Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
1 Peter 5:7
I hope you are not saying that [ME] patients are not as ill as HIV patients. I split my clinical time between the two illnesses, and I can tell you that if I had to choose between the two illnesses I would rather have HIV.
(Professor Nancy Klimas, then Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, at the University of Miami, writing in the New York Times, 15 October 2009)
Moving at the age of eleven from my local junior school, which had around 300 pupils, to the comprehensive, with 1,500, was something of a shock to the system. There was no question as to which school to go to, as we often hear about nowadays on the news; if you lived in a certain place, you knew which school you were going to, and that was that. The comprehensive school was about seven miles from where we lived, so there were hundreds of us who had to be bussed in every day. During the winters we used to listen avidly to the local radio station in case there was a chance that we couldn’t get to school because of snow – but it rarely happened! I was there for seven years, doing both GCSEs and A-levels, and it was a good school; I believe it is now an academy.
One interesting thing, considering what was to come, was that in the sixth form, as well as studying academic subjects, we had to do something practical. We were given a choice of three things: first aid (which I had already done in the Red Cross), photography (not interested) or typing – so I ended up doing typing. Back then, I thought that it was a complete waste of time, as I was going to be a nurse; why would I want to learn to type? Yet I can now see the Lord’s over-ruling even in this. He knows the end from the beginning and knew that I would become ill and very dependent on email and the Internet. I can now say that I am thankful for those typing lessons!
When I was fourteen I attended a mid-week meeting at our church which was being taken by a speaker from the Lord’s Day Observance Society who had brought various books and other pieces of literature for us to look at. After the meeting I spotted a magazine entitled The Lord’s Day produced by Young Life and I took it home to read. There was a page in it about beach missions, and straight away I thought that was something I would like to get involved with. I wrote off to the beach missions office for further details, but was saddened to discover that the minimum age to join a beach team was fifteen and I was only fourteen. However, the following year I spent two weeks on a beach mission in Paignton, South Devon. I didn’t know anyone on the team in advance, so it was a bit nerve-wracking at first, but I did enjoy it, although it was hard work. Ever since then I have kept in touch with the team leader and his wife, who are now working with the Open Air Mission, and they have been a great help and support over the years.
The following year I again booked up for two weeks on the team at Paignton, along with a couple of others I had met the previous year, and my brother Tim, who was now fifteen, also joined the team. But it didn’t end there. Thinking that we would both be away for two weeks, Mum and Dad had planned two weeks’ holiday for themselves – one week away in Cornwall, the second week having a holiday at home. However, during our first week in Paignton, it became clear that we did not have a cook for the second week. I knew Mum and Dad were both due to be free that week, so, with permission from the team leader, I left a phone message for them at the place where they were staying (no mobile phones then!) and, to cut a long story short, they joined Tim, me and the rest of the team for the second week in Paignton, with them doing the cooking. It was quite an introduction to beach missions for them!
It actually turned out to be the start of a long association with beach missions, as a few years later Dad was asked to be the beach mission centre leader for St Ives in Cornwall. The office was up in Leeds, and as we were in North Somerset, they thought that Cornwall was just down the road from us! Coordinating the beach missions in St Ives and looking after the mission house down there was something that Mum and Dad kept up for fifteen years, resulting in numerous trips to Cornwall and our getting to know quite a lot of people and the area very well. We still try to follow the work, but now from the sidelines.
It was in April 1989 that Tim and I were both baptized, a happy occasion when we were joined by various family, friends and neighbours who came to the service and heard the gospel. Many of them also came back home to have lunch with us afterwards. Later that year, Grandpa died very suddenly. The funeral service was held at the church where we had been baptized and where Grandpa had years earlier been the minister; there were hundreds of people at the service. After that, I spent most of my weekends staying with Grandma, trying to help her as much as I could. She lived for over sixteen years without Grandpa (they had been childhood sweethearts and used to walk home from Sunday school together holding hands!), and she was a great source of help, support and comfort to me, particularly during the early years of my illness (before she herself became unwell).
Why do I mention all these things? To show that life was busy: going on beach missions, studying for A-levels, church activities, being a member of the Red Cross, helping Grandma, learning to drive and passing my test, applying and being accepted for nurse training in Cardiff. I would think that at this time I was probably the most fit and active I had ever been, and I was looking forward to starting nursing. Again, there was nothing to indicate that all of this was soon to end with the breakdown of my health.
