***Warning: two mild sexual references in the
explanatory notes (XXI.11,
XXV.7)***
Revised Johannine Writings (abbreviation RJW) is a 2025 revision and reordering of
Johannine Writings
(JW, mainly from 1980; also 2006, 2009, 2010), which itself is a revision and conflation of
“The Memoir of John”
(Mem Jn, 1969) and “The Memoir of Yahweh-is-Gracious”
(Mem Y-i-G, 1969–1971, 1973, brief conclusion 1977).
I introduced a “chapter-and-verse” reference system into the original
Johannine Writings, which, I think, suited its quasi-biblical style, and which I have retained here. Chapters I to IX are from
Mem Jn, and chapters X to XXX from Mem Y-i-G. The original Johannine Writings made considerable rearrangements of the source material;
Revised Johannine Writings has sought to minimise such rearrangements.
“The Memoir of Yahweh-is-Gracious” was written in a deliberately obscure style, with names of people and places disguised cryptically.
Johannine Writings changed these to their real names in its main narrative, but continued to use cryptic names in its
episodes of four “diabolical convocations” and a “council in heaven”. Revised Johannine Writings has used real names throughout.
In producing Revised Johannine Writings, I have compared its text with the source texts and made some changes to bring it more into accord with them. There are several instances in which later marginal notes in the source material, and other explanatory annotations, have found their way into the main text of
Revised Johannine Writings. (See also
Johannine
Writings (Revised).)
The “waiting meeting”, perhaps 23rd May 1965 [Contents]
I.1.When Stanley Smith*
was pastor of the Full Gospel Church, Fleetwood, it was decided that we should have a special
meeting,† convened that those wishing to be “baptised with the Holy Spirit” could pray.
* Stanley Smith was appointed minister of the Full Gospel Church, Lowther Road, Fleetwood in March 1951, and to the great sorrow of the church died suddenly and unexpectedly in February 1969 at the age of 57, just after the church had moved to larger premises in Elm Street. The events related here took place in 1965.
† After he had conducted the Sunday-evening Gospel Meeting, there would be a Youth Meeting at which he would not be present. This particular one was a
special meeting; such meetings were called “waiting meetings” at Fleetwood, and were called either this or “tarrying meetings” at other Pentecostal churches.
2.And it was a few weeks* before the Day of
Pentecost, 1965.†
* A few weeks is stated elsewhere to be two weeks or so.
† The Day of Pentecost, or Whit Sunday, fell on 6 June in 1965. We can probably date this “waiting meeting” to 23 May 1965.
3.Several people were gathered, and we began to kneel and pray for God’s blessing.
4.I prayed in my heart and in whispers, for I was afraid to do otherwise. 5.Then someone put his hands on my shoulders, and immediately I felt power emanating from the places where his hands touched my shoulders.
6.It was like heat flowing from those places and filling my whole body; it was like “pins and needles”, and they flowed and filled me from head to toe, so much so that I could feel the feeling in my teeth. 7.And I was moved by this Spirit to praise the Lord. With every breath, I
was voicing praises to God, louder and louder.
8.I was being driven to do so, and yet I suppose I could have stifled it, had I wanted to. 9.This experience was new to me; I had been told very little about
it, and this was the first such meeting I had been to. Consequently, I did not understand what
exactly had been happening to me.[more]
II.1.Let me turn my mind back to the first month of that year.
2.My friend Chris Woodhead suffered from epileptic fits.[more]
3.A few days previously I had seen
him: suddenly, he collapsed on the floor and lay still. Then he started to twitch; his arms and legs began to beat frantically on the floor; his teeth ground together and he growled.
4.After some time he lay still again, then he started shaking again.
5.Later he regained consciousness, a bit shaken and worn out, not remembering what had just happened, and none the worse for it.[more]
6.Then why were these fits considered dangerous if he felt none the worse?
7.Because one time he had fallen into a boating lake and nearly drowned; another time he had pulled a pan of water on to himself;* one time he had fallen downstairs:
8.These fits endangered his life —
not to mention the prejudice of folk against epileptics, and the threat to their
livelihood that they suffer.
* When I say He had pulled a pan of water on to himself I have in mind a pan of boiling water on the stove.
“My friend Chris Woodhead”, ca.1967
The adventure begins, Wednesday evening, 13th January 1965 [Contents]
III.1.And now we were on our way to the great city of Manchester on a
train.
2.For we had seen a film on television a few weeks before, about a church in Manchester where they were saying that Jesus was alive, and that if people would believe in him, then their sicknesses would be cured, as Jesus cured diseases when he was on earth in the flesh.[more]
“For we had seen a film on television a few weeks before, about a church in Manchester…” – TV listing in
The Times for Wednesday 9th December 1964. The church was called
“Sharon Full Gospel Church”.
3.And while we had been walking from our home town Thornton, to Cleveleys,* passing King George’s playing fields, I had said, “Why don’t you go to this place?”[more]
* From… Thornton to Cleveleys, or, from Cleveleys to
Thornton.
4.Then, a
few days later, he had come round to our house, saying, “We must go tonight.
“I had a dream last night,” he had added untruthfully, “in which my Grandma appeared to me, telling me to go there.” His Grandma had died a few months previously.
6.And I had wondered anxiously whether I should go, but I was won over by his strong persuasions; and in addition, my friend Peter
Gooding, who was there, had agreed to go along.[more]
“In addition, my friend Peter Gooding, who was there, had agreed to go
along”: from a school photo, July 1965
7.And the train got to Bolton,[more] and we took a bus
into Manchester. 8.And we did not know where to go, because we were alone in a strange city.
9.Then Chris suggested that we should go to the
Granada studios, for
Granada had screened the television programme. And we agreed.[more]
“Then Chris suggested that we should go to the Granada studios” (2001 photo).
I’m not sure whether it was Chris who suggested this. Certainly he was the spokesman when we got there: Peter stammered, and I was shy.
10.But it was only a night watchman who was there, and he did not have access to the files, and he could not tell us where this church, “Sharon”, was.
11.So we walked away, feeling sad. 12.But we did not have anywhere to stay, so we went back to the watchman and asked him if he knew where we could stay the night.
“We went back to the watchman and asked him if he knew where we could stay the
night” (2001 photo). Again, it was Chris who did this.
13.The watchman suggested that we might try the YMCA, which, he said, “is 100 yards down the road.”
14.So we decided to take his advice; we walked about 100 yards down the road, but could not see it.
15.We walked further, and much further along we saw it.
16.But to our disappointment it was closed; there was not a light to be seen in the building.
17.And it was after midnight, so how could we hope to find somewhere to stay?[more]
“The YMCA”, 1977
No longer “the YMCA”, 2001
18.As we stood there on the street corner, a man appeared, walking quickly.
19.As he passed by, we asked him if he knew of anywhere we might stay. And thinking for a moment, he said, “You can come to our flat.”
“You can come to our flat” – 73 Camp Street, Salford 7: boarded up for demolition, 1977. Tom's flat was on the top floor.
Rear view of 73 Camp Street, Salford 7: 1977. You can see the light shining through the damaged roof, out of the rear window of Tom's flat.
20.Now we did not know what sort of a man he was, but we decided that we would take a chance, and so we went with him.
21.At the flat, after walking what seemed like miles into Salford—
at the flat there was a woman called Grace, also another man.
22.And Tom — the first man, Tom Bennett, whom we had met on the street corner
— got Grace to make us some supper. 23.Then we retired to bed; we slept under blankets on the floor, and they all three slept in a bed in the same room.[more]
IV.1.In the morning we set out from there, going, via the studios where we found out the address of the church, to a post office,
2.where we sent a brief telephone message to my neighbours, very confused, for I was not used to telephones at that time.
3.For we maintained that we had not
“run away from home” as such, but had come with a purpose.[more]
4.We
had left home without telling our parents that we were going, although we had left notes.
5.But Chris’s note made his parents worry, for it said
that he was “going to end these fits once and for all.” 6.And it rained exceedingly heavily that night, so much so that my Mum nearly wouldn’t let me go out
— I said I was going to Chris’s house — but finally she relented and I went out.
7.What a sight we looked! dripping wet and scruffy. I wore an ancient raincoat that reached almost if not quite down to my ankles.[more]
The source document Mem Jn omits the next stage of the story. We had arranged to meet at Four Lane Ends, Thornton (1979 photo), at 6.30pm. I was a bit late, because of my difficulty getting out of the house. We set out hitch-hiking (in the reverse direction to this photo).
Remember, it was night-time when this originally happened: Wednesday 13 January 1965.
We ran like crazy past my house (to the right in this 1979 photo).
We were passing beneath some trees (ahead, in this 2008 photo)—
—when Chris's dad (whom we nicknamed Fido because of his tendency to bark) passed us in his car. We ran and hid in a nearby deserted farmyard.
We emerged when we thought it was safe to do so; but further along the road, as we approached the crossroads at the Castle Gardens pub, Fido saw us again and stopped.
In 1965, the wall of the pub continued along the line of the grass verge. (The nearer building in this 2008 photo is a later extension.) There was an entrance to the back yard of the pub in this wall, through which we fled. Chris wrote in 1967:
“We ran and hid in the outside toilets of a nearby public house. I praise God that my father never caught us that night, he had a bad foot, and this hindered him in searching for us. We hid in a compartment in the toilets, but my father wasn’t sure where we had gone. He even came in, but amazing as it may seem he never looked in the compartment where we were although the door was ajar. This was surely a
miracle!”
After this incident, we gave up the idea of hitch-hiking and decided to catch a train instead. Emerging from our hiding place, we turned the corner on which the Castle Gardens stands, left into Poulton Road (right in this 2008 photo). It was nearly a mile to the station, but we ran for most of the way.
There was a narrow passage, a short cut at the start of Tithebarn Street (the continuation of Poulton Road), leading along the railway embankment, leading to the station. (The entrance to the passage can just be seen by the traffic-light in this 1997 photo.)
We sprinted down this narrow passage (2008 video),—
(1997 photo)
(2008 photo) —and arrived out of breath at the ticket office of the deserted station, with its dimly glowing gas lamps, and that smell that hung around stations—that familiar, sweet smell, a mixture of gas from the lamps and coal or coke from the heating
stoves.
“And the train got to Bolton…” RJW
III.7 (1977 photo). We had decided to take the train to Bolton, then get a bus into Manchester, because when Chris had run away from home once, he had found the police waiting for him at Manchester Piccadilly railway station.
“With his stripes I am healed”, Thursday 14th January 1965 [Contents]
IV.8.Then in the afternoon we did what the man at the studios told us: “Take the 81 bus from Albert Square.”
9.And we did, and behold, “Sharon Full Gospel Church”.
“Behold, Sharon Full Gospel Church”, 2001
Another view of Sharon Full Gospel Church, 2001
10.To our dismay, however, it was closed; we had thought it would have been open all the time, but it was closed.
11.So we were exceedingly disappointed.
12.But then Chris noticed a sign in the church
yard; it was a notice board, 13.giving
among other things the telephone number of the pastors, and he quickly rang the number.
“But then Chris noticed a sign in the church yard; it was a notice board, giving among other things the telephone number of the pastors, and he quickly rang the number” (from a 1965 photo). I’m not sure if it was Chris who noticed the sign; again, though, he was the spokesman: he was the one who used the public phone across the road.
14.Pastor Williams’s wife answered the
telephone, and Chris explained the situation. She told him that usually they did not have prayer for the sick midweek; but seeing we had come a long way, she said that Pastor Williams would see us for half an hour at half-past four, which was in an hour.
“Pastor Williams's wife”: Mrs. Irene Williams
15.How long, how eternal that hour seemed! As we wandered through the slums of Moss Side, we wondered if it would ever pass. 16.However, soon it was time, and we were at the pastors’ house, standing outside the
door. 17.But who should knock? We were very frightened, and did not dare knock.
18.For we thought that the pastor was psychic, for on the television programme he had discerned what diseases people had.
19.Then a man arrived at the house; but after we briefly explained our business, he went round the back, suggesting that we ring the front doorbell. This we then did;
20.the pastor met us, led us into the front room, and there we told him how we had come from Blackpool without our parents’ knowing it, and we told him about
Chris, how he had fits.
“The pastors’ house”, no longer theirs in 2001. Note that “pastors” is plural – both Pastors Barratt and Williams, and their families, had apartments in this large Victorian house.
Pastor Williams
21.Then the pastor bade Peter and me kneel on the floor and pray for Chris; he stood with Chris in front of us.
22.He then laid his hand upon Chris’s forehead, and commanded the epilepsy to leave him “in the name of Jesus”. 23.Immediately, Chris fell to the floor, as if struck down by the power of God.
24.And we thought he was dead or that there was something wrong with him. 25.But Pastor Williams took him by the hand and raised him up,* and asked him how he felt.
26.And Chris said that he felt easier.
27.And Pastor Williams told Chris not to say that he himself had cured him, but to say, “With his stripes”, that is, those of Jesus, “I am healed.”
* We thought he was dead or that there was something wrong with him. But Pastor Williams took him by the hand and raised him up: I sometimes wonder if this recollection of mine was
unconsciously influenced by the account of the healing of the epileptic boy in
Mark 9:26,27: “And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him:
and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him
by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.” However, my source, Mem Jn,
is quite early; I wrote it in 1969.
28.Then he took us upstairs, and his wife prepared us some tea — baked beans on toast — and we ate gladly. 29.Pastor Williams told us that since the showing of the film on television the church had had visits from people from all over the north of England. He said, “We’ve had people from Leeds, Wakefield, Sheffield—”
Any moment now, I thought, he’s going to say, “Barnsley”.
“Doncaster, Barnsley—”
At his mention of Barnsley I had to bite my lip because I couldn’t help smiling. For Chris’s form-master at school, H. Ellis Tomlinson or “Toss” as he was called by them, was known to lampoon Barnsley; he said things like, “The palm-fringed beaches of sunny Barnsley.” Barnsley thus became a trigger to great mirth between Chris and me.
“Chris’s form-master at school”, the late “H. Ellis Tomlinson”
30.Going from that place we were thrilled and happy and overjoyed and leapt for joy and ran in our rejoicing.
31.For we no longer “believed”, as we said; we now “knew”: we knew that God was real, that he had healed Chris.
32.Yes, we knew. How happy the revelation, for that is what it was! 33.After this, we decided to return to Tom’s flat.*
34.(Tom and those with him were Irish.)[more]
* In the evening, Chris recalls, before we went to Tom’s flat in Salford, we took a walk round the centre of Manchester. Chris remembers “lighting up” in the doorway of the
Marks & Spencer
store.
We return home, Friday 15th January 1965 [Contents]
V.1.Then, in the morning, we set out, thumbing lifts.
2.A lorry
[truck] took us so far; a van took us further.
3.Then seeing a 180 bus, we decided to get it, and this took us home to Thornton. 4.So we were home.
5.The first task was to inform our parents.
6.Mrs. Gooding, Peter’s mother, received us well, as did
Chris’s and mine.
7.But while we were at Chris’s house, his father, whom we nicknamed Fido, came in. 8.“Don’t you want to see him?” his mother asked. “I
DON’T KNOW!” was the reply; he was angry.[more]
“Peter’s mother,… Chris’s, and mine.… Fido…”
9.Then after this we went to the police station, where we were ushered upstairs into the presence of the inspector.
10.“Don’t smile,” warned a young constable as we were on our way up. 11.In the room was the inspector, who said, “Mr. and Mrs. Gooding, you may sit here—” (for they had brought us there) “—but as for you three, you can stand. 12.“Now, which one of you is Woodhead? Are you Woodhead?” “No,” I said. “Are you?” “No,” said Peter. 13.“Then you are Woodhead.
14.Now, Woodhead, I’m getting sick and tired of you. This is the third time this year that you’ve run away from home.
15.Do you realise that I could put you away for being in need of care and protection?” 16.Then he tried to prove that
Chris had persuaded us to run away, and that this was our only motive in going.
17.When we explained that we had gone in order to get Chris cured, he would have none of this.
18.Peter was quite strong in his defence of
Chris. 19.He made us turn out our pockets.
20.Again Peter defied him; he had already emptied his pockets at home. 21.After this, at home, I wept because no-one would understand our motives.
22.Also, I was convinced that God was real and that he had healed Chris, but no-one would understand this.[more]
The Day of Pentecost, Sunday 6th June 1965 [Contents]
VI.1.Two weeks or so after the prayer meeting where I had first known the feeling of the power of God,*
Chris and I went down to Sharon for some meetings.
2.(And at that time we were courting Pastor Williams’s daughters.)[more]
3.During one meeting, on the Day of
Pentecost,† the Pastor asked all those who wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit to go into a room at the back.
4.So Chris and I went. 5.The Pastor laid his hands upon me, and I spoke in another tongue, although I do not recall feeling like I did the first time someone put his hands upon me.[more]
* The prayer meeting where I had first known the feeling of the power of God was not the actual Prayer Meeting, which was held on Thursday evenings; it was a special “waiting meeting”, held after the main meeting one Sunday evening.
† The Day of Pentecost, or Whit Sunday, fell on 6 June in 1965. The meeting mentioned here was the Sunday evening meeting.
“Chris and I went down to Sharon…” – contemporary photo taken in the Williamses’ back garden, probably on the Sunday since I am wearing my suit, with me attempting to strike a pursed-lipped, “Don’t you think I look sexy?—sexier than HIM!” pose
“…And at that time we were courting Pastor Williams’s daughters” – Hazel, 1969.
“…And at that time we were courting Pastor Williams’s daughters” – Pamela, 1968.
“One moment of passion”, Monday 7th June 1965 [Contents]
XI.1.I was going out with Pamela, Pastor Williams’s daughter; and I was fond of her.
2a.However, apart from one moment of passion, she seemed not to return the fondness.[more]
“I was going out with Pamela, Pastor Williams’s daughter; and I was fond of her. However,… she seemed not to return the fondness” – contemporary photo taken in the Williamses’ back garden: there I am with my eyes seemingly glued to Pamela’s chest, as she sits, neatly attired in a modest cream cotton dress, on my knee in a deck chair, and looks as though she would rather be anywhere else but there.
“I was going out with Pamela, Pastor Williams’s daughter; and I was fond of her. However,… she seemed not to return the fondness” – contemporary photo taken near Buxton, where again Pam looks very uncomfortable to be there.
“I was going out with Pamela, Pastor Williams’s daughter; and I was fond of her. However, apart from one moment of passion, she seemed not to return the fondness” – contemporary photo taken near Buxton. This is not the “one moment of passion”, though; in fact, this scene was not as spontaneous as it makes out, for a similar photo was taken of Chris and Hazel.
The Full Gospel Church, Fleetwood, perhaps Sunday 14th March 1965 [Contents]
VII.1.Thanks be to God for the unspeakable gift of his salvation.
2.I John have written of how my friend was healed of epileptic fits by the Lord, and how the Lord graciously filled me with the Holy Spirit.
3.Chris, Peter and I started going to the Full Gospel Church in Fleetwood.
4.We heard of it through a letter sent to us from Pastor Williams of Sharon. He gave us three addresses, two of which he had crossed out; the remaining one was Fleetwood. 5.We arrived, then, that Sunday night.
6.Pastor Stanley Smith took the meeting, after Barry Hill had led the singing of choruses, many of which we did not know. 7.Afterwards there was a “Coffee Rendezvous”, where there were tables set up, and where unconverted young people were invited to sit and talk.
8.A big, muscular man, Richard English, and another, came and sat with us and asked us if we knew Jesus Christ.
9.This worried me, as did the appeal that Pastor Smith had given for people to come and accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour: did I in fact know Jesus Christ as my Saviour? 10.Peter, however, told them that we
did, and they accepted us as Christians.[more]
“The Full Gospel Church”, Lowther Road, Fleetwood – before the church moved to larger premises in 1969
“Pastor Stanley Smith took the meeting…” (1969 photo)
“…after Barry Hill had led the choruses.” (photo,
ca.1967)
A view inside the Full Gospel Church, Lowther Road, Fleetwood.
This photo was taken, ca.1969 – actually, on the occasion of the wedding of now-widowed Mrs. Gooding, Peter’s mother, to Tom Smith. It was just before the church moved from Lowther Road to larger premises in Elm Street, Fleetwood. Pastor Stanley Smith
officiates, and John Nelson Parr stands by.
Another view inside the Full Gospel Church, Lowther Road, Fleetwood, ca.1969. This photo back-tracks somewhat from the above one, as Tom Smith, with stepson and best man Peter Gooding, awaits the arrival of his bride.
11.Did I, in fact, know Christ as my Saviour at this time? 12.When Chris was healed Peter and I had, at the order of Pastor Williams, been kneeling. I had prayed, “God heal Chris”; and when Chris had been prayed for, I suddenly had the realisation that God was indeed real; in my own words, “We don’t believe any more
— we
KNOW!” 13.I think that was the time when I was born again, because that is what it felt like: everything seemed new and different. 14.However, appeals by Pastors at Sharon and Fleetwood worried me, and my heart beat, and the worried feeling raged in my stomach. 15.I remember saying to God at home concerning commitment to Christ, “Not now
— later, when I’m older.”[more]
X.1.One day the Adversary called a secret meeting of the fallen ones.
2.During the meeting one named Snaresetter said, “There is a boy named John Cooper. He loves serving the Lord, and I think we ought to tempt him away from such love.”
3.The Adversary raised his eyebrows and said, “I cannot devote my time or the valuable time of this meeting to such an insignificant one as he. How many souls, for example, has he won from me by his efforts of service?
4.However, seeing that you are persistent, what do you propose should be done about him?
5.So Snaresetter proposed some
ideas…*
* This is the first of four diabolical convocations, four
attempts to stumble me: they occur at chapter
X, chapter XII, chapter XX, and
chapter XXVII. I got the idea of events being manipulated by beings in the spiritual realm from the Book of Job, but I felt unworthy to set the scene in heaven, as in that book; I chose instead to make it a diabolical
convocation, not a heavenly one. Later, though, I feared that this denied God his sovereignty, so did include a council in heaven:
chapter
XIX.
The Pentecostal Fellowship Camp, Scarborough [Contents]
XI.1.I was going out with Pamela, Pastor Williams’s daughter; and I was fond of her.
2.However, apart from the aforementioned one moment of passion, she seemed not to return the fondness. This became particularly evident when we all went on holiday to the Pentecostal Fellowship Camp at Scarborough. She would barely have anything to do with me.[more] 3.This coldness, it seemed to me, was due to the influence of a certain unmarried middle-aged woman called Mary, who was in the Williams daughters’ party at Scarborough.
4.So I despised her, and one time I raged about her to myself and my friends Chris and Peter in an outburst of hate, saying, “I know it’s un-Christian, but I hate that woman!” All this because of an unfounded notion that she was trying to put Pamela off me![more] 5.Anyway, Pamela finished with me, causing me very much sorrow and grief, with tears.[more] Such was the aching I felt inside, that I thought I could never be happy again. But I got over the pain within the week.
VIII.4.When I was at Scarborough camp, in one of the meetings, the speaker called for those who wanted to dedicate their lives completely to the Lord to stand on their feet.
5.This I did, and such a mighty anointing of the Holy Spirit came upon me that I helplessly fell back into my seat again with tears of great joy and laughter.[more]
XI.6.As for my upset over the loss of Pamela, I was soon comforted by a certain girl, very attractive, called Ann Fenton from Blackburn.
7.So it was that I did not turn away from my devotion to the service of the Lord, except that I sinned in hating Mary for a brief time.
8.In fact, my dedication was strengthened at that time, and I was filled powerfully with the Holy Spirit.[more]
XII.1.Again the Adversary called a secret meeting of the fallen ones.
2.Again while the meeting was in session the one named
Snaresetter said, “There is a boy named John Cooper. He still loves serving the Lord, and in fact his dedication to the same service has doubled since we last met.”
3.The Adversary raised his hand to his chin and tapped his cheek and said, “I cannot devote my time to this
insignificant one for I am occupied on other business pouring cold water on the assemblies of believers, nor can we devote the valuable time of this meeting to such an insignificant one as he.
4.How many strongholds of mine, for example, has he battered down by his
efforts of service, and how many souls has he won from me by the doubling of his
dedication? 5.However, seeing that you are
persistent, what do you propose should be done about him? So Snaresetter proposed some
ideas—*
Peter Gooding and I go to
Kirkby-in-Ashfield [Contents]
XIII.1.Shortly afterwards,
Peter Gooding received a letter from a girl named Barbara and her sister Doreen. We had met them at the Pentecostal Fellowship Camp.
2.This letter seemed to be one of invitation to come to where they lived.
3.And immediately Peter and I packed our bags and travelled there by public transport, and paid Barbara and her sister a visit.
4.(Now Barbara and Doreen were both attractive, but Doreen was more attractive than Barbara.) 5.However, on our arrival at their house, Doreen told me, “I am spoken for.”
6.And Barbara also seemed uninterested in our coming.
7.Then we explained that we had come because they had written to us, saying, “You’ll have to come and see us.” They explained that the letter had meant something different. 8.So we pitched our tent on a piece of spare ground. This was at Kirkby-in-Ashfield, in Nottinghamshire. 9.Then we went, and got invited to stay at the house of a young lad called Ian
10.W—, who had been in the Kirkby-in-Ashfield party at the Pentecostal Fellowship Camp.*
11.Ian’s parents made us very comfortable, and we were happy there, except that the W—s had strange customs, such as pouring water instead of milk on their cereals before eating.
12.Ian’s grandfather, full of years and whose eyes were very dim with age, also dwelt with them.
* Ian attended the local Pentecostal church, but, I think, his parents did not. He was friendly with a lad called Robert, who had started work down the local coal mine. Robert did not attend Ian’s church, although he had gone with Ian to the Pentecostal Fellowship Camp. Peter definitely reckoned that Robert was “not saved”. I can’t remember our pronouncement upon Ian — probably the same!
XVII.7b.In Kirkby-in-Ashfield there lived
XIII.13b.a woman whose name was G—
XVII.7a.D—. XIII.14.She was a loose
woman; 15.and Ian W— and his friend Robert, who worked in the coal mine, would visit her when her husband was away.
16.And Peter and I did the same one
evening, not regarding the fact that it is unseemly for Christians to act thus.
13a.And we desired her, 17.but we came to our senses, and did not
utterly abandon the form of wise conduct that had been passed on to us by our Pastor,
Stanley Smith.
18.Nevertheless, we feasted our lusts on what would have seemed pleasurable for a season, although we were spared the guilt of fully gratifying these immoral desires.*
* How quickly the spiritual heights of Scarborough turned into the carnal depths of Kirkby! Peter and I visited G— D—
twice, the first time with Ian and Robert, and the second time just the two of
us. The encounter with the police, described next, would have occurred after the
second visit, for Ian and Robert were not with us.
19.That night, having left late, we were afraid to return to the W—s’ house, and so we wandered out of the town.
20.But we were spotted by the police, who made us stop.
21.After asking us questions they took us in their car to the
W—s’ house.
22.They did not believe our story and wanted confirmation, thinking
that we may have been two youths who had escaped from their custody.[more]
23.Later, having thus disregarded the Lord, we repented, and renewed our zeal in trying to please him. 24.When we got home and went to the meeting at church, Pastor Smith asked us if we had visited a young woman there.
25.He told us that Pastor Hollis of Kirkby-in-Ashfield had been in touch with him and told him that we had, despite Hollis’s having told us not to.
26.We admitted that we had visited her, then added, “But we didn’t do anything.”[more]
“Then we went, and got invited to stay at the house of a young lad called Ian W—… Ian’s parents made us very comfortable, and we were happy there…” – Peter and I bought the
W—s gifts for their hospitality, and they wrote thanking us.
27.Thus was I stumbled and hindered, but it was not unto death, and a place of repentance was found.
VIII.6.At that time my joy in the Lord was so great—I was so absolutely glad he had saved me—that I sometimes just did not know what to do with myself or where to put myself; it was so frustrating not to be able to find expression for the joy that I had.[more] IX.1.After these things, Pastor Smith came up to us (three, I think), and asked us if we
had been baptised.
2.We discussed this with him, and so
agreed to baptism by immersion. 3.At this time my parents had started coming to the church.
4.My mother, concerned and a little alarmed that I had become so
involved (especially after being filled with the Holy Spirit, when my fervour was much
increased), had decided to go to a Sunday morning service, to which I had not gone that Sunday.
5.Soon afterwards in the Sunday evening meeting she had got saved; and my father, later, having been to a number of Sunday evening services, also received Christ. 6.So I was baptised. Before baptism I bore testimony: “I thank the Lord for saving my soul; after all, look what he’s saved me from!”
7.Then I was immersed in the water. 8.Pastor Cartwright officiated at the baptism. Possibly my parents were also baptised that night.[more]
“Pastor Smith came up to us (three, I think)” – me (ca.1967), Chris Woodhead (1968), Peter Gooding
(ca.1967)
“My mother… and my father” (photos ca.1967)
Peter Gooding arouses my interest in Audrey Wood [Contents]
XIV.1.… 2.One day, Peter declared that he was in love.
3.So I asked him, “What’s her name?”
4.But Peter declined to answer, saying, “I’m not going to tell you. Remember what happened with Pam.”
5.But I wore him out with persuasions, so he said in a riddle, “Her name is Milk-cart Forest.”
6.This, it turned out, meant Audrey Wood. By “Milk-cart” he meant dray, which sounds like Audrey, and by “Forest” he meant
Wood.*[more]
7.There were in fact two girls whom I fancied: Audrey and Valerie; and I could not decide who was the more desirable.
“Milk-cart Forest” – school photo, 1966
* This incident occurred some time before November 1965. Peter Gooding and I had been going for some months to the Full Gospel Church in Fleetwood. One Sunday evening there, Peter said with a sigh that he was “in love”, but he wouldn’t tell me with whom, because he was afraid of a repeat of what had happened earlier that year when I “got off with” Pamela Williams, whom he also fancied. However, I pestered him for the name of this girl, and he eventually answered me cryptically: “Milk-cart Forest”; and it was only a step further to persuade him to tell me her real name: Audrey (which sounds like Dray, which is what he meant by
Milk-cart) Wood (Forest). Well, I’d already seen this girl and thought she looked quite nice: slim and pretty with long brown hair; rather quiet, she didn’t mix or speak much or broadcast her presence. In fact, after the meeting at church that night she had been (I think) sitting near us at the front of the church, and I had noticed her. “Mm!” I had thought. “Quite nice!” Then I’d looked at her hands, noticing that she was a nail-biter. “Ah, maybe not!” I thought, even though I myself had the same habit. From that moment on, despite my misgivings at her biting her fingernails, I developed a strong crush on her: I had already noticed that she was attractive; now Peter’s words confirmed that my attraction was “valid”.
XV.1.Audrey had a nice figure and was attractive-looking. She was unkissed; she had never been out with a boy.[more]
2.It was decided at church
— and a new attender Mr. Dobson had not a little to do with it — that we should go over to Knott End, a small town on the other side of the River Wyre from Fleetwood (where our church was) and preach the gospel there.[more] 3.(Mr. Dobson was a crook, and he was later revealed for the bad person he was.
4.He was small and bald.) 5.So we held a series of meetings there, at the local cinema.
6.And the Lord did not look with favour on the meetings; he did not bless the people there.
7.Not many turned to the Lord,[more] but a young woman was converted with tears and penitence.[more]*
* At Fleetwood Full Gospel Church there started to attend a Mr. Dobson, who lived in, and who married a woman of, Knott End, a small town which lies at the corner of the River Wyre estuary and Morecambe Bay, on the opposite side of the Wyre from Fleetwood. A “campaign” was organised there; the ex-pastor of Bethshan Tabernacle and pioneer of the Assemblies of God movement in Great Britain and Ireland,
John Nelson Parr, was booked to preach at the
Verona cinema in Knott End. He was an obvious choice; not only was he a red-hot, hellfire-and-brimstone preacher of the gospel, he also had come to live in Fleetwood on his retirement from pastoral ministry. Attendance by the locals was poor, and not many decisions for Christ were recorded. However, Myra Dine, who everybody thought was already saved — she was the daughter of Mrs. Dine who regularly attended at Fleetwood Full Gospel Church! — came forward during the end-of-sermon appeal on Sunday 7th November 1965, red-faced and cheeks streaming with tears, realising that she had never given her life to the Lord.
The following year I was told that Mr. Dobson was a crook, and was now in prison. For he used to pick on well-off old ladies, trick them into marrying him, then make off with their money. He had various aliases; Pastor Williams, for example, knew of him as “Peter deLyon”.
8.During this time, quite a lot of the young people of the church worked hard, trying to get the residents of Knott End to come to the meetings.
9.Of this number were Audrey Wood and I.
10.And it was while we were going across on the ferry, that I got acquainted with her for the first time.[more]*
* The church at Fleetwood organised the publicity for the meetings; all over Knott End leaflets were pushed through letter boxes from door to door. A number of the young people of the church, including Audrey Wood and myself, went across on the ferry on several afternoons, to do the leafleting. At the end of each session we would gather together at Dobson’s house for a cup of tea and prayer, before catching a return ferry. On such a return journey, sitting opposite Audrey as the autumn wind whipped up her now-short hair, I started making conversation with her, as a sweet yearning for her developed within me.
I went round to the Woods’ house once or twice after arriving at Fleetwood from Knott End, probably with other young people from the church.
11.I still thought of Valerie, with whom I had become acquainted when the evangelist T. L. Osborn had visited Bolton.
12.Many people flocked to hear him; I had met her there.[more]*
* At this time I quite fancied a girl called Valerie Morning who went to Pastor Girvan’s “Bible Pattern” church in Shaw Road, Blackpool. I became acquainted with her when I sat next to her in the back seat of a van, when we went to see the American evangelist T. L. Osborn at Bolton.
13.But I also fancied Audrey, and could not decide who was the more desirable.
14.So I prayed:
“If the girl whom Thou hast chosen to go out with me belongs to Fleetwood Full Gospel Church, let her be the one I shall sit with on the coach going to Knott End.”
A coach was laid on for the actual meetings; we did not go on the ferry.
15.So when there was an empty place on the coach by Audrey, I immediately sat in it.*
* My dilemma was solved when, after the meetings at Knott End had started, I sat next to Audrey on the coach which was hired to take the Fleetwood folk round to Knott End; I regarded this as an answer to prayer. The coach came from Fleetwood, and stopped at Four Lane Ends, Thornton, where we got on. Seeing an empty place next to Audrey, I sat in it. She looked very attractive in a simple, square-neckline, brown dress. We chatted quite easily and happily.
But Peter Gooding also had designs on Audrey; after the meeting he got on the coach before me—
16.After the meeting, I was very
disheartened to find that Peter was already sitting with Audrey; but my face fell and I looked sad;
17.and Audrey said to Peter, “Will you move?”
18.And Peter obliged; he moved and sat
elsewhere.
19.And I sat with her, and talked with her, and became fond of her, and developed a big crush on her.[more]
XVI.1.Later on, I was at home. Les Smith and his wife Maureen were there as guests of my Mum and Dad.
2.And Maureen asked me, “Are you sweet on Audrey Wood’s daughter?”
3.(Audrey’s mother was also called Audrey.)
4.Maureen had seen that I had sat with
Audrey on the Knott End coach.[more]*
* My sitting with Audrey on the coach had not gone
unnoticed by Maureen Smith, who, with her husband Les, had become friendly with my parents and used to visit our house quite frequently after the Sunday evening “gospel meeting” at the Full Gospel Church, Fleetwood.
During the visit after the Knott End “do”, Maureen casually asked me, “Are you sweet on Audrey Wood’s daughter?” (Mr. and Mrs. Wood — Audrey and Ken — named their son and daughter after
themselves.)
“Les Smith and his wife Maureen” (photos, ca.1967)
“Audrey’s mother was also called Audrey.”
The Hallowe’en party, Monday 1st November 1965 [Contents]
XVII.1.At that time it was the custom at our church for the young people to have
Hallowe’en parties every year. 2.(The celebration of Hallowe’en was later dropped; I think it offended the more “pious” of the young people.)
3.At such occasions there was much merrymaking and enjoyment.
4.And I had made up my mind to take steps to try to get Audrey to agree to go out with me.
5.That night I wept much on account of Audrey, and prayed that I might go out with her, calling on the Lord for help. I kept saying, “I love that little girl.”
6.For I had been prevented from approaching her that evening by Peter, who had spoken with her.[more]*
8.And I visited the Woods’ house a number of times in those days.
* I forget exactly when the Knott End campaign took place, except that it was in 1965, and that it was when the chill autumn wind was in my nostrils. However, after it started there was was a young people’s Hallowe’en party at the Full Gospel Church, so the following chronological list will probably suffice:
Sunday 24th October: the Knott End campaign begins.[more]
Wednesday 27th October: on the Knott End coach with Audrey.[more]
Sunday 31st October: Maureen and Les at our house.[more]
Monday 1st November, evening: Hallowe’en party at Fleetwood Full Gospel Church. In fact, Hallowe’en is 31 October, not 1 November. It is conceivable, however, that the Hallowe’en party at the church would be celebrated the next day to avoid clashing with Sunday services.[more]
Sunday 7th November 1965, the Knott End Campaign: Myra Dine responds in the end-of-sermon appeal.[more]
Monday 1st November, evening:
Hallowe’en party at Fleetwood Full Gospel Church.
There were games, such as apple-bobbing, in the “minor hall”; and after the games we all gathered round in the main hall, the lights were dimmed, and Mrs. Smith the pastor’s wife told us spooky stories. I hung round Audrey, as did Peter Gooding. And we three went to the Woods’ house afterwards, Peter thus preventing me from getting alone with her to ask her to go out with me.
(The celebration of Hallowe’en was later dropped; I think it offended the more “pious” of the young people, the ones who came into the church in the “influx” which had its start on
Sunday 10 July
1966.)
Yes, I remember coming home, feeling bitterly let down; I had decided to ask Audrey that night, and had summoned the courage to do it, only to be disappointed when Peter walked along with us.
Tracting with the young people, Wednesday 3rd November 1965 [Contents]
XVIII.1.A few days later, maybe two, a number of the young people assembled at the church, for the purpose of distributing tracts to those outside, to try to get them saved.
2.And I was frightened, but taking courage I asked Audrey to leave the church with me, before Peter would have the opportunity to walk with us, and thus spoil my
intentions.*[more]
* The story
ends abruptly here, but is taken up again in Chapter XXI.
XIX.1.Then there was a council of the
ministering spirits of the Lord in heaven, presided over by the Lord, and the Adversary entered.
2.For although he is a serpent and a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, yet is he a minister of the Lord, and carries out the predetermined, foreordained purposes of the Lord. 3.And the Lord said to him, “Why are you here?”
To which he replied, “There is one of yours, named John Cooper, and I would have him to buffet him grievously and afflict him.” 4.The Lord replied, “He is so small; how can he stand?
5.But yet I must show to him my great faithfulness and my power at work in him, which keeps him standing though he knows it not. Yes, buffet him and afflict him, and then he will know that I the Lord wound, but bind up; I the Father chastise, but the grievousness is but for a moment.
6.And he will then learn that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.” 7.As the Adversary would have gone, and turned in order to do so, the Lord said, “I know all about your secret meetings and what you have done thus far, for there is nothing done without my knowing it
altogether; moreover I ordained it thus.” 8.Then the Adversary departed, and left the presence of the Sovereign Lord, who is king of all the earth for ever and ever.
XX.1.Again the fallen ones met in array. Again the Adversary presided. And again the one who had sought to turn John Cooper out of the Way stood in the midst, and answered the accusations brought against him. 2.“What have you to say for yourself?” said the Adversary. “These two times have I given you leave to tempt him, and these two times you have failed me. Answer well, or I will send you hence to possess some worm of a man who has been depraved by my own cunning.
3.Then you will be cast before your time into the Abyss of Tartarus, kept in nether gloom and everlasting chains of
darkness.” 4.Panic filled the other’s breast and pangs his bowels. “Have mercy on me, and I will fulfil your every command and commission; I will obey your word and cast a sure
stumbling-block before the feet of John, son of Charles, descendant of the Cooper. 5.“Enough of the high-sounding words! Enough of the genealogies! Get you hence, and do that whereto I have sent you.
6.And be sure that this time, that this time you fail not.
7.I cannot damn this boy, for behold the mercies of the Lord are from everlasting to
everlasting,* but yet it is necessary that certain be kept from the kingdom, that kingdom which I loathe.
8.So get hence, and see that you
irrevocably stumble him.” 9.Now John Cooper was responsible for the conversion of a boy called Trevor Davies,† who came from Bolton.
10.And so the Lord’s kingdom was extended through this convert, through John Cooper.
11.And such conversions in the future the Adversary wanted to prevent, by causing a backsliding if possible on John
Cooper.‡
* An odd admission to be put into the mouth of the “father of lies”!
† Trevor is again mentioned in XXV.9.
‡ This is the third attempt of four to stumble me (the four are in chapter
X, chapter XII, chapter XX, and
chapter XXVII).
I start to go out with Audrey Wood [Contents] XXI.1.And so I courted Audrey Wood.
2.It had been on the coach to Knott End that I had lost my heart to her.
3.And it had been two or three days after the Hallowe’en party that I was able to ask her to go out with me, owing to the (to me) unwanted presence of Peter Gooding near to Audrey whenever I wanted to get her on her own.[more]*
* The same thing had happened, i.e. Peter getting between me and Audrey, the evening after the Hallowe’en party (I think that is right: the next evening, Tuesday 2nd November, was Bible Study night at church; it is likely that the three of us attended it).
The next evening, Wednesday 3rd November, I went along again to the church. The young people used to gather, then go out in small groups to distribute tracts, finally re-assembling back at the church for prayer.
4.However, when we had been giving out tracts,
5.and had gathered again back at the church, 6.I asked her if she would come outside with me, because, I said, I had something to say to her.
7.And being in an ecstasy of nervousness and fear, I explained how I had prayed that on the coach, the girl whom I should go out with would sit with me, and how she had sat with me, and “will you go out with me?”
8.She answered quietly and simply, “Yes.”
10.And this came as a bit of an anticlimax to me;
9.it was so easy. I thought I was going to have to engage in a battle of wits and
verbiage.
11.And so we held hands, and came to her mother’s house.
And that is how it happened.[more]*
* We were walking quite briskly down Poulton Road, Audrey and I, for it was a chilly night, and there was a strong wind from the west blowing Audrey’s hair back. (I noticed for the first time that she had a little bit of acne on her forehead, just below the hair line, not much. I hadn’t noticed it before, because she wore her hair in a fringe.) Far behind, Peter had emerged from the church in Lowther Road, coming into Poulton Road and discovering that this time he was too late. After my rambling speech, which could have been construed as emotional blackmail (it was “the Lord’s will” that Audrey should go out with me whether she wanted to or not!), and her simple and anticlimactic “Yes”, I held her hand. Now, in my previous relationship with a girl, I had been somewhat lustful,[more] and I had decided that this time it would be with purity that I would go out with Audrey, and in a manner pleasing to the Lord. So I felt disappointment when, immediately I felt Audrey’s hand in mine, I got a hard on. It was completely unbidden; I didn’t want it to happen. And so we came to her Mum’s house with the news that we were going out together. (Poor Peter!)
VIII.1.Some time later, I went to my first Prayer Meeting.
2.I was sitting and bowed down; then I sat back.
3.Suddenly, the feeling that I had had when someone had placed his hands on my shoulders came again, and filled my whole body, and I also shook. How
glorious was that experience![more]
XXI.12.But where was the backsliding purposed by the Adversary’s messenger,
Snaresetter? Did it not happen? Did Snaresetter fail?
For I immediately set to work, encouraging Audrey to serve the Lord with all her might.
13.And whereas Audrey had had little zeal or enthusiasm, I fanned a blaze and stirred up a great zeal in her heart to extend the Lord’s kingdom. And this encouragement I did by my own example, and not merely in words.
14.We gave all our time to the distributing of gospel tracts, because we wanted people to be saved. XXII.1.But gradually and imperceptibly, I lost my zeal, left my first love; my devotion began to abate, my fiery passion for the souls of men began to be quenched, and I became cold in heart.[more] 2.And the reading of books replaced the ardent perusal of the Scriptures.[more]
“And the reading of books replaced the ardent perusal of the
Scriptures.”
3.And so Audrey grew weary, for when she asked me about giving out tracts, I would not allow it; and when she asked again, I blazed in wrath and refused.[more]
Went [to the]
Williams[es’]
M[an]c[hester] Heap big
crush on Pam.
—This, despite the fact that I was going out with Audrey at the time.
I went with Chris to stay at the Williamses’ in Manchester. It was on this visit that we first met the girls’ boyfriends: Hazel’s “half-caste” boyfriend Jeff (it is embarrassing to recall our use of this adjective in connection with
him); and Pam’s flashy-suited, immaculately hairstyled (“plastic bonce”) boyfriend Keith (“Hairy” was one of the names given by us to him) with the bleating laugh (“Yes, Mrs. Williams, a–a–a–a–a–a–a!”) (“Bleater” was another name). As well as being unconventional (“Pentecostally”-speaking) in his dress and appearance, i.e. ultra-modern, as opposed to the five-year time-lag typical of many “Pentis” at that time, he was also at variance with “Pentecostal” norms in his speech; none of your “God-bless-you-brothers” for him. I even wondered if he was saved! (“No, Mrs. Williams, a–a–a–a–a–a–a!”)
Pastor Williams, however, didn’t have any such doubts about him. That laughing (i.e. bleating), joking exterior wasn’t the real him — oh, no! “A man of many parts is our Keith!” (Hmm!) Great praise indeed for this over-confident newcomer to the Williams
fold!
—This, despite the fact that I was going out with Audrey at the time.
It seems likely to me that we went for a walk in the park with the girls,
sans boyfriends, on the Sunday afternoon, which would tend to enhance the “re-enamourment” of Pam, mentioned above.
Chris recalls going round to the Williamses’ after church on the Sunday night and the two boyfriends being there.
We may therefore have got the X60 bus back from Lower Mosley Street bus station (we got this particular bus home on one or two occasions) having been driven there either by Pastor Williams or by Maurice (the son of Pastor Williams’ colleague Pastor Barratt).
I had been dissatisfied with Audrey for some time. As I wrote in RJW:
4.Now all along, Audrey had been cold in the way she acted towards me. I did not think that this showed that Audrey did not like me, for it had been thus all along; even the time she had been jealous at my eyeing a girl and had said, “I want
you”,* it had been like this: she had always been cold, even when she had been jealous, without my knowledge, that I was writing to female pen-friends abroad.
* Even the time she had been jealous at my eyeing a girl and had said, “I want
YOU”: I seem to remember that I admired some girl; Audrey objected, so I asked her, “Don’t you ever fancy other boys?”; and she replied, “I want
you.”
5.This coldness frustrated and exasperated and sometimes infuriated me; I was used to coming home in a state of tension and frustration.
6.Be it known, that it was not in my mind to know her carnally, to lie with her (although at one time, when she particularly frustrated me as she sat on my knees, I squirmed, thinking, “Lie with me, my sister!” (2 Sam. 13:11)
But I did not seriously intend to do this), but it was merely that she denied me any reciprocation whatever of my affectionate behaviour. Why, she would never fondle and cuddle me, and she would never kiss me without my having kissed her first.
7.So it was that she wearied of me, because I had no zeal for the Lord, and was thus causing hindrance to her in the Lord. I admit it.
8.And it was also, that I wearied of her as well, for the aforementioned reasons.*
* As indicated above, I paid a visit to the Williamses in Manchester, where I met Pam after a longish absence and became re-enamoured of her. This new awakening of feelings I had forgotten I was capable of having, spurred me to consider “ditching” Audrey.
So I wrote these words in my diary:
MASTER PLAN
Mk. (1)
Operates (ANTI-EMANCIPATE — EMANCIPATE)
I was going to put her to the test, I imagined. If she improved, then I would keep going out with her
(“ANTI-EMANCIPATE”). But if she didn’t— (“EMANCIPATE”). I don’t really know what I would have done; I was reluctant to take on the upset of being without her, without a guaranteed replacement. But in the euphoria of the crush on Pam, and in my consequently-highlighted dissatisfaction of Audrey’s treatment of me, I considered, in fantasy at least, the prospect of finishing with her. RJW contains a recollection of this “Emancipation” project:
XXIII.4.And I had in mind, owing to her
undue coldness, to emancipate myself from her, and by some means finish going out with
her.[more]
Diary entry for 7 Jan.1967:
“Went [to visit the] Williams[es in] M[an]c[hester.] Heap big crush on Pam.” Tch,
tch! – while I was going out with Audrey, as well!
The diary entry uses the word “emancipate”, which is where
RJW gets it from. However, events took an unexpected turn—
The first breach, Monday 16th January 1967 [Contents]
Diary entry for 16 January 1967
XXII.9.One day, we had come out of school, I from the Grammar School, Fleetwood, and she from
Bailey Secondary School, 10.and we were round at her house in Leighton Avenue.
11.And she said quietly, “John, I don’t want to go out with you any more.”
12.To which I immediately replied, “I don’t want to go out with
you any more.”
13.And so we parted.[more]*
* After school I used to walk up Poulton Road, and lean against the garden wall of the right-hand end house in the side street, York Avenue, which led to the entrance to Audrey’s school. When she appeared we would walk together up to her house. This particular evening, we must have followed this usual procedure. I don’t recall anything strange in her manner, but I do remember that when we were in the drive at the side of her house, she faced me and said, “John, I don’t want to go out with you any more.”
Ah! I thought. An opportunity for “emancipation”! So I immediately replied, “I don’t want to go out with
you any more.”
So the parting was amicably agreed.
But that evening, a yearning, a burning sense of loss, came upon me. I went round to Chris’s house. As
RJW says:
14.But all that evening, and especially when I went to see Chris and heard the song which went—
She wakes up, she makes up, she takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry, she no longer needs you. And in her eyes you see nothing, no sign of love behind the tears cried for no-one, a love that should have lasted years*
—I longed with all my heart, yearned for her.[more]†
* She wakes up… should have lasted years: a Beatles song, from the long-playing record “Revolver”; probably Chris had borrowed the LP and played it to me on his Dad’s “scrawpy” record player.
† In assessing my emotions for the “emancipation” project, I had badly miscalculated. I had been thoroughly fed up with Audrey’s lack of apparent fondness for me, but it hadn’t entered my head how intense the withdrawal pains would be if I lacked Audrey herself.
End of the first breach, Tuesday 17th January 1967 [Contents]
Praise the LORD! OK
again.
(Took Aud behind a garage
and cried my eyes out.)
Cried again to her at her house.
(Rain like diamonds on her face.)
Again, RJW supplies more details:
15.And the next day, while I was sitting on the bus going to school, I saw her walking, wearing her black PVC leather-look coat.
16.And the grief overwhelmed me and the tears rushed to my eyes; and in this state of utter sadness, fighting back the tears, was I all day
long.[more]*
* So, on the bus going to school, I looked out of the window and saw Audrey walking briskly along, just before the turning into the side street leading to the school entrance. She was wearing her black vinyl coat, the coat she had worn on the ferry to Knott End before I went out with her, the coat she had worn most of the time she was my girlfriend. (Latterly, she had acquired a real leather coat.) I might otherwise have been sad but tolerably sad that day, but the sight of her — and especially in that coat, now signifying “not-mine” — made tears spring to my eyes, which I had a struggle to fight back. And I was in a dazed, “unreal” state all day. In the sixth-form common room I sat at one point, and the thought of Audrey, gone, not mine, kept coming to me, and I could hardly believe it.
And in this state of utter sadness, fighting back the tears, was I all day.
17.And when evening came I
went down to the small wall in the street where I was wont to meet Audrey when she came out of school.
18.She came out, and I wanted to tell her how much I wanted her, but all I could do was cry and sob.
19.By this time we were by the pillar where I was wont to say goodbye to
her.[more]*
* Normally, after I had met Audrey from school and been to her house for coffee, I would say goodbye to her at the bus stop outside the Queen’s Hotel. Against the corner of this pub there was a square, brick-built pillar, which afforded a little corner round the back of it, where one could neck
before the bus arrived.
20.So as not to be seen, I quickly ushered her down a passage between two
buildings.[more]*
* The tears were already flowing, and I wanted to be somewhere private. So I took Audrey down where there was a narrow gap between a garage and another building or a wall. There, behind the garage I was able to sob until I regained the power of speech.
So, she had a change of heart and decided to continue to go out with me. I can’t remember how exactly this came about; but the next we read, I am in tears at Audrey’s
house:
Diary:
Cried again to her at her house.
RJW:
21.At her house she comforted me and
cuddled me in an affectionate way that I was not used to. 22.I cried, saying, “It was
horrible.”[more]*
* So, even cold Audrey is warmed at my agony. I wept both for relief and in horror at the grievous experience I had just had that day. Both
RJW and Diary record her appearance on that rainy January
evening:
Diary:
Rain like diamonds on
her face.
RJW:
23.And
by our pillar I kissed her goodbye, for I had to catch the bus home.
24.And she looked exceedingly
lovely with raindrops on her face which looked like diamonds.[more]
XXIII.1.Try to see it my way, do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on? While you see it your way, run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone. We can work it out. We can work it out.
Think of what you’re saying, you can get it wrong and still you think that it’s all right. Think of what I’m saying, we can work it out and get it straight or say good-night. We can work it out. We can work it out.[more]
2.So sang the Beatles. I used to listen attentively to this song at this time, for it spoke to me of the love which was crumbling. 3.Desperately I pleaded with her at one time after we had had a conflict of angry words, and I begged her earnestly, beseeching her not to leave me. “You won’t leave me, will you?” I asked. To which she replied, “No,” comforting me, for I was exceedingly sorrowful.[more]*
* I recall that the above incident took place at my house, in the front room, while we were seated on the settee.
The second breach, perhaps Monday 15th May 1967 [Contents]
Audrey and I
nearly broke
up sometime in
these months. But
(almost) O.K. again.
This note was written soon after Audrey and I finally broke up on
28 July
1967. About the event
RJW has quite a lot to say:
XXIV.1.Some months after these events,
Audrey told me one morning when I was with her near Broadwater in Fleetwood, that she would not go out with me any more because of how backslidden I had become.
2.Now I was on my way to the house of a girl called Jean Kirkham, in order to listen to a tape recording of a certain preacher.[more]
3.After pleading with Audrey, as I thought without result, and saying that I would go and see Pastor, I went to Jean’s house with great sadness.
4.Why did Audrey threaten to finish with me at this time? First, it could be suggested truthfully that it was, as has been said before, due to my having left my great zeal and first love for the Lord. But although this was the underlying reason, there was a more
immediate cause, namely that being hot I had walked out of church on Sunday evening (it was now Monday morning) and had left Audrey there, and had gone with Chris to his
house.[more]*
* His house: or, my house. In the
original (Mem Y-i-G), both Chris and I are referred to in the third person, so the use here
of “his” without a clear antecedent is ambiguous.
5.After I had been to Jean Kirkham’s house, I met Audrey again opposite the Queen’s
Hotel. And she gladly accepted me, and I was pleasantly surprised by her assumption that our relationship was now in good health again.
6.At the Woods’ house, I cried much, to the great surprise of Audrey, who exclaimed, “What are you crying for? What’s the matter? You know there’s nothing wrong to cry about.”
7.And when Audrey’s mother comforted me, I squeezed her hand very tight.
8.This now is the second breach,* together with the second repair
thereof.[more]†
* The second breach, the first being that recorded under
Monday 16 Jan. 1967 and Tuesday 17 Jan.
1967.
† The previous evening, Sunday, I had felt very hot at church, so I got up and left. Whether I was sitting next to Audrey or not, or whether she hadn’t arrived yet, I can’t remember. I have vague recollections of meeting Chris in the foyer, or “minor hall” as it was called, but I may have met him at his house. I think we spent the evening together at Chris’s house, but I am not sure of this;
Mem Y-i-G is vague at this point, with its reference to “his house”.
The following morning I was off school. (It may have been the tail end of the Easter break, Easter being on March 26 that year; or it could have been Whit — Whit Sunday fell on 14 May. I’m plumping for the later date, 14 May. I was aware that folk were meeting at Jean Kirkham’s house, just down the road from the Queen’s Hotel, Fleetwood, possibly to hear a tape recording of a preacher who was highly rated by some of the newer converts in the church (among whom was Jean; they tended to follow Ian Makinson; I called them the “Chasidim”, Hebrew for “pious ones”). Presumably an open invitation had been extended for people to meet round at Jean’s house that morning.
I had a meeting arranged with Audrey at Broadwater, and probably planned, as I travelled by bus there, that it might be a good idea to go along to Jean’s with Audrey. But Audrey was far from pleased to see me when we met. She took me to task about my previous night’s desertion of her; and went on to complain in general about my present spiritual state — “You
are backslidden, John!” — how I’d changed from being keen to serve the Lord (“On fire for God”) and would no longer go out on the streets with tracts (“tracting” — called “tracking” by
Fleetwoodites).
Because of this, she couldn’t go out with me any more; my backsliding was bringing her down spiritually, too. Fighting for my life, so to speak, now, I asked if it would make any difference if I went to see Pastor. She was uncertain and would not commit herself. Then she had to go for some reason, so we arranged to meet for further negotiations outside the Queens at — when? — around noon perhaps. So we parted.
I went off to Jean’s, not in the most pious or joyous state; in fact I was greatly saddened and was very anxious over this new crisis.
But when I met Audrey as agreed, her attitude was completely changed: she was pleased to see me; there were no “negotiations” to be undergone; I was accepted as I was.
“Don’t you want me to go and see Pastor?” I asked her.
“Why?” she replied.
So I let the subject rest there, much surprised but even more relieved. Presumably I had exhibited the due fruit of repentance at our earlier meeting.
So we came to her house, a couple of blocks away from the Queens. There it was that a reaction set in, and I wept. Audrey was somewhat nonplussed at this, but did her best to reassure me, saying in a friendly way that I was silly to cry because I had nothing to worry about.
9.But we must remember in all this that the Lord is supreme and pre-eminent above all things. Nothing is done by any agency, save it be permitted from above; and everything is done by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. He is supreme.[more]*
* This assertion of God’s sovereignty, while true, neither encourages nor discourages; compare the one in
chapter XIX.
XXV.1.…
2.And so I continued with Audrey for some months more, and though at diverse times things were uneasy, yet had I no idea that it was in her heart to finish with me, indeed had been since about Christmas.*
3.However, she had kept these things locked away in her heart, for fear that she would hurt me, or put me off following the Lord; thinking chiefly, I suspect, to avoid hurting me, and possibly wanting to avoid having to prepare her nerve for such an encounter.[more]
* When she finally did finish with me, one of the questions that burned in my heart was:
“How long have you been thinking of doing this?” — implying: “How long have things not been OK between us and I’ve not been aware?” Certainly, when she went on holiday with her parents at the end of June, beginning of July, there were no such clues.
A disturbance during the prayer meeting, Thursday 27th July 1967 [Contents]
which explains the stress on how “happy” we were on the walk. When I wrote this, I was perplexed: how could she have sprung such a shock on me as to finish with me, when we had been so happy such a short time
before?
Aud & I went for
[a] v[ery] happy walk on
[the] new road site.
Again, we have a sad reference to Audrey’s and my happiness just before the (to me) unexpected
parting: I don’t recall the Sunday walk, but I remember clearly the walk the following Monday or Wednesday.
It was evening, and we decided to get out of the house for a bit, while it was still light. We walked up the newly-made embankment, near my house, which was to carry the new Thornton by-pass, Amounderness Way, up clear of the railway line. As we did so, we had a bit of fun. I carried Audrey — looking very attractive in a white tee-shirt and light blue-grey slacks, and with her long hair, grown out long for me — piggy-back, and wouldn’t put her down till she gave me due payment of a kiss. It was getting chilly and the sun was setting when we went back to my house, and for a bit of fun I went in and locked Audrey out. She knocked on the door a few times, then said she was going home if I wouldn’t let her in. I retorted, “If you go home, that’s the last time we’ll see each other!” — or words to that effect; possibly: “—You’ll not come here again!” She could have stormed off, but she didn’t; so I let her in.
That is why her finishing with me, and what is more her refusal after that to be reconciled, came as such an
unexpected blow to me: if she had in mind to “chuck” me, why didn’t she do it
then?
4.On the twenty-seventh of July, in the
second year of my going out with Audrey, it came about that I decided not to go to the prayer meeting at church, because of my
oppressive conscience and my inability to pray.
5.Instead, I decided to catch the bus and go to the Woods’ house
6.and wait for them to come home after the prayer meeting.
7.But they delayed for such a long time that I began to get anxious.
8.Some time later, about an hour, being roused by impatience, I arose and walked to the
church.[more]*
* Because of feelings of guilt, I sometimes used to go to prayer meetings and get very bored, or even go to sleep in the actual prayer session, because I could not “enter into” the meeting. This Thursday, the usual day for prayer meetings, I decided that there would not be much point in my even
going, so I decided to stay away. Perhaps I had been wanking again, or had committed some such “sin”, and so couldn’t “come to the light” for shame.
I got a bus to Audrey’s house. This house was owned by a maiden aunt of Mrs. Wood’s, who occupied the front room while the Woods used the back room. So she let me in and I waited in the back room for the return of Audrey and her mother from the meeting; I expected them back just after nine o’clock.
It was getting later and later. If the words of RJW are to be believed, it would have been around ten o’clock, when impatience overtook me and I stormed off to walk the three-quarters of a mile distance along Poulton Road to Lowther Road where the church was situated. (Possibly the reason for my impatience was that I had to be home for half-past ten, and even if I got the twenty-five past
Ribble bus and arrived home ten minutes late, I still wouldn’t get much time with Audrey.)
9.Now at that time there was a lad with
protrusive teeth who had started to attend our church. (Trevor* and I referred to him as “Teeth in Motion”, a play on the words
“People in motion” in the pop song San Francisco,† current at that time.)
* Trevor was first mentioned in XX.9.
† In full, San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your
Hair), an American pop music song, written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the
Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was produced and released in May 1967, and entered the UK Singles Chart on 12 July 1967, remaining there for 17 weeks and reaching №1 on 9 August
1967.
If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you’re going to San Francisco
You’re gonna meet some gentle people there
For those who come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Gentle people with flowers in their hair
All across the nation
Such a strange vibration
People in motion [“Teeth in motion”]
There’s a whole generation
With a new explanation
People in motion [“Teeth in motion”]
People in motion [“Teeth in motion”]
For those who come to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
If you come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
10.This boy greatly admired a girl,*
handsome† and full-figured; but she was believed to be demon-possessed and unwilling to have it exorcised.
* The girl was called Dot. I forget the toothy lad’s name.
† By handsome I meant that she had an attractive face but couldn’t be called quite beautiful.
11.Unbeknown to me, these two had caused a disturbance during the prayer meeting, which had caused the meeting to be prolonged.[more]
12.I was indignant because of the delay; but when I showed it,
14a.my indignation was matched by that of Audrey’s mother, who,
13.coming out of the building with the others after the meeting had finished,
14b.spoke to me with angry words, “You don’t know what went on in the meeting; for your information demons were being cast out.” 15.And this served to cool me down a little.[more]*
* As I turned left into the now-dark Lowther Road, the people were just emerging from the doorway; and there were Audrey and her Mum, walking towards me! I went straight up to Audrey and demanded what was going on. But it was her mother who answered me — sharply: rebuking me for being so angry and informing me that the reason why they were so late was that there had been an outburst in the meeting and a consequent exorcism of demons.
The pastor had been away that evening. And we all know what that means! When the pastor is away, the “lunatic fringe” holds sway! And, sure enough, Dot, realising that the strict control of Pastor was lacking, had created a rumpus. She was reputed to have a demon, and although Elsie
Wrigglesworth (who, some said, was in the habit of seeing demons under every lamp-post!) had tried to cast the demon out, she had failed, because, she said, the girl
did not want the demon cast out. There has to be willingness on the part of the possessed person. (Elsie Wrigglesworth had recently returned to her home town Fleetwood after many years of being a missionary in India, where she had seen and dealt with many cases of demon-possession.)
And Dot’s faithful admirer, of Trevor’s and my “Teeth in Motion” fame, joined in with the disruption of the meeting. According to Elsie Wrigglesworth, he too was demon-possessed, but that night she cast the demon out; but Pastor Stan later maintained that he had only been faking, presumably to copy Dot.
All this I learned later; that night I was only informed that there had been trouble and that demons had been cast out.
What happened then I can’t remember, except that I ceased to be angry. Whether Audrey then seemed kindly-disposed to me, I don’t know.
The final breach, Friday 28th July 1967 [Contents]
July 28 —
Audrey
and I finished with
each other. Talked it
out — we’re unhappy
with each other.
Friday 28th July is the date Audrey and I finally broke up. RJW, as one would expect, has a bit more to say:
16.The next evening, I went again to
Audrey’s house.
17.I had on my hands some ointment which the doctor had prescribed, which gave off the odour of naphthalene.*
* I suffered from time to time with outbreaks of dermatitis on my hands. I would get a prescription from
one of the two Scottish doctors at our local general medical practice (and depending on whether I saw Dr. Wylie or Dr. Glover I would be told,
“Och, you’re coming into contact with something here!” or “It’s a
nerrvous rash”). This time I was given a different cream to “apply on the affected area”; it smelled like mothballs.
18.But when I invited Audrey to smell it, she would have none of it, but said, “John,
do you want to go out with me?”
19.And my heart started to beat hard within me, till I felt out of breath.
20.And I answered her, “Yes.”
21.So my shattered heart smote hard, my heart dissolved and pangs seized upon me.
22.And she expounded to me the intents and thoughts of her heart; and I knew that our courtship was ended.
23.And I left that place in sorrow and
bewilderment, my hopes perished.[more]*
“And I left that place in sorrow and bewilderment, my hopes perished” – written with bitter hindsight, but the contemporary record indicates an amicable agreement to part.
* In the evening I got the bus to Fleetwood, and when I was inside Audrey’s house, I presented my hands to Audrey for her to have a smell; I had on them the new cream that smelled of mothballs or naphthalene. But she showed no interest; her thoughts were on what she was about to say.
“John,” she said firmly. “Do you really want to go out with me?”
My heart started pounding very hard, and it was all I could manage at the moment to utter the single word “Yes”.
That was all that either of us could say about the matter at that moment. What
RJW is silent about, is that that evening Elsie Wrigglesworth had been invited to the Woods’. And at that moment she arrived. Or else, she was in the
living room and it would be improper to stand talking in the kitchen.
Needless to say, I had the greatest difficulty concentrating on what Elsie had to say, though what she said would
otherwise have been enthralling. Naturally, bearing in mind the previous evening’s happenings, Elsie’s subject was demon-possession and exorcism. Elsie told about instances of this during her work in India; for example, she had once cast out one by one about twenty spirits from a woman, each one of which had the name of a particular animal.
“And what’s your name?”
“Python!”
“Then in the name of Jesus, I command you to come out of her!”
The visit of Elsie seemed to go on for ever, as I sat there feeling like something was gnawing at my stomach lining, because of my anxiety about Audrey’s words to me.
I forget how long Elsie was there, but eventually I was again facing Audrey alone; and the conversation was
resumed.
Although RJW makes out that I was instantly heartbroken and in abject sorrow, the diary entry is nearer the truth, that we talked it out and reached an agreement to part. Despite an initial reluctance on my part, we agreed that it was for the best; we were only making each other unhappy continuing to go out together. So, smiling sadly to each other, we walked for the last time to the bus stop, and had a final fond
embrace and kiss; then the bus came, and it was over.
Although I felt lost and lonely, I comforted myself with the memory that I had got over Pam within a week of her
finishing with me; “Why should it be any different with Audrey?” I thought. How wrong I was!
That night, I decided to turn back to the Lord. As RJW says:
Confessing my sins and the multitude of my backslidings [Contents]
24.And I was sorry that I had gone my own way and had not practised uprightness,
setting my face to go in the way that the Lord willed, and being diligent thereto, stirring up the gift within me and rejoicing in the Lord.
25.And I prayed to the Lord and made
confession, confessing my sins and the multitude of my backslidings.[more]
The next day I found that I’d had a complete change of heart: that my agreement to Audrey’s suggestions that it “was for the best” that we stop going out with each other, was mistaken. I desperately wanted her back. RJW gives the circumstances of this refusal by Audrey:
26.The evening after this, I went along to the Testimony Meeting at church, my heart in an agony.
27.I sat down beside Audrey and after the meeting had ended I had a word with her, to see whether perhaps we could repair the breach between us. But she refused to be courted, even though I pleaded strongly with
her.[more]*
“Wanted to get back to Audrey but NO!” – here, bitter hindsight and contemporary record are in complete agreement.
* At the Testimony Meeting in the “minor hall” at the Full Gospel Church, Lowther Road, Fleetwood, I came and sat down as usual with Audrey. I say “as usual” here, because everyone around would not think it strange that I sat with her — little did they know! In fact, there was a vacant place next to her and I asked her if she minded if I sat there. She said, “No”, so I did sit there.
Afterwards, when I tried to re-open the subject of last night’s conversation, she was surprised: hadn’t we agreed last night that our parting was “for the best”? And she politely but firmly refused to change her mind in this matter.
28.What could I do? I was powerless to act. I could plead, but all in vain.
29.And ah! the drawn-out agony of languishing for love, for she had won my very heart; she was my precious dove. I longed that she be with me now, our hearts to beat with passion sweet. Me she had spurned, I knew not how; the bitter thought brought to me tears that did confirm my worsest fears: For me she’d never care again.
30.What could I do? What could I say? She nonchalantly went her way. My strong persuasions could not sway her from the course she took that day.
31.And ah! the dreary agony of longing for her love, for she had won my very heart; she was my precious dove.[more]
Working [for] Mrs. West Tue
1. Wed 2. Thur 3 [August].
This is a convenient, and possibly accurate, place to report the story recorded in
RJW, as follows:
XXV.32.Now Audrey’s mother and I worked for a woman called Mrs. West. 33.And in my desperate plight I pleaded that she would intercede between her daughter
and me.[more]*
* My Mum used to go “distributing” — distributing handbills, advertisements or free-offer coupons door-to-door. She worked for one or two people at this, but mainly for the above-mentioned Mrs. West. She introduced me to this job during some school holidays, and so we find me doing this job here.
Mrs. Wood, Audrey’s mother, also got interested in doing it. On one of the days that we worked for Mrs. West, during a break-time or maybe shortly before we were due to go home, I was very sad because of Audrey and I was expressing this sadness to Mrs. Wood. She offered to have a word with Audrey for me. So I felt somewhat less downcast and saw a glimmer of hope. Mrs. Wood said she couldn’t “promise anything, mind”; but said she’d try on my
behalf.
Working [for] Mrs. West
Tue 1. Wed
2. Thur 3 [August].
If yesterday was a convenient place to put Mrs. Wood’s offer of intercession with Audrey, today is a good place to put the results of the said intercession:
34.And Audrey’s mother reported that she and her husband had both tried hard to persuade Audrey, but Audrey, she said, was determined and persistent in her refusal to go out with me any more.[more]*
* So yesterday’s “straw-clutching” glimmer of hope was extinguished.
I seem to remember that either yesterday’s offer, or today’s report, took place in Cleveleys, near Thornton Gate, where we had been
distributing.
Thursday after Aud & I
finished (Aug. 3 or 4) had
talk with Audrey ’cos very
upset — understood much
better. She likes me but
doesn’t like me enough to
go out with me. Feel better
now. All this week I’ve
been sad because I’ve
remembered things we did
and hoping to get back to
her. But it’s best the way
we are now.
Working [for] Mrs. West
Tue 1. Wed 2. Thur 3
[August].
Have been upset all this week
since Audrey & I parted. After
prayer meeting had talk with
Audrey — v. satisfying — I under-
stand better now.
Good prayer meeting—
wrote letter to Audrey…
Another day working for Mrs. West.
In the evening I went to the prayer meeting at Fleetwood Full Gospel Church. Compare my attitude to this meeting with my attitude to last week’s.
Now I had been suffering from a kind of amnesia about why Audrey and I had “packed up”. We had talked it out on the day it happened, and also the following day; but now almost a week later I was baffled and distressed by it: so after the meeting I had a talk with Audrey, and after it felt that I now understood her feelings and motives. I seem to remember being with her on Poulton Road opposite Manor Road, near the Grammar School fence.
When I got home, I wrote a letter to Audrey:
I just thought I’d write to
you. You probably will think I’m
daft, seeing as we
had a nice talk about it all.
This is not intended as a romance
letter, and I’m not hanging on
in the vain hope that we could
go out with each other, because
I know that this would be im-
possible. I want to thank you very
sincerely for giving me such great
happiness over this last one-and-
a-half years, and for the joy
that our relationship gave us. On
the Friday that we parted you
said that you thought you were
thick because you didn’t know
how you felt about me. Well,
let me tell you that you did
a very sensible thing — finish-
ing with me — for this reason,
that you weren’t sure wheth-
er you liked me enough to go
out with me. Thank you Audrey
for your wisdom! You are very
mature. In actual fact, although
I myself feel very strong affection
and love for you, I can’t say
with ALL honesty that I KNOW
that you are the right one for
me to marry. So you did a
very wise thing breaking up our
relationship. Of course I miss you
terribly — I also miss things
like necking with you at the
bus-stop; I have been very
grieved this week when I remembered
things we did like going to Brock
with you, visiting you at your
Grandma’s at Heysham, for I
know that this can never happen
again. On top of this I have been
hurting myself by thinking
that I could get off with you
again. But DON’T blame yourself
for this AT ALL! Don’t torment
yourself by thinking that it’s
all your fault that I am feel-
ing this way. Remember, I WILL
get over it! I hope you will
not miss me too much. May
the LORD give you comfort. I
can say that with all sincerity,
because the thoughts I feel for
you are of the deepest, most
affectionate kind. I love you,
Audrey, in this way:– I feel
warm, deeply affectionate
thoughts about you, and that’s
the way it SHOULD be! Al-
though you don’t like me in
the sense that you want to
go out with me, I trust you
have this same love toward
me — this deep affection. I
can assure myself that you
do have this kind of love: it
is shown by the fact that
you DID finish with me
when you found out you
didn’t like me enough to go
out with me, instead of going
out with me just for pity —
Thank you — it is also shown
by the fact that you are
grieved because I have been
grieved. Oh I love you so much
— not a desire to go out with
you, but this deeper love of
which I have spoken. Please
comfort yourself with these words.
Now may the Lord fill
you will all knowledge of
himself, may your life grow
rich by being in the closest
union possible with himself —
may you be filled with all
joy and peace from him.
I really mean these words, Audrey.
I send all my love to you Johnx
PS …
It’s a bit embarrassing to read these words again! I can’t
remember what was in the “PS”. My calm acceptance of the situation was only short-lived,
however, before distress asserted itself again, as is indicated in the next section,
Languishing for love.
35.Ah! the dreary, drawn out agony of longing, languishing for love, For you have won my very heart; You are my perfect, precious dove.
XXVI.1.A few years afterwards, I also wrote what follows:
2.Ah, most Noble Strength!* I have lost my heart to you, my sister. How will there ever be any one who will compare to you? And what wonderful times we had together! And how you said that you wanted only me! But now I am left with only memories.
And how may I forget you, my sweet one? When you have got so deep into my heart? 3.What tears, what grief, what despair I have known since you left me! How much I have cried, how much I have longed and yearned for you!
How can I give you up, Noble-Strength?* For although you go with someone else, my heart still thinks I am the one you go with, and it has never given you up! 4.O the yearning! So much so that I can no longer bear it. Yet I must!
* Noble Strength is the meaning of the name Audrey [Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate
Dictionary, “Common English Given Names”, page 1179 (London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd.,
1963)].
And I wrote the following too:
5.Ah! the dreary, drawn-out
agony Of longing, languishing for your love.
6.He longs with all his heart that she should give her love to him, and in consequence his heart grows sick with hoping for her and languishing over her. He feels often like laying himself down in the dust and dying, so strong and continuous is the grief and agony that he feels.
7.But she is now carefree, and not prepared to give thought and consideration to him.
8.Often, he gets a feeling that it will not be too long before she decides to love him, and he starts to hope and expect that she will turn to him; only to be disappointed and to plunge to a greater depth of heartache than ever before. This happens many times; his hopes are crushed and disappointed again and again.
9.Then at night the pain of tears
and wailing, screwing up tight his eyelids and crying with his head under the
sheets, because of the thought of her having loved him at one time, and now
the awful emptiness that now he is without her.
XXVII.1.Again the fallen ones met in array, and again the Adversary presided over them. The spirit named Snaresetter approached the throne of the infernal majesty and said, “Let not my lord be angry, nor let him be wroth with his humble servant. For I will turn this defeat into victory, this shame on me I will turn to your triumph.” 2.The Adversary said to him, “Let your story be well pleasing, or into deep and nether darkness you will certainly go.” 3.The spirit trembled and shook, but
regained his composure and said, “I have sent my secret agents who have made the heart of Christopher Woodhead the friend of John Cooper cold toward his Mighty One, and I have personally prepared a young woman who knows not the Lord, named Janet.4.Christopher Woodhead will send to John Cooper, saying, ‘Come over and see us, and behold, I have asked a good-looking woman if she will accompany you when you arrive.’
5.And she, lord infernal, will cool the heart of John Cooper, till he no longer serves the Lord, neither worships him, neither is
willing to think about him.” 6.And the Adversary answered him, “Well, well: will it work? I fear not, for John
Cooper is careful to avoid the establishment of relationships of long standing with persons who know not the one whom I shall
overthrow in course of time, whose kingdom shall soon cease, whose subjects shall be put beneath my feet.” 7.The spirit said, “Most noble king, I
tremble and quake exceedingly in your presence. Yet allow me to speak but this once, I pray you.
8.My agents have brought a young woman (also named Janet) to the notice of John Cooper.
9.He is charmed by her, for she has qualities of body and soul, she is quite different from the other girls he knows.
10.He is certain to offer love to her, but she will
reject him. I have seen to it that she has already been hurt in love, and will not thus take love when offered never so sincerely.
11.He will be sad, and will accept the love of the other.
12.He will see this Janet giving love to another, and will be very sad, but he will forget his sadness in a day, for
Christopher Woodhead will bring him the first-named Janet.” 13.The Adversary answered him, “It is not enough. For he
accompanied Sheron Thompson, but she was not of our Enemy, so he did not let love prosper. 14.And he
accompanied Margaret Lindow, but she was not of our Enemy, so he did not let love prosper.
15.And he accompanied Maureen Hume, but she was not of our Enemy, so he did not let love develop.
16.And besides all this, he has carefully avoided involving himself with those who know not our Enemy, so as not to let them come between him and the one whom he serves.”
17.The spirit named Snaresetter answered him, “Allow me to speak this once in my
defence.”
He said, “You are so permitted.” 18.He said, “My lord, he will be ensnared by this one because she will love him to the point of distraction. When he departs she will not have control, and her tears will fall unchecked.
19.It will be made known to him, and he will not let her go.
20.Moreover, when he shall try to serve his master and give her up, he will be unable, for he will remember the grief he felt at the departure of Audrey Wood.” 21.The Adversary said to him, “You have done well this once.”
“I am your humble servant.” 22.“But even so, if this plot fails, you will be imprisoned in Tartarus until the day I
triumph. Mark these words well. 23.Go
therefore to your task, and do it well. You have been warned.” 24.So he departed from that place, and went his
way.*
25.It came about that a company of young people was wont to gather together to pray and discuss about the Lord. They did so at the house of one Janet Aikman, who was one of their company.
26.A group of these people also went to the Full Gospel Church in Fleetwood.
27.And I was there one Sunday, when I espied this Janet Aikman, dancing and behaving more as an individual person, than as one of the ordinary people; and I was quite taken by her.
28.She was not beautiful, it is true, but her general appearance was attractive to me.
29.And I asked Robert Ashworth, whose
sister Gillian I used to go out with, what this girl’s name was, and her age and telephone number.
30.He told me that her name was Janet
Aikman, and that she was seventeen; and he gave me her telephone number.
31.Now I was already taken by this girl; my heart started to beat a little faster at the thought of her.
32.So, next day, I called her on the telephone. “You may not know me,” I said, “but I know you. I am the one with long hair and ginger whiskers. Do you know who I am?”
33.Then I asked if I could take her out. But she put me off, saying that she was about to do something different that night.
34.Before long I began to attend the
meetings at her house. 35.And she did consent to go out one night; but she did not turn up,
because, she told me, she could not obtain transport home from Manchester. 36.So I felt disappointed, and doubted her sincerity in saying I could take her out.
37.I did take her out, but the evening did not work out as I hoped: it was a complete failure.
38.And I wrote a letter and sent it to her,
asking if we might be more than just friends. 39.But she wrote me a reply, saying, “I have been hurt before, and do not wish to rush into such a relationship.”
40.So I was disappointed and sad.*
* 1. I have written the following story as an explanation and expansion of RJW XXVII.
2. Perhaps towards the end of 1971 or early in 1972
Gillian’s younger brother Robert had started coming to the Full Gospel Church in Fleetwood. He did this in company with a number of others who were about his age, including a slim but nevertheless full-figured girl, fairly tall, with long, curly dark hair.
3. I am not sure how long they had been coming to the Full Gospel Church before this girl took my attention and gaze. She was wearing a long, dark skirt, and an orangy-coloured pullover — a darker colour than orange but lighter than brown — which was fairly tight-fitting and therefore accentuated her quite heavy bosom. She was an extrovert, and after the Sunday evening meeting, rather than stand around talking, she was dancing and disporting in a way which marked her out to me as agreeably different from the rest.
4. So I asked Robert, whom I knew reasonably well from when I went out with his sister Gillian in 1970–71 — I either took him aside from the company or phoned him later on — I asked him the name of this girl, how old she was, and what her phone number was. He told me that she was Janet Aikman — “A–I–K–M–A–N” — that she was 17, and gave me her number.
“Gillian” — 1970
5. So on the Monday evening, at home, driven and emboldened by my new crush on her, I summoned a great deal of heart-pounding courage, and dialled her number. “Can I speak to Janet Aikman?”
“Speaking!” — either that or she was fetched to the phone.
“You may not know me but I know you,” I began. “I’m the chap at church with long hair and ginger whiskers.” I guess, then, that she must have been coming to the church for a number of weeks, long enough to have at least registered my image in her memory. I was beardless, but my sideburns connected with my moustache, and this facial hair was reddish, though my then copious head-hair was brown. “Do you know who I am?” I asked her. I waited for a mental picture of who I might be to form in her mind. She was uncertain at first, but then seemed to recognise my self-description. So I got round to asking her, “Can I take you out?”
She replied that she was about to do something different that night. She may, however, have gone on to tell me about the meetings that they held at her house.
“The chap… with long hair and ginger whiskers” — 1971
6. At this stage, I don’t think I was aware that Robert & Co. used to meet at her home to pray together and discuss religious matters.
RJW XXVII:25–26 suggests that they were meeting there before some of them started going to the Full Gospel Church, and that not all who met there went to the Full Gospel Church. Indeed, Robert told me in 2021: “There used to be about six people meeting in the shed at Janet Aikman’s house. We all used to go to Holy Trinity Church in South Shore, Blackpool, and the members visited the Full Gospel Church occasionally, mainly through me.”
7. Anyway, I went to one or two of these week-night meetings at her home. She lived near the start of St. Anne’s Road (№—), South Shore, Blackpool, not a great distance from Gillian’s and Robert’s which was situated off the far end of St. Anne’s Road. So it was a considerable cycle-ride or a two-bus journey from my home in Thornton. We gathered in the shed in her back garden; it was quite a big shed, and I think the floor was covered with an old carpet and we sat on cushions. I was almost 22, some four years older than they were; and their jocular references to me as an “old man” didn’t help my feeling somewhat out of place because of the age difference. I remember speaking to them — perhaps four or five of them — on the prophecies of Daniel.
8. And she consented to my taking her out one evening — only, she didn’t show up. I returned home disappointed and perplexed, and rang her number. She told me that she’d been to Manchester that day — in connection with higher education, perhaps — and had got stuck there, hadn’t been able to get back home in time. I accepted what she told me but was tempted to think she hadn’t meant what she said when she agreed to let me take her out — shades of the old
Susan Pipe brush-offs, I thought.
9. I did finally take her out — but as far as I was concerned, the evening was a disaster. I met her at 7.30pm, probably at Talbot Road bus station, Blackpool — I would get a 14 or 14A there and she would get a 22 — and we walked the few hundred yards to The Blue Parrot restaurant at the far end of Topping Street. Conversation was strained, and the meal was over and I was back on the bus and home by about 9.00pm.
10. So I wrote her a letter and made my wishes clear. Her letter in reply to mine was as follows:
—, St. Annes Rd.,
Blackpool.
19th April, ’72.
Dear John,
I wish I knew what to say. I find
letters difficult to write at the best of times,
and I’m certainly not finding it very easy
to express my feelings clearly.
Please don’t think that I don’t like
you, but at this moment I don’t really wish
to rush into any sort of a serious relationship.
I have been hurt badly before with the result
that now I am rather more cautious than
usual when meeting new people and making new
friends.
I think I’d prefer it if we just
continued as friends, and then perhaps later on
when I knew you better I might change my
mind, but no doubt by then your feelings
about me will have changed.
I am very sorry, John. I do hope you
understand how I feel.
Love and God bless,
Janet.
One who will not spare me e’en one glance [Contents]
XXVIII.1.I sing a doleful dirge ’pon one who will not spare me e’en one glance.
2.She is good-looking, there’s no doubt, though not a paragon of
beauty (yet she has form and gracefulness): her face — ’tis true there are more fair, her eyes
— I have seen better-set, less big; and teeth less large.
3.But if she smiles my heart is moved and melts if she to me should turn her eyes that flash and charm my soul, or if to my small jest she laughs.
3.But I sing a doleful dirge ’pon one who will not spare me e’en one glance.
4.For her words are a sword that cuts deep to the quick, they are fiery darts and venomous thrusts that hurt and beat down my heart to the depth of despondent sadness; for her heart I can’t win
— and she turns and she tears me — oh, what shall I do? and how shall I act? and what can I say to the girl whom I crave but an ounce of affection?
5.I sing a desperate dirge ’pon one who will not spare me e’en one glance.
6.O would that a word of kindness pass her lips; I long for it
— my soul yearns! In vain it seems the yearning is.
7.Again I sing the doleful dirge on one who will not spare for me so much as even one brief word or only one brief backward glance.
8.And when in church we gather all, and after, when we all converse, she seems to shun me like the plague; she will not venture e’en one word, won’t even say, “Hello”, “Goodbye.” If I to her myself approach she slips away, I cannot keep her. What can I do, what can I say? She nonchalantly goes her way— and I return unto my place deep in distress, heavy in heart. This inward pain I cannot bear much longer—on and on it goes without a break, without respite.
9.Shall I curse her? Shall I hate?— The emotion just wells up inside: frustration turning into fury, wrath, vile words and foul expressions, followed swiftly by repentance: sorrow and contrition deep.
XXVII.41.And further, I was saddened when her letter appeared to be insincere.
42.For at the church there was a young man named Ron Green, and it was plain to see that he had intentions with regard to Janet Aikman.
43.I thought he couldn’t possibly succeed here, because of what my letter said. But I was
mistaken.
44.Between my receiving Janet Aikman’s
letter and Ron Green’s starting to notice her, Chris Woodhead
telephoned me, and invited me to come and see him. 45.He told me about a girl called Janet, who would be my date, should I wish to visit.
46.I answered him that I did so wish. And so it was arranged.
47.Some days later, the day before my
departure to Grimsby, where Chris now lived, I was at the prayer meeting at church.
48.And Janet Aikman was there, and Ron Green was there as well.
49.And it dismayed me to see them with their arms round each other in an intimate embrace afterwards.
50.Yes, I was sad, and felt no desire to see this Janet in Grimsby because of this sadness.
51.However, the next day, I did get on the train, as arranged, and later arrived in Grimsby, and Chris and Janet met me;
52.and thus was I comforted over my
disappointment, and desire for the other Janet never entered my mind thereafter.*†
* So it looks as though Snaresetter has finally won, on the fourth attempt (see
chapter X, footnote, for references to the four attempts). After the first two attempts, my restoration is explicitly confirmed
(XI.7,8 and XIII.27); after the third, it is implied
(XXV.24,25). Here, though, the chapter ends with my walking into the trap. But the express hope in the
next chapter is that this stumbling will end in a raising up and a glorifying of God. Amen. Let it be so.
† 1. I have written the following story as an explanation and
expansion of RJW XXVII.
11. Around this time,
Chris Woodhead invited me over to visit him in Grimsby. He had arranged with his fiancée Pamela, who worked for Provincial Insurance in Hull, that I should go out with her colleague from Provincial Insurance in Grimsby, Janet. Chris’s spirituality at this time was questionable, and so he had no qualms about fixing me up with a date with “a young woman who knows not the Lord”
(RJW XXVII:3) — i.e., with a non-Christian girl — to make up a foursome with him and Pamela. I perceived that the Bible’s call was to separation — “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14) — and so up till then I had avoided getting into any long-term relationship with a non-Christian girl. Having said that, though, I could easily stifle my misgivings for the odd weekend tryst: this had happened in the past — again, in situations brokered by Chris — with Sheron Thompson, with Margaret Lindow and with Maureen Hume.
“Pamela… Janet” — 1972
“Sheron Thompson… Maureen Hume” — 1972
I regret not having a photo of “Margaret Lindow”: she was gorgeous!
12. There was a young man called Ron Green who had started to attend the Full Gospel Church. He wasn’t one of the Robert Ashworth–Janet Aikman party, but he started always to be hanging around Aikman after meetings and talking to her. It quickly became obvious to me that he had designs on her; but I took comfort from her letter, and assuaged my feelings of jealousy in the belief that he wouldn’t get anywhere with her. Although Janet Aikman’s reply to my request for a closer relationship had saddened and disappointed me, it at least reassured me that this young rival would have no more success than I had done.
13. How wrong I was! Five weeks after receiving Aikman’s letter, on Thursday 25th May 1972, I was at the evening prayer-meeting at church. And I was yearningly, burningly upset afterwards, when, going out of the room where the prayer-meeting was held, into the darkened corridor, I espied Janet Aikman and Ron Green with their arms round each other in a close embrace.
Around this time, my Mum spoke out with uncharacteristic acerbity. “I dislike that girl,” she said: “always flaunting herself!” I am not sure whether she was aware of the depth of unrequited feeling I had for her.
14. The next day, Friday 26th May 1972, despite my disappointment and depression, I did get on the train, as arranged, and arriving in Grimsby, I was met by Chris and Janet — and I don’t remember any yearning thoughts of Aikman entering my head at all after that.
XXIX.1.Now the mind of the Lord is not known to the mind of man and his counsels are beyond finding out. 2.And it was in the mind of the Lord that
my stumbling was not to my fall, and the fall was not to my destruction, but to the final glory of God. 3.For nothing falls, if not to be raised up as nothing is hidden if not to be revealed. 4.For was not, for is not, the Lord
my redeemer, and Saviour, did he not bleed for me, die for
me and call me his own?
XXX.1.So we have traced the use of my folly by the agent of the Adversary.
2.I fell into sin on each occasion.
3.I burned with wrath even though I had no evidence that Mary was drawing Pamela away from me; I was filled with loathing for her without cause in my distress over Pamela’s avoidance of me.
15.This first sin was one of passion, an uncontrolled outburst.
20.It was, as it were, the flaring of a flame.
4.I feasted my lusts in the matter of
G— D—, in wilful disregard of the Lord. 5.“I am doing nothing wrong,” I told myself; “this is new and proud achievement, such as to make me swell with pleasure.”
6.(Such achievement!…) 7.“The Lord will not punish me,” I told myself; “I am safe from his wrath.
9.And I had thought that these believers said, ‘You shall not do this’, ‘You are not supposed to do that’.”
10.(Would that they did, if in the absence of such rules I went and did
that!) 8.And I took pride in my shame, for I bragged about it as an exploit.
11.And the scar of this self-inflicted wound remained after the sepsis had been cleansed; for I would think from time to time, albeit sometimes ambivalently, with pleasure on my actions.
16.This second sin was one of wilfulness, a deliberate closing of the eyes.
21.It was, as it were, the kindling of a flame.
17a.My third sin, 14.when I was going out with Audrey,
17b.was insidious, an unnoticed falling off of my ardour for the Lord, a creeping up of coldness.
22.It was, as it were, the dying of a flame.
18.I was plunged into grief for many a day, on and on it went, till I felt I could stand no more; and another day
followed — 19.and another, when although I felt no better, still I felt no worse.
12.Do I need to continue with a catalogue of my follies?
23.My fourth sin was, as it were, being burnt by a flame.
20.Flaring flame
21.Kindling a flame
22.Dying flame
23.Burnt by a flame
13.The important question is: Can the Lord bring good out of all this folly? We are certain that he can; we know without doubt that he can; we have seen it happen in part; who knows what the whole will be like?*
* I am undecided whether this final chapter is to be
regarded as a “canonical” Johannine Writing, or not. The material in the source-document,
Mem Y-i-G, 6, is fragmentary and incomplete, and it rakes up the sins once more, which should perhaps have remained buried. Notwithstanding that, though, the hope expressed in v.13 borders on saying that the outcome will be better than if I had never fallen, which inclines me in the direction of canonicity.
