I was born in November, 1947. In November, 1973, I was born again, this time not of earthly parents, but of heavenly ones. John 1:12-13, 3:3-8, Gal. 4:26*.

Place of my first birth. Woodlands Road Maternity Home, Barry.

Born of Irish/Welsh and Scottish parents our “religion” was Roman Catholic. In those days you were either “Church of England” or “Roman Catholic”, there was no alternative. You were registered with the NHS Doctor as one or the other. When I joined the British Armed Forces in the 1960s it was still the case. I was sent on a Roman Catholic retreat to Cologne (Koln) when based in Germany.  That’s how ignorant the national understanding of religion was in the United Kingdom.

Myself and my three siblings attended a small Roman Catholic school in the town. It was extremely basic and housed in the same building where my mother and grandmother were schooled. The school catered for Infants to school leavers (15 years). The last couple of years of my schooling were spent in a corrugated tin hut which was also used as the school hall and dining hall. Here as school leavers we were largely left to ourselves. I spent most days, along with four others, on a trestle dining table, drawing on large sheets of paper. Such was my education.

St. Helen’s RC School, Barry. (Circa 1962). School photograph (found on Facebook). I’m stood next to Mr. Collins, my last school teacher. That long pullover was knitted by my mother.

At the 1962 Christmas break I left school largely uneducated and without the basic skills of reading and writing. Thankfully because of my love of animals my mother found me a job working away on a farm near Wick in South Wales. The family was Welsh speaking. It was the winter of 1962/63 - one of the worst winters in British history. I was not really aquatinted with life outside of our own town and immediate countryside. I’d never hear people speak Welsh, and it was not encouraged in our home or town environment - even though we lived only a few miles from the Principality’s capital. 

We lived in various locations in the town. Due to the fact that we were housed in Council houses, my mother liked to change. When I was born we lived with my grandmother (a widow) in North Walk. My parent’s first house was in Hinchscliff Avenue on the Colcot Estate. From there we moved to Margaret Avenue, also on the Colcot Estate. A few years later we moved to another council house, this time in a different part of the town near the West End. Dudley Place, like Margaret Avenue, was a cul-de-sac, with a pedestrian path with ran downhill behind the local school, known as Romilly Schools (which catered for infants to seniors).

So we moved from Saint Helen’s to Romilly School. Saints Helen’s school was the other side of town. When we lived at the Colcot we walked the two mile journey to school and back. But now school was just a few minutes away. My first day at Romilly school was a miserable day. I was put in a class for my age group, but teacher was very displeased to discover that I knew nothing of the subject he had written on the blackboard, and I was quickly dispatched to my younger brother’s class. Bewildered and confused I remained there throughout the day. The next day I was moved again and joined a group of children that assembled in the playground before being marched down the hill to a church building, which had a Sunday School room. It was here I would remain until my mother decided that my younger brother and I should return to Saint Helen’s School.

We normally enjoyed the walk to and from school each day, as this took us through the town, which was well lit, unlike the unlit country lane we walked to our previous school. Apart from being a shorter walk, we passed through the local shopping area and often investigated what the shopkeepers had disposed of on bid days. I regularly attended Mass on Sunday, but I think, at the time, I was the only member of our family that did. Returning from Mass one particular Sunday, a most peculiar circumstance occurred. As I passed by the green corrugated building near the bottom of the pedestrian path behind Romilly Schools, which led to our house, I was immersed in the presence of God (although I didn’t understand at the time), and heard an inaudible voice telling me to go around to the front of the building. As I did so I saw the doors open and a lady standing by a group of children who sat on the floor next to her. I caught her eye and with that I scurried away. As Roman Catholics we were not permitted to visit non-Roman Catholic churches, so I probably felt afraid and guilty. On another Sunday I passed by the local Salvation Army as I went to Mass. It was up a flight of metal stairs on the back of a two or three storey building

* All my Scripture references are from the English Authorized Bible (KJV)