Trust in God.

Jay was 21 to my 17. I thought I had it all sorted. But, turns out, that a Catholic education might not be a healthy start.

Why and how I got together with Jay always confused me. Last year I did a very bad public speaking course, one of these created to make some ‘passive income’ for the influencer, a mum-to-mum selling, spliced-from-podcasts-and-you-tube nonsense, £300 piece of puff.

One activity, though, was to create a timeline of life events. Her idea was to be positive but I found myself stunned to see quite how muddled I was getting in the years before I met Jay.

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The first memory of my secondary school is smoothing out a Spot the Dog colouring in poster over the headmaster’s desk. Mum and I had been to Hatchards, in the fancy part of town. She bought one tube for my friend Stephanie’s birthday present, and one for me. I’m the youngest of four kids so treats like this were absolutely exceptional. This was terribly exciting. I was happy.

The adults sat and talked, and I sat at the headmaster’s desk, kicking my legs, most likely talking to myself colouring (it feels strange to use “headteacher” for the broad, rolling Mancunian in a chalk-stripe navy suit who grasped the lectern and talked to “you youngsters” so I’m sticking with it).

The school is a Catholic comprehensive and in the 90s it was very Catholic: a crucifix in every classroom, year 10 pre-confirmation spiritual Retreats and, once, according to two of my closest friends, an anti-abortion video too horrific to describe without a trigger warning. Mass on holy days, Ash Wednesday services and sex education strictly limited to biology lessons, allegedly in fear of reprisals from Opus Dei down the road. Think ‘Derry Girls’ without the terrifying sectarian violence and institutionalised prejudice but all of the God, the gold and priests at every corner. 

My mum loved the school, and rose in the ranks of the governors, from deputy to becoming the Chair. She was brilliant at her entirely voluntary job, giving speeches, holding meetings with other governors, teachers and priests, writing letters to the school and the parents.

When school letters were handed round about the direction of the school or the need to raise standards or numbers of children taking their confirmation, I didn’t ‘take one pass it on’. My mum had written it, had steered the policy. My dad worked in Catholic education, problem solving schools in crisis. They had full hiring and firing capacity. Even over the head. I knew this.

One Monday in CDT class, my parents were conducted on a formal tour around the school, checking on its progress, strengths and failures. I kept my head down.

I sang in the choir, played the clarinet or sax in the Wind Band. Once a term we’d help to celebrate Mass in a parish of the school. Every lunchtime I was singing in a choir rehearsal or hiding from the huge playground where boys played football and the girls would cower in corners, the plastic diamond fencing no respite from winter winds. I sang, badly, and loved the Christmas service where we sang ‘The Angel Gabriel’ unaccompanied, our pitch practiced over months to be spot on as we sang in candlelight to hundreds of people. The sacred hush of the service and the intention was powerful.

I loved church. I loved singing hymns, and seeing the same faces every Sunday, smiling and hugging me. Even now, only the ladies of my dad’s former choir and my godparents are allowed to call me Annie. On Sunday mornings I felt adored, laying out hymn books and slotting in the hymn numbers in the special board behind the altar.

I loved sitting after Communion and watching endless shoes go by as I kept my head bowed and pretended to pray, guessing what each pair of shoes told me about the person wearing polished navy court shoes, stolid lace-ups, occasional battered trainers. 

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I took RE A level, half ancient Jewish history, half philosophy. The philosophy teacher was a red faced bully in Laura Ashley maxi skirts and, memorably, lace bras worn with lace blouses, her nipples swaying as she instructed us on moral philosophy. When she was a child, she reminded us, she had been pushed on a swing by Jesus. Later, she and the deputy head, both married, both parents, ran off for a new life.

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The first lesson of philosophy displaced something in my brain. I was utterly confounded by the truth that my understanding of yellow might be profoundly different from yours, and neither of us can ever know.

It played with my brain. I became devout. My days were qualified by “dear god please help me to be profoundly grateful for the blessings of my life…” whilst still seeing any nod from a boy as proof that I was about to land A Boyfriend. 

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My friend Harry was about 7 foot tall, gentle and daft. His dad had a peg-leg and an extensive porn collection. His bestie was Fred, and Fred had a girlfriend we all found dull and mean. 

Fred admitted they’d had sex.  Harry and I were talking during a free period one “The first thing I thought was - he’s going to hell”. I agreed with Harry, it had been mine, too. But Scotty was a gentle, eccentric and good person. He came to every party in fancy dress, bred guinea pigs and found something kind to say about everyone. How could he be bound for hell - how could doing this one thing with your body outweigh all the good things? But he had had sex before marriage so that meant that he, that anyone not Christian, that my siblings - all of them. All of them were going to hell. I learned it every day. 

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But that’s what they said. Trust in the lord. God has a plan for you and for everyone. You couldn’t fight it. There was a plan and every bad thing was all part of God’s plan that we, mortals, could not comprehend. It was our job to comply.

So, even though it was logical that everyone my age that I loved would end up in hell and that I would go to hell and sex and boys were so interesting and I was so horrid and fat and boring that no-one would want me anyway, I trusted.

Photo by Anuja Mary Tilj on Unsplash