Not My Idea of Heaven

How I loved spending a day there! I’d sit in the middle of the field saying, ‘One for me, one for the basket, one for me, one for the basket.’ On the way out I’d hide my face from the lady at the pay hut and try not to smile in case she saw the red stains on my cheeks and bits stuck between my teeth.

In many ways, my childhood was idyllic, but why wouldn’t it be? My family and I had been chosen by God, so, of course, life was great. I knew that, whatever happened, the six of us would always be together, Mum, Dad, Alice, Victor, Samantha and me.

Chapter Three

One Size Fits All

The Fellowship didn’t have churches with elaborate buttresses and elegant spires, just squat little meeting rooms with plain, windowless brick walls. The only way a worldly person could attend a meeting was by calling the number displayed on the board outside and making an appointment. It was very rare for anyone to do so, though. And, even if they did, they would be regarded with much suspicion. The high barbed-wire-topped fences and imposing padlocked gates were enough to put off most people.

Our meetings happened every weekday evening, once a month on Saturdays and three or four times throughout Sunday. We travelled far and wide to different meeting rooms, attending Gospel Preachings, Bible Readings, and gathering for prayer. Everyone in the Fellowship had to attend, but nobody minded. These were the great social events of our lives – the exciting part, really.

Nevertheless, they made dinnertime stressful. Dad had to make sure he was home from work on time and would usually come hurrying in, complaining about the terrible traffic on the M25. It didn’t matter that Mum had four kids to look after, her job was to ensure the dinner was on the table in good time. Stuffing down the last mouthful of his pudding, Dad would jump up and, with a flurry of goodbyes, he was gone.

I usually went to meetings only on Sundays. The first one of the day was called the Supper, held in a small meeting room just around the corner from our house. I found it strange that something that started at six a.m. could be called that. As far as I understood it, supper was the name given to the meal that people ate in the evening.

We had to wake before dawn to make sure we had enough time to prepare. It took Mum absolutely ages to get ready. Sitting on a stool in front of the big dressing-table mirror, she’d watch herself pull back strands of long brown hair, and fasten it with a clasp. She used clips to tidy up the sides, then blasted the whole lot with hairspray to keep it in place. My sister Samantha and I would watch her, fascinated, waiting for our hair to be brushed and adorned in the same way.

Once at the meeting, thirty or forty of us sat on chairs arranged in a large semicircle, and began what was known as ‘breaking bread’. The ritual involved a jug of wine and a wicker basket of bread, both of which were ceremoniously passed from person to person along the row. I always looked forward to my turn, so that I could gulp down mouthfuls of the beautifully sweet liquid, and feast myself on the doughy bread.

The lady who did the baking, Mrs Turner, had no idea that very few people actually liked her produce – no one in our Fellowship group had the heart to tell her straight. There was a detectable sense of relief in the room when she was ill and unable to bake. Personally, I loved the bread, although that was mainly because I was so hungry. None of us ate breakfast until after the meeting had finished, so, in order to satisfy our grumbling bellies, as soon as the meeting disbanded, and the parents shuffled outside into the little gravel car park to chat, the other children and I would wander through to the little kitchen and catch Mrs Turner before she tossed away her leftovers. It wouldn’t have mattered what her bread tasted like: it felt like a treat to us. With our little hands full of crusts, we would head back out through the hall, stuffing the squashed balls of dough into our mouths.

I was awakened one Sunday morning with a terrible pain ravaging my mouth. The whole of my upper lip was swollen and I was in agony. Mum had to seek permission from the Fellowship before she was allowed stay at home and look after me. It turned out I had an abscess on my tooth, but I still felt as though I had done something very wrong by missing the meeting.

‘God will understand,’ Mum reassured me. She knew more about these things than I did.

Getting to know what God understood or disapproved of was important. Somewhere in the Bible it said that a woman praying with her head uncovered puts her head to shame, and the Fellowship took this message seriously. The solution they came up with was simple. For a start, every female wore a ribbon fastened with a clip. This showed God that we were one of His, and worthy of His protection. There was still the problem of the Devil to deal with, though. As soon as we were outside our homes and meeting rooms, he could reach us. Our protection was a headscarf, and a lot of Fellowship girls were made to wear them at all times outside their homes.

I wore a headscarf to meetings, but I was spared the embarrassment of having to wear it to school or out in the street. My worldly friends may not have been allowed in the house, but I played with them in our road and didn’t want them to see me with that on my head. I told Mum, ‘I’ll wear it when I get older.’ I meant it, too. I thought that, when I reached the age of sixteen or seventeen, I would be a grownup, and when I was grown up it wouldn’t matter if I was laughed at. I suppose I thought that Fellowship adults were immune to the stares and cruel comments made by people in the big bad world. Whenever I left the house, however, I made sure I had my token in my hair. Oh, apart from that one time.

It was a summer morning and I woke up in a wonderful mood. It was just after dawn and the house was still. There were no meetings to attend and not even Mum had stirred from her slumbers. The sun was already shining and I couldn’t wait to go and play in the front garden. I dressed impatiently and brushed my hair straight in preparation for the elasticized hair band I was about to put on. Maybe it was because no one was awake to see me, I don’t know, but for some reason, on that morning, I decided to find out what it felt like to go outside with nothing in my hair.

Standing in the hallway, door open, I stared at our silent street for a moment. Then, taking in a little gasp of air, I stepped outside, beyond the safety of the house. I didn’t know what I expected to happen to me, but nothing did. So I went further, strolling down the concrete driveway, glancing left and right. I secretly wished that someone I knew would see me with my hair down, but it was too early and nobody was around. At the gate I stopped. I’d got only a few yards, but, when the realization of what I had just done hit me, I lost my nerve, dashed back into the house, closed the door, and quickly tied back my hair before anyone awoke.

Although I didn’t like wearing my headscarf in the street, I was proud to do so at the meetings, where I fitted in with all the other girls. Mum had a whole box of square head-scarves decorated with various patterns, and I hoped that one day I would have a full box just like that too. Instead, for the time being, I had to make do with my little plain lilac and pink versions. I often watched Mum carefully picking through hers, holding them up against herself to see if they matched what she was wearing.

Our clothing may have been restricted in style, but we went to town on making it as decorative as was possible within the boundaries we were set. I saw that my mum and sisters cared deeply about their appearance and knew that little details mattered a great deal to them.

Mum and Alice, who was fifteen years my senior, were always making dresses and skirts, and had become highly skilled in the art from their many years’ experience. They had little choice but to make their own, because the clothes in the shops were either too fashionable or were meant for old ladies. We certainly didn’t want to dress like old ladies, if we could help it, and fashionable usually meant too revealing. Skirts had to be respectably long – not necessarily all the way to the ankle, but definitely below the knee. A woman’s knees and shoulders could never be shown. As far as trousers were concerned, they were for men only.

I especially loved trips to the haberdashery shop, where I ran around inspecting every roll of material. The main purpose of our visits was to find some material to make into a skirt, and, if I was lucky, it would be one for me. The material I really liked would typically be colourfully decorated with sprigs of flowers and suchlike, but I usually chickened out of my first choice and went for the one that I thought would make me less conspicuous when I played in my street. Something plain. It was hard to carry off a floral dress when my worldly friends were in their jeans and T-shirts.

Sometimes Mum would ask the shop assistant to cut her a metre length of quilt stuffing, and I soon got to know what she wanted it for. Mum had developed her very own, advanced technique for getting her headscarf to sit perfectly in place. To do this, she would start by cutting the thin layer of stuffing material into the shape of a triangle. Then, laying her scarf on the bed, she’d fold it diagonally and place the stuffing on top.

It was very important that she get it positioned just right so that it wouldn’t show in the final arrangement. When satisfied with her preparations, in one flowing movement Mum would sweep the arrangement up and over in the air and flatten it down on her head, monitoring herself in the mirror as she did it. Sometimes she performed this manoeuvre five or six times before she got it just right. ‘Right’ meant no movement of the untrustworthy headscarf. I watched, impressed by her precision and attention to detail. The quilt stuffing inside stuck like glue to the layers of hairspray and packed out the scarf, making it look beautifully smooth. Next, a set of clips would go in. One last spray from the aerosol can and she was done.

No women in the Fellowship cut their hair. Mum sometimes trimmed my straggly ends and I felt – just for a few seconds – like a worldly girl. But there was no getting away from the fact I looked different. Every other girl I knew had bobbed hair or it was long but styled, whereas mine was very obviously a home job. It wasn’t that it had been done badly, only that the fashions in the eighties were so extreme. Sometimes I sat in front of Mum’s dressing table and held my long hair up so it looked as if it were short, or I pulled the ends over my head to make it look as though I had a fringe. Fringes were forbidden too, of course, as that involved cutting. It wasn’t that I especially wanted short hair or a fringe. I just would have liked the choice to have been mine.

Men had an easier time with the Fellowship’s dress code. They were forbidden from having long hair, moustaches or beards, but that hardly put them out of step with the fashions of the day. If anything, they just all looked middle-aged. On top they wore open-necked shirts, which were usually a sensible light blue or white. These were tucked into a pair of slacks cut in a classic style. It was all fairly standard stuff, but, when everything was added together, it pretty much amounted to a uniform. A worldly person would probably have trouble distinguishing a Fellowship man from a chartered accountant, but I could spot the difference a mile off !

Equality for women wasn’t exactly a priority in the Fellowship. From the top down, everything was run by men, and, as far as the Fellowship was concerned, they were chosen by God. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the meeting rooms used for Bible readings.

We all sat on tiered rows of benches, which surrounded a central stage and a single microphone on a stand. Men were seated at the front, women and children behind. The men took turns speaking into the microphone, reading from the Bible, while the women tried to pay attention. This was difficult for us girls as we rummaged in handbags, hunting for pencils and paper to scribble notes on, chatting together in loud whispers.

Women weren’t permitted to get up and speak during meetings. Their job was to announce the hymn numbers, and any woman was more than welcome to have a go at that. It meant standing up in front of everyone, and sometimes there was a long silence while the women looked at each other, hoping it didn’t have to be them. The singing was started by the men, but, if the choir lead got it wrong, we’d all end up desperately screeching at the tops of our voices.

What I loved better than wine and bread was seeing Ester and her brother Gareth. He was my age, but ‘Stelly’, as I lovingly called her, was a couple of years older. I’d often go to their house to play, while my mum and some other Fellowship women gossiped in the kitchen. One time I was running madly around their house, playing a game of hide and seek. One by one I searched all the rooms, looking in every nook and cranny. I wasn’t having any luck in the bedrooms, so I checked the loo. But when I peeked round the door and saw Gareth, I saw something else, too.

‘Hi, Lindsey,’ Gareth said.

I had never seen a boy with his trousers undone, and I revelled in my good fortune. The real ambition of a Fellowship girl was to get married and have loads of Fellowship children, and Gareth was the boy I’d already decided I’d marry when I was grown up. Now I could be certain.

That night when I said my prayers I thanked God for letting me see Gareth’s willy. He certainly worked in mysterious ways.

Chapter Four

The Carpenter, the Dreamer, the Romantic and Me

When I was little, I shared a room with my sisters, Alice and Samantha. Our beds were lined up side by side, mine being the small one in the middle. There was just enough room to squeeze between them, but I didn’t mind that it was cramped: I felt safe, flanked by my two big sisters. No bogeymen would come and get me in the night.

Our room had a very posh-looking set of fitted wardrobes covering one wall, but in the middle there was a recess to accommodate a little dressing table and its mirror. It was there that Alice sat to prepare herself for bed every night, but Samantha and I were rarely awake to see her. Being older, she attended the evening meetings, and Samantha and I had usually fallen asleep by the time she returned home.

One evening I awoke and saw her, lit by the little pull-string light above the dressing table, peering intently at herself in the mirror. I spied on her from beneath my blankets, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. She was talking to herself gently, slowly plaiting her long hair. I watched her carefully secure two plaits with hair bands. Then came the part I remember most clearly. She opened the dressing table drawer and took out several curlers. These were not the old-fashioned tubes, but plastic clasps, covered in foam. Taking the tassel of hair that hung below her hair bands, she wrapped it around the curlers and fastened them. I shivered with excitement. How daring my big sister was! We were not supposed to try to make ourselves look pretty in any way. I wondered how she managed to sleep with those hard lumps on her pillow, but I guessed it must be worth it.

Alice really wanted to look her best because she was madly in love. She had met the man of her dreams – another Fellowship member. They had eyed each other during meetings, and, despite the seating plan, a Fellowship courtship had ensued. As far as anyone knew, Alice and Mike had never kissed or as much as held hands, but they did speak on the telephone. They spent hours talking each evening.

Young adults in the Fellowship typically met future spouses during a special three-day meeting that could take place in any country where Fellowship disciples were found. The Fellowship made no secret of the purpose of these events, which were a unique opportunity to widen the gene pool. Fellowship women were required to follow their husbands, which meant that as a woman you could end up living almost anywhere in the world. In Alice’s case, she struck it lucky: her beau lived just around the corner!

Alice was so busy with her love affair that she failed to notice that everyone else her age was doing their GCE O-Levels and ended up leaving school with barely any qualifications. As it happens, this wasn’t much of a problem.

Fellowship women were not expected to have careers, just a short stint working in a local office, as Alice did, and then on with the business of marriage. Their job was to reproduce and look after the household. The men were encouraged to gain skills as apprentices at Fellowship firms. University was out of the question, as it was seen as a place where subversive ideas circulated.

The biggest ambition we were expected to have was to get into Heaven. That was the dream.

If Alice was the romantic, Samantha was the dreamer. Actually, she was a romantic too. I can’t say how she got on at school, being six years younger than she was, but academia was never her strong point. Still, if there was a qualification for fantasizing about romance and other lives, she’d probably score even better than I would.

I can only assume that Samantha’s teachers gave her a hard time for doing badly in class, because that is what she gave me when we played teachers and pupils in one of our favourite games. Well, it didn’t remain one of my favourites for very long, but she certainly liked it. It always seemed to revolve around her telling me off, saying I hadn’t done my maths properly. Samantha’s persona took the form of an extremely strict teacher who frequently made me cry. I was an easy target, of course – I hadn’t even started school yet!

When we played shops, we’d take tins out of Mum’s kitchen cupboards, and tubes of toothpaste from the bathroom, balancing all of our stock on top of a wicker linen basket. It lived on the landing at the top of the stairs, where it was ideally placed for receiving reluctant customers on their way to the toilet. On top of the basket we’d place a plastic till, which we were both desperate to operate. Whoever got to the shower cap first could transform themselves into the shopkeeper by pulling it over their head. This shop uniform made us feel very professional!

Samantha and I didn’t play together for as many years as I’d have liked, simply because she was six years older than I, and soon tired of my childish antics. But what really brought the whole thing to a premature end was something I did to her, which I still feel bad about even now. I stole her only worldly friend away from her. Natalie had been a lifeline for Samantha, connecting her to the world outside of the Fellowship. For many of us, those links kept us sane. I think it broke her heart, and I don’t think she ever forgave me for that.

From then on, I felt as if I were the only child in the house. While she became more reserved, I busied myself with my worldly friends. My brother and sisters were growing up fast, but I still had a lot of playing to do.

There’s a lot I don’t know about my brother, Victor. He’d spent twelve years finding his feet in the male-dominated world of the Fellowship even before I was born. He was two years old when the Fellowship split into opposing subgroups, Mum and Dad ending up in the more extreme of the two, and my mum’s parents totally cut off from us in the other. Victor lived through all that, growing up in the 1970s. I know it all affected him greatly, but it didn’t stop him loving and treating me like his baby. And those twelve years that separated us might as well have been twelve minutes for all the difference they made to our relationship.

I really loved my big brother. I followed him everywhere and couldn’t wait for him to wake up in the morning. I listened out for his call for me as soon as his alarm went off and delighted in acting as his slave. On request, I brought him cups of coffee and ferried messages back and forth between him and Mum. She was much too busy to bother about my brother when he was lazing in bed, but that was OK by me.

I loved it when Victor helped me with projects. One time I designed a set of heart-shaped shelves, which he assisted me in making. Whatever I wanted, he’d find a way of incorporating it into his own woodwork projects during his apprenticeship as a carpenter. As was usual practice in the Fellowship, he left school at sixteen, skipping his A-levels and learning a practical trade.