George was locked inside his own head. He couldn't get out. He didn't want to get out. He was quite comfortable, locked inside his own head. The inside of his head felt safe and secure. Everything inside his head was familiar. Outside his head the world looked scary and unpredictable. And so George sat there alone with his own thoughts, playing games inside his mind. He never played with the other children, even when they asked him. He was comfortable on his own, free to be himself, inside his own mind. Inside George's head, everything was possible, there was no-one to tell him what to do, and no-one could make him feel sad. The other children looked at George and were curious. They tried to talk to him, but George said nothing. He wouldn't even look at them. They tried to get him to play with them, but George just sat there, staring ahead. In the end, the other children got bored with George. Then they called him names. Then they ran away laughing. They left George alone, locked inside his own head. George was always alone with his own thoughts. One day, George began to wonder what it might be like to escape from his own head. He imagined what it would be like to unlock the door in his mind and go outside. But he couldn't. It was scary outside his head, and he began to get anxious about leaving his safe place. So he stayed locked up inside. All around him, the children played and laughed and danced, and ran. And George just sat there, staring ahead, and locked inside his own head. Until, one day, Maisie came along. She looked at him and wondered what George was thinking. But George just sat there, staring ahead. So Maisie gently touched his hand. George looked down, and then he looked at her. She had a nice face, he thought. George smiled, and suddenly the lock in the door inside his head began to turn. It opened and the light streamed in, and George didn't feel unsafe any more. In fact he was happy. His smile began to widen. He jumped up, and soon he and Maisie were running around, laughing and playing together. As they ran between the trees and through the long grass together, he thought 'this is fun!' Maisie agreed, and her tail wagged with joy.
Several summers ago, I found myself driving past my old primary school. I pulled off the road, and parked my car on a grassy verge. I stepped out and gazed around. The fields were golden and the sun was shining. Only a few white, wispy clouds drifted in the clear blue sky overhead, and a faint breeze ruffled my hair. I remembered many days like these during my childhood. In fact, I couldn't recall any dark or wet days from my time at that school. Every day was a sunny day when I was small. I gazed over at my old primary school. I strolled across, taking in the rusty gates and the old stone walls of the school. It was off the main road, down a country lane, surrounded by fields. The school stood in the lee of the grassy hillside where the big chalk horse stood like a sentinel, watching over it. The gates were closed but unlocked, the chain hanging redundant. They creaked open as I pushed, and I walked across the cracked concrete school playground. Not much seemed to have changed in the intervening years, except that the school was considerably diminished in size. I had remembered it as being a lot larger than it was right now, but I suppose I had grown a lot since I was nine years old. A memory came to me of a boy, small for his age, standing in the corner of the playground, his back up against the wooden wall of one of the temporary classrooms. He was surrounded by several bigger lads, who penned him in, asking him if he was a mod or a rocker. The little boy felt scared. He didn't know what to answer, because he didn't know what mods and rockers were. Whichever way he answered, he might get hit. In the end he said he wasn't either. He said he was just a small boy with freckles on his face. The bigger lads got bored, left him alone, and walked away. I saw the same small, thin boy sitting at his desk as I peered in through the window of my old classroom. He seemed to be struggling with some maths problems. Another, more capable child was assigned to help him. The nine year old boy still couldn't make sense of the maths, felt frustrated, and eventually gave up, thinking that some things were just too difficult for him to understand. I moved along the side of the building and gazed in through what used to be the head teacher's office. I remember the smell of tobacco that emanated from that room. I saw the small boy, sat in the head teacher's office, at a wooden desk, during the lunch time break. He was being punished by the head teacher because he had not written his number 8 properly. Instead of writing it in a continuous flow, he had drawn two joining circles. Now he had to learn how to write it properly, again and again and again, while outside, the screams and shouts of the other children seeped in through the window. He always wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere but in this musty, tobacco scented room. Once more I made my way along the building and peered through the windows into the assembly hall. The climbing frames were still on the wall, and the parquet floor was as I remembered it - just a lot more worn. Again I saw the same little boy, this time proudly clutching a prize for the best painting in his year group. He went on to win other prizes in school too. All were for his artistic ability. He felt very proud that day. I turned to go. Those memories were from many years before. A lot of history had flowed since I had last been at the school. I wouldn't be coming back again. As I got back into my car and began to pull away, I glanced back one more time. There, standing by the gates was the nine-year-old boy. He was smiling and waving at me.
Carol Forsyth was a very busy woman. Every minute of her time was spent in the office, working as an international marketing consultant. The money was good, but the hours were long. She had very little time for leisure or socialising, and she soon reached the point where she began to question what life was really all about.
Being a decisive person, she placed a job advert on her social media channels. She required a personal assistant who could manage her website, someone with expansive knowledge of social media, and someone who could speak a foreign language.
Disappointingly, there was only one applicant. A dog.
It ambled into Carol's office. She was a little taken aback.
'What are you doing here?' she asked, frowning.
The dog indicated to the advert she had posted, displayed on the iPhone it clutched in its paw. It sat there grinning and panting.
'I'm sorry, I'm a very busy woman, and I don't have time for this!' she said dismissively, 'Shoo!'
The dog was insistent. It sat there, refusing to go.
'I'm not employing animals' she said firmly.
The dog sat there, waiting.
Carol realised this wasn't going anywhere.
'OK', she said, 'Create a website.'
The dog sprang into action. It bounded up to the desk, opened a browser, and proceeded to program in HTML and javascript. Within minutes the canine had created a splendid website, complete with graphics, embedded videos and animated gifs.
Carol was impressed, but she was also stubborn.
'The advert also asked for someone who is good with social media.' she said.
The dog bounced back into action, its tongue hanging out to one side. Within seconds it had set up a Twitter account, an Instagram account and a WhatsApp account. Minutes later it had gained many hundreds of followers and subscribers. The dog excitedly ran around the office in circles.
Carol couldn't believe her eyes. But she had an ace up her sleeve...
'The advert also requires someone who can speak a foreign language.' she declared.
The dog turned to face her and said 'Quack quack'.
It was one of those balmy, late summer evenings, and several of us had made the trip up by minibus to the final day of the Bromyard Folk Festival. I had made the short journey from the Royal Air Force base at Credenhill (now the SAS headquarters) near Hereford, accompanied by half a dozen RAF apprentices who were all about the same age as me. I had just left school, and had recently celebrated my 16th birthday, and it was early September 1973. I wans't in the RAF myself, but my father was, and we had just arrived back in the UK from a two year posting in Maastricht, Holland. I hadn't had more than a few weeks to acclimatise myself to my new surroundings, and was adjusting to life back in England.
My parents, both strong Christians, had always encouraged me - but never forced me - to attend their church services. I had reluctantly tagged along, as often as I had to, in order to lead a quiet life at home. Church was tedious to me, and I hadn't really thought about God as a friend, or a Father. Instead, I thought of him as 'something to believe in if you need a name to call out to when you get into trouble, or when you face problems you can't handle yourself.'
As I sat on the grass in the corner of the marquee along with dozens of other young people, we watched a small procession of bands and artistes perform on the primitive stage. The final act, a hairy three piece acid-folk rock band, walked onto the stage and I began to take a little more notice. They were different. They were called Parchment, and the song that hit me straight between the eyes was a song that, although I was unaware of it at the time, had already enjoyed some recent British chart success. The song that touched me was Light up the Fire.
As Sue MacLelland, John Pac and Keith Rycroft belted out the anthem, the words caused me to reflect on my life, and the direction I had chosen to take. When the words 'Open the door, let Jesus return', sank in, I began to realise that if Jesus did return at that moment, I would definitely not be ready for Him. Due to my Christian upbringing, I knew what the Bible had to say about Heaven and Hell, sin and forgiveness. But I wasn't sure whether I belonged to God or not. Who was I? What was my purpose in life? In fact, I'd never really examined my life in those terms before. I suddenly wanted to be certain, wanted to know that I belonged, but I didn't really know how or understand why. A wave of quiet panic began to wash over me, and I began to fall under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. For the remaining hour or so of the concert, I can recollect very little, except a distinct feeling of uncertainty and confusion in my life.
Driving back after the event, I sat in the front of the minibus, alongside the driver, a mature Christian man called Hugh Gascoyne, who also happened to be one of the trainers of the group of RAF apprentices who were sat in the back seats. As they larked about, singing noisily and telling off-colour stories and jokes behind me, Hugh started talking to me about the events of the night. At one point he remarked to me that it was good to belong to God. I nodded my sheepish agreement, but began to realise that perhaps I didn't belong to God after all. I had been born into a Christian family, but that didn't make me a Christian, anymore than walking into a garage would make me a car. God doesn't have any grandchildren, I knew.
That very night, I walked up to my room, knelt down by my bedside, and asked God to change my life, and to make sure that I belonged to him. That was the night it all changed for me. From that moment on, I began to embark on a new course in life, and started playing music that was aimed at spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. I became a music evangelist. This blog will document the years that followed.
