born a JW to JW parents who had recently been missionaries / pioneers in Ireland and taken literature into countries like Spain when it was banned but who were now living in suburbia near to where they had both been brought up. We lived in a new semi-detached house in a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a hill - fantastic for building go-carts and racing down ! In the back garden there was a weeping-willow tree in the corner alongside a small garden shed, this was my ?den?. The tree became quite big and as tall as the surrounding houses. I climbed it many a time and had a fantastic tree house rigged up in there too. I liked to climb. I figured I could climb out my window onto the extension flat roof (passing a stool out first) and then (oh god, I?m a parent now and it frightens me) use the stool to reach the gutter and climb onto the proper roof, crawling up and peeking over the top to see the houses opposite.
Inside the house were photo albums of dad in national health ?engineer? spectacles and mum in an outdated dress stood in front of a tiny caravan which was their home in Ireland, some of me as a baby and a sister, two years older than me. There were pictures of us all stood in front of the house we lived in with bare earth for a garden and one of my dad and the small willow tree he?d just planted in the back garden.
Irlam had been a boom town in its day and had been visited by the King even. Dad had worked at the local steel-works, once one of the largest in Europe but it had closed and he now worked as a builder with his brother. I now live 50 yards from some of the houses he built and can remember being allowed to sit on the JCB while it was being built. Mum was a housewife and still pioneered but took a break to have another child ? my little sister, 5 years my junior.
We were the 2.4 children and life wasn?t too bad.
Sleeping at the KH
I remember going to meetings and being bored of course and would pass the time wondering about the dinosaurs on the map in the back of the old bible or else would lie on my coat on the cold tiled floor under the hard plastic seats where it was cool and fall asleep until it was over.
Our congregation didn?t own its own kingdom hall and I have vague memories in the early days of going to meetings in a room rented above a bank and sitting on wooden benches, one of which became our garden bench.
Eventually, the congregation must have expanded and the regular venue became an old-folks hall where we had stacking metal and plastic chairs that had to be taken down and put up into the loft before and after every meeting. The sound equipment had to be taken out and setup each time too and I remember watching my dad sat at the side of the platform operating it and putting the records on. We had the exact same model player at home and I used to play mum and dads album collection.
Now and again the sound equipment would play up and an old couple who had been singers in the 30?s and 40?s would start off singing - a lovely genuine old couple who are now long dead but who were the foundation of the congregation.
Most of my memories of this time are all in broken pieces though and really hard to tie together and get in the right order. I remember the people and the faces. I remember giving talks in front of the whole KH. I remember hating it.
Grandparents
I remember visiting my father?s grandparents (in the days when a child could wander off on the 30 minute walk alone) who were never JWs (my father was the ?convert?). They were both smashing grandparents who always had beaming smiles for us whenever we appeared. I bought a local history book of Irlam and have since discovered that some of the pictures in it of the home guard marching included granddad with my dad and his brother running along as kids. There are also pictures of my dad in a school photo which, he says, makes him feel really old (being in a history book!). Grandma always made a fuss of us at Christmas and Birthdays and bought us something, even if we weren?t allowed to take it home ? we could leave it there to play with. I really regret now that they both died before I?d left and I could have told them how much it meant to me and how much I appreciated it and had a chance to buy them a Christmas present in return.
We lived near Irlam locks on the Manchester ship canal ? a monumental engineering feat of its day and still busy with shipping going into Manchester. This was our playground, along with ?the old river? ? a segment of the river Irwell that was cut-off when the Canal was dug. We?d do everything that kids shouldn?t ? walk across the ice on the river, climb from tree to tree to cross the swampy bit, crawl down the side of the canal and scramble up to avoid the waves as tugs went past, play around the locks and go across the railway bridge high above it (even walking on the outside of it ? god I hope my kids are not like me !).
My mothers parents lived in Warrington, about 30 minutes drive away and also very near to the canal. We would occasionally make the trip on our bikes and could go along-side the canal path for most of the route. My grandma had been a JW and my mother and her sister brought up in it. Granddad had been in the RAF during the war and never objected to the JW life but it wasn?t for him. Maybe he liked his odd cigar too much or maybe he just saw through it. I liked visiting them - Grandma would make the most beautiful pie that I?ve ever tasted and Granddad had a workshop where he made toys and models. He really is the ?mad inventor? type ? many years ago there was a competition for the first pedal powered flight across the channel. Everyone else built planes or winged-bikes ? but in my granddad?s shed you will find the embryonic remains of a pedal powered helicopter!
So how did I turn out who I am, where I am?
Cracks appear
I don?t know the how or why but things weren?t good at home. Mum and dad would fight and we would cry. One day, we say at the table and mum told us they were getting divorced. We cried more.
Life became pretty crap.
As well as being isolated with the ?JW thing? and already being different, now I was different and extremely miserable with my whole world being torn apart. I was picked on and bullied but by-god, I was a JW and we were supposed to be persecuted. I grinned and bared it like everyone told me too and the assurance that the end was near ? after all, I was told every week that I?d never go to the high school in this system of things!
When I started high-school, I missed the first week. My paternal grandmother had taken us three kids to Canada to visit my dad who had emigrated there a few years before and we were now back living at our old house again after living with various people in the KH including an elder who was keen on the ?spare the rod, spoil the child? philosophy.
I?ve had some nightmare experiences of my parents both wanting the best for us but with totally conflicting opinions on what this should be. With the help, no doubt, of the WTS, my mum ended up with custody of us and dad started a new life.
Over the years, my dad never quit trying to keep in touch with us and would often come over and try and keep some contact but of course it was made difficult for him. My mother remarried a local brother and my dad had been Df?d and more and more pressure was put on us not to have any contact with him. I remember some ?caring? elder explaining the consequences to me that I would be Df?d and then my mother and sisters would not have any contact with me ? I would have lost all my family. I?d love to be alone in a room with that bastard now. He wouldn?t walk out of it.
Over time, I lost regular contact with my dad and missed many years with him that I'll never get back. Something I bitterly regret and that they WTS will answer for.
Part 2 will be how I started to have my own doubts and got back in contact with my dad.