Me too! I've researched many the inside of a Glasgow Pub!
Craig
would someone seriously consider arranging for an apostafest up in scotland next year?
i know i'm asking this early but i feel it would be good to put the feelers out now.. obviously, it would have to be a location easy to get to - so that means stornoway is out!
sorry, ross & xena.
Me too! I've researched many the inside of a Glasgow Pub!
Craig
for those who missed the drama, you can check it out here if you wish to www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/140100/1.ashx.
for those who know a little about my past and my mother - she had the nerve to call me today and leave an urgent message for me to call her.
i thought it was about my dad or that something bad had happened since her last comment to me was that i was dead to her, or something to that effect.
Sounds 100% like my mother...
'I love you....but' is in essence the entire jw-non jw family relationship in a few words. 'I love you..but your not a jw'
With ones own flesh and blood it should be 'I love you.. no matter what'
I got so sick of my mothers mind games and having to walk on egg shells lest i offend her religious view that 3 years ago i pressed the nuclear button and told her and my step-father to piss off and never contact me or my children again unless they were no longer jw's. Needless to say I haven't heard from them since... and you know what.. I like it that way.
If they are going to choose that religious cult over their own flesh and blood then the loss is entirely their's and my family and I are better off without them.
Craig
real shock i know that a jw would do that.
i found out today that my mom took my son to the kh behind my back when she was in town visiting.
he's just a little baby so he will have no memories of it.
I don't often post but this prompted me to respond.
I would press the nuclear button. Tell her in no uncertain terms that unless your wishes are respected there will be no more contact. Furthermore if it comes to your attention that your wishes despite this remain disrespected, contact will be summarily severed immediately.
I speak from bitter experience. My mother would not give me an assurance that if the opportunity arose she would not preach to my children. Result: Contact immediatly severed.
JW's are JW's first and family members second if even that. They have no respect whatsoever for boundaries if they think they can gain a potential convert. My mother would have no hesitation in trying to convert my children if she thought she could get away with it. I'm simply depriving them of the opportunity. When my kids are older and wiser I'll explain to them why it was necessary to have them see less of their zealous self-righteous JW grandparents and I have every confidence they'll thank me.
Craig
can anyone compile a list of as many as possible past and present co/do's from the uk?
Ah the memories....
Peter Morgan.. he was the bald guy with the wierd diet, due to some strange illness. i had a lot of time for him as he took the time out to help me in a difficult period. Came to our house for dinner and only ate some museli and water type thing.
John Flack... he could be talking about the most irrelevant Watchtower Drivel and make it sound like the sonnets of shakespeare so good he was at public speaking. He was a pleasure to listen to.
David Carter? Wasnt he the one who looked and acted a bit like the actor Robert Moreley? He used to ask the audience questions directly from the platform of the Circuit Assembly, although no one could here any answers as no mics were provided at the cct assemblies. Quite a comedian and i seem to remember him having Hamilton Town Hall in fits of laughter with his banter in the late 80's,
Ray Midgely.. & Gordon Webb (where to start) came along to Lanarkshire no.1 in 1980/81 as the fallout from Brooklyn over the Franz Incidnent began to be felt worldwide. They cracked the Watchtower whip very hard and my gullible step father then aspiring to be an elder brown nosed them the whole way and didnt i pay the price in his desire to run a 'Theocratic' household. Thank you the pair of you for contributing in no small measure to the hell i live in in the early mid 80's. Ray in particular who embarrassed me totally at a door in Strathaven when a scantily dressed female answered the door and he asked me if it gave me any urges.... in front of the poor woman! W*nkers the pair of them.
Alistair Campbell... a true gent... large man with very 1970's glasses who used to be missionary in south america. showed the local elders up and came to my wedding with my wifes disfellowhsipped sister attending and thumbed his nose at the whole shower of twats in EAST KILBRIDE WHITEHILL CONG who thought they would play the WT 15/09/81 card and all be good boys and stay away.Alistair was 10 times the man any of you lot were and to this day although I havent the time of day for the Watchtower I have nothing but praise for him when he came up to the front of the KH after my wife and I were married and wished us all the best and gave a nod to my new DF sister in law.
Chris Thompson... dull boring and unimaginative. Yes he was from Anglia and came and went in one sitting summer of 1985.
This thread brought back a lot of strange memories... pleasant unpleasant and plain weird!
Craig
can anyone compile a list of as many as possible past and present co/do's from the uk?
Ray Midgeley (didnt know he was a goner)
John Flack (superb public speaker)
Gordon Webb (twat)
Peter Morgan (lovely guy)
Chris Thompson (vaguely remeber)
There was a guy I think called Rodney? Ketter from the early 70's who i remember as a very small boy. Scared the crap out of me.
All Lanarkshire no. 1 circuit 1974-1990 when i was around and growing up.
just feeling a bit fed up.
it's not always like this i know but i'm wondering if life would be far easier for me and my wife if i just drew a line under all my efforts to maintain a relationship with my jw mother, brother and sisters.
all the rejection, judgementalism and condescension gets a bit much after a while.. how many here actually said 'goodbye' to their jw family and can honestly say they did not regret it?.
I left the Watchtower in early 1991 at 21 years old (just faded) and for the next 13 year walked the tightrope of trying to live my life and maintain a relationship with my JW zealot mother and stepfather.
The line was crossed when i found out in late 2004 they had been talking to my oldest daughet then 10 about 'the truth' after my express instructions not to. It destroyed the fragile truce as they would not give me their assurance it would never happen again.
They disrespected my wishes and like Gary Buss says they only ever do that once. I walked away and never looked back.
And what? My life is so much simpler now that they arent a problem to 'deal with'. Always treading carefully in case they offend us or us them.
But really its their choice things are the way they are. They chose to place a religious organisation ahead of their own flesh and blood. The loss is entirely theirs. In reality i lost my mother in 1974 when she joined that cult.
Sometimes you got to bury people before their dead.
Craig
i'd really like to know if any of my old friends are hanging around in here.
i know how scary it is to even think of revealing yourself so if it helps just send me a private message.
perhaps we could meet up for lunch or a drink sometime.. i was in northampton until 1988 when i moved to milton keynes and became 'inactive' in 2000. don't worry, i know how to keep my mouth shut if that's important to you.
I lived in Northampton (East Hunsbury) not as a JW mind. from 98-02. Loved the beer. Queen Eleanor next to the A508/A45 was a lovely little pub as was The Yeoman of England in Wooton. Cracking carvery there...
Back home in Scotchland now in Glasgow.....
Never liked Milton Keynes when i lived down there... reminded me far too much of East Kilbride i.e concrete jungle (which is a Scottish new town) where i was brought up and therefore too many JW memories.
Craig
yes, many will remember the panorama programme shown on channel 4 (uk) a few years ago.
the one that highlighted the child abuse scandal and the disgusting manner in which the borg deals with it.
then when the letter was read out to the congregations a week or so later addressing this issue by dismissing the programme by simply saying that two witnesses were needed before a person could make an accusation.
I also recall the program broadcast a short time later featuring the host, who stated that Watchtower sources in the US and UK were given numerous opportunities to appear on camera to give their side of the story.
They declined all offers.
Also remember all the cases featured were about JW's who had been convicted in a court of law for their crimes, it was not as if allegations were being made.
I followed the BBC News and Panorama website for several months after the initial UK broadcast and never once saw anything resembling a 'formal apology' from the BBC.
Craig
the simple answer is no.
but i had a funny text from an irish friend that said the following:.
"the govt has done a survey on the size of an english penis.
Speaking as a totally unbiased Scot...
Top 3 but would be surprised if they win.
Scotland won the world cup in 1978, but no-one noticed... we just had the party at Hampden before we went.
(I dogged the meeting that night to see the first game in Argentina! :-o
P.S What i mean is i just didnt go to the meeting and stayed home to watch it on TV. I didnt actually go to Argentina!
could it be that the wts actually thinks it can win this war?
i mean, they are forcing sites to close down, suing the people that run them etc.
i wonder if this is the way they want to "handle" the internet problem.
The Watchtower is at a huge disadvantage simply because they do not have a single coherent enemy to fight. They misguidely assume that we are the 'evil slave' as if some such cohesive organisation existed that they could train their weapons at. No such group exists. The enemies of the Watchtower are a loosely connected group of people who despite having varying agendas all have one thing in common: to see and end to the Watchtower. All the apostate sites on the 'net bring together a myriad of different viewpoints and opinions all of which contribute to holding the Watchtower to the ridicule it deserves.
Imagine going back to say the mindset of the WT organisation in 1970 for example; never in their worst nightmare could the Watchtower back then have imagined a scenario whereby every last foolishness they have ever published would be a click away in the privacy of someones own home. That private letters to DO's, CO's and Elders would be visible for public viewing worldwide. Never could they have forseen that a network would exist whereby former JW's could get together and air their views and more importantly offer support to each other. The advances in technology in the last decade absolutely stagger me; and who knows what lies ahead!
I personally believe that, say 50 years from now, religious historians of the future will look back at the years 2000 - 2010 and draw the line saying 'here marks the true end of the Watchtower Society.'
Craig