Travel Biography - Week 1.

Since I started writing for this Blogger page, there have been several readers who have either asked me or suggested that I write a book about my travel experience. However, there are a couple of problems with this idea. First, are there enough experiences in my life to fill a book with, for example, 326 pages, the exact number took up by Simon Reeve's travel biography, Step by Step? Indeed, Reeve had some extraordinary life experiences which were very unique for an individual who never attended a public school, nor ever seen the inside of a university - the normal steps taken by any average journalist, especially one who hosts his own TV documentaries.

Simon Reeve.

The second problem is the extreme difficulty in getting the book published, especially without the aid of an agency. As I said in an earlier blog, most aspiring authors have their manuscripts winging their way back to them after rejection from a publisher. The same goes for journalism, especially on TV and the fame that comes with it. It's a profession nigh impossible to get into. Therefore, having developed a desire to write a biography on my travel experience out of encouragement from others, I hope that I will make an effort here on this Blogger page which will result in an enjoyable read.

It will also be noted that many of these events featured in this series have had a mention, even several times, before now. Therefore, as I intend to highlight more of the background on which these events occurred, I hope to create a more coherent picture - the one showing that my travel experiences are intricately linked with my Christian faith.

The Beginning - Growing up.

I was born at Westminster Hospital in London on September 16th, 1952, to Gaetano and Laura Blasi, both full-blood Italians who met at a post-war Italian community at the Barbican and married a few months later in 1951. As the story goes, when Mum was giving birth to me, two weeks past her delivery date, it was said that an English midwife at the delivery ward cursed us for being "foreigners" settling in England during the food rationing while the country was still recovering from the war. Hence, it came as no surprise when my brother was born six years later at St George Hospital, a different site chosen from where I was born. After my birth, we then settled at an apartment in Lillington Street, off Belgrave Road, until I was two years old. In 1955, we moved to a basement apartment of a swish Victorian townhouse at St Georges Square, Pimlico.

My parents and I shared the one bedroom, we used a tiny kitchen, itself barely larger than a telephone kiosk and featuring a disused coal cellar, and a dining room with the old coal fire blocked and an electric heater standing in front of it. Next to the dining room was a windowless corridor resembling a mine shaft, leading to the basement next door. Beyond that was our inclusive bedroom, followed by a disused chamber, possibly another bedroom, its floor littered with discards from other tenants, including a perfectly-working spring-powered gramophone, and some wax records piled next to it. The corners and the window of this room were covered with huge, black cobwebs, and I wondered how these spiders managed to survive without any apparent bugs crawling everywhere. A straight staircase led one from the servant's quarters, where we lived, to the far more ornate first floor. Past the foot of the stairs, the corridor led to some disused cellars.

In the 1950s, many buildings in London were blackened by soot before the great clean-up instigated by the Clean Air Act of 1963. During Autumn and into the Winter, smog polluted the city air, and I wondered whether this thick and dirty fog had an effect on me during gestation, thus, according to my parents, I was born "mentally deficient" as it was known during those days. Yet, I loved thrills, such as climbing onto the bannister and sliding back down it. Yet, Mum didn't hesitate to send me to a corner shop around the block to buy items she had forgotten to buy earlier or had run out of before time. This was an important turning point which eventually led me to be an independent traveller.

Walks completed on my own included a frequent trip to the adventure playground in Churchhill Gardens, an estate of then newly-built high-rise apartment blocks. Actually, the adventure playground was for the immediate residents of the estate, therefore, living outside the estate, I shouldn't have been there, but there was no apparent by-law banning entry by outsiders. At least, my parents knew of my visits to the playground. What they weren't aware of at that time, I was walking further on to Battersea Park, across the river Thames over Chelsea Bridge, itself overlooked by the four huge smokestacks resembling an upturned table, that was Battersea Power Station. When they eventually found out, they were shocked, but not horrified, and I wasn't even told off.

Being "mentally deficient", I was sent to a special school, Wedgewood Primary at Marinefield Road in Fulham (now known as Ormiston Courtyard Academy.) I was happy there. Contrary to being mentally deficient, I was able to read and write quite well - well enough to be asked by the teacher to show my fellow pupils to read. As for maths, I was taught the Basic Four - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division - and I received more red ticks than crosses on my finished work. In short, for one whose supposed to be "mentally retarded" I was actually quite bright.

At Wedgewood Primary, I was impressed with the four chimneys which overlooked the playground. Unlike those at Battersea Power Station, these four smokestacks were arranged in a straight row. These, I found rather fascinating. There were actually three power stations straddling the River Thames within my area during the fifties and sixties. Battersea Power Station on the south bank, Lots Road Power Station on the north bank in the western end of Chelsea. Like at Battersea, this building also boasted four chimneys arranged at each corner. Lots Road Power Station supplied electricity specifically to the Metropolitan and Circle Lines on the London Underground. Finally, Fulham Power Station, also on the north bank, had its four chimneys looking into our school playground.

Battersea Power Station as I remember it.

Grosvenor Road and the Chelsea Embankment (the same road on either side of Chelsea Bridge) linked two of the three stations - Battersea and Lots Road - and the wide sidewalk with its continuous row of Plane Trees provided a lovely stroll along the embankment. From Chelsea Bridge, both Lots Road and Fulham Power stations could be easily seen, and a view from Wandsworth Bridge, facing east towards Central London, provided views of all three power stations, with Battersea a clear 2.21 miles, 3.56 km away as the crow flies.

Walks along the Embankment had always intrigued me when I was a boy. These walks took place mainly at weekends or during school holidays. I loved the area, especially Battersea Park with its miniature railway, boating lake, fun fair, decorative fountains, skywalk, along with ice cream, doughnut, and candyfloss stalls lining the North Carriage Drive. To the south of the park, further away from the riverbank, a swing park kept me occupied as I gleefully swung back and forth - exactly as I did at a swing park whilst backpacking Australia some 34 years later in 1997!

Walks across London progressed further during this stage of childhood. And that includes finding my way to Natural History Museum in South Kensington, more than two miles from home. Another venue I fell in love with, and getting there on foot from St Georges Square was a breeze. And as such, the foundation for independent travel was laid, both by personal experience, beginning from a short shopping errand, and by getting acquainted with the mysteries beyond our shores by looking at coloured political maps housed in an atlas.

Back at home in the basement of old servant's quarters, Dad owned a Collins Atlas of the World. I loved browsing through it myself, and I soon became familiar with world geography. So intrigued was I, that I wanted to memorise the exact shapes of the continents, and I did this by taking a blank sheet of paper and drawing the outline of all the world's continents - maybe a little distorted, after all, I was still only a boy, but what lies beyond the ocean's horizon had raised my curiosity and fascination. My effort paid off. At our primary, each one in our class was given three sheets, each featuring a portion of the world map. The exercise was to stick the three sheets to make a coherent map. I was the only one in the class who got it right, and my work was put on display in the school hall for all to see.

But if you think that my childhood was all peaches and cream, then think again. Who thought that I was retarded? Although my parents suspected, it was the health professionals who confirmed this and recommended a special school for such backwards children.

The situation was compounded by our neighbours who had children slightly older than me. On one side lived a girl a couple of years my senior - and whom I took a special secret liking - acting more like an adult than I did. Two doors away lived two brothers who were making good progress at school, a mainstream school, I might add! Therefore, the worse thing my parents could ever do was to compare me with them. It had put a strain on our relationship, gradually making me feel worthless and undeserving of any praise. Yet, I did think of Jesus Christ, whom I was told, "was a very good man". During this stage of childhood, I wanted to know this Jesus Christ. In fact, I always wanted him as a friend.

However, with reading, writing and arithmetic reaching the levels of a normal child of similar age, one could have looked again at my IQ level, and that is what happened after moving to Bracknell towards the end of 1963, then aged eleven years old, and placed in a normal school. And obliged to dress in a uniform.  In this small town of English whiteness, how I missed the innocent life in a cosmopolitan city!

Like the time we were in our playground at Wedgewood Primary. During my time there, a set of apparatus arrived at our school and it was installed in the playground. It consisted of a set of steps leading up to a boardwalk. The first length of the boardwalk ended at a small disused beer barrel, open at both ends, then, from the barrel, the boardwalk continued on where it ended with a slide. It was loved by all the children and at every playtime break, an orderly queue of children built up at the start of the steps.

One afternoon, while all the other children were heading to their respective classrooms, one group after another in an orderly fashion, our class were the last to return for lessons. Before this daily discipline began, I climbed into the barrel and hid inside, peering through the bunghole to where the supervisor stood. From within the barrel, I watched as the rest of my class had to line up against the wall. Nobody saw me hiding inside the barrel. I made sure that my arms and legs were fully inside. Thus, as the playground emptied, nobody knew that there was a boy hidden inside the beer barrel, watching everything from the bunghole and fearing whether the supervisor would suddenly march angrily straight to the apparatus! Fortunately, I was afterwards able to slip into class unnoticed.

By 1963, for the whole family sleeping in one bedroom was becoming beyond a joke for Mum and Dad. I had turned eleven, and my brother was four. As my father worked for the Post Office as a postman and Mum as a part-time cleaner, Dad was eventually promoted to a counter clerk. But he also informed his employer that he must live somewhere where we can have separate bedrooms. By December 1963, we moved from Pimlico to a two-bedroom semi-detached house in Bracknell in Berkshire, a provincial town some thirty miles west of Trafalgar Square in London.

At Fox Hill Juniors, somehow, I felt different from the rest of the class. Unlike at Wedgewood, all the kids there were white and English. As such, with an Italian background (even if I was legally British) I was relentlessly bullied. Yet, it took a long time before I started to cry, a move which seemed to have tempered the bullying somewhat. How I missed London! How I missed sitting in a classroom shared with a black boy and with another Italian. How I missed the cosmopolitan feel of the city!

At around 2-3 years old.

The next five years of normal schooling proved to be testing, and there was a feeling of rejection by my parents, having been compared unfavourably with the neighbour's children. The fact that I was placed in the slow learner's class, despite my good progress at the London primary, only added to the aggravation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEXT WEEK: A car breaks down in France, a brush with death, and how a Spanish holiday proved my downfall. 

Nostalgia and a Test of Patience

I recall one afternoon as a young boy living in the basement (former servant's quarters) of a typical Victorian town-house in the Pimlico district of Westminster. Next door to the bedroom (where we as a whole family slept together in the one room) was an adjoining bedroom which was long abandoned, with giant black cobwebs occupying the corners, near the ceiling and window frame in particular. The room was cluttered with bric-a-brac long disposed of by former tenants, with every item covered in dust, including the base for a Singer sewing machine still complete with a flywheel powered by a rocking foot pedal. How I would spend time alone in that room, totally obliterate of the spiders, sitting at that bench and attempting to see how fast I can get that flywheel spinning. 

It was then that I spotted something resembling a small black suitcase lying nearby, as with everything else in that room, long abandoned by its owner. When I lifted its lid, I was filled with a combination of joy mixed with curiosity at the sight of a record turntable powered by a crank, and what looks to be a fully-functional pick-up arm complete with needle. Next to the player was a pile of wax records, along with a vinyl single of Rock a Hula Baby by Elvis Presley. Not that any of the wax discs were albums, but singles which preceded the smaller vinyl version which afterwards dominated the market for decades. 

I carried the record player and its records to the living room, where it became my plaything, even despite my parent's warning that the original owner may want to reclaim it. But as long as it lasted, nobody had ever knocked on our door. 

A version almost identical to the one I found.

A close up of the pick-up mechanism

The music entertained not just myself but the rest of the family. But by being young and inexperienced, I tended to turn the crank more than needed, the continuous over-winding over the months eventually broke the spring, permanently losing its tension, therefore no longer able to keep the turntable rotating at a constant pace. It was a crying shame. With Dad fearing that the spring would somehow penetrate the strong casing to fly with velocity at my face, he disposed of the unit, never to be seen again. Yet despite it's constant use, there was never a complaint from any of the neighbours. The reason for this was straightforward. There was no tone adjuster on the unit and the rather tinny sound failed to penetrate the rather thick walls separating each tenancy. 

Technology beats on. For Mum's birthday in 1962, Dad bought her the latest in musical technology, an open-reel tape recorder - heavy, bulky - but what I considered as a youngster to be a technological miracle. The main difference between this new-style device and a record player was that now, supplied with its own microphone, we are able to record our choice of music, along with private conversation. A phenomenon which no doubt caused the hair of every entrepreneur working in the music industry to stand on end with prophetic apprehension! 

But although the unit gave us plenty of fun, together with a plethora of splicing joints dotted along the length of the tape itself, like with the record player, no disturbance was caused to our neighbours. Maybe that fact that these units can only deliver mono sounds, that is from a single speaker built into the unit itself. The sound issuing from the tape recorder, if I recall, tended to be crackly, with the beating of the drums barely discernible. But nobody complained.

This model of open-reel was the exact one we had.

The predominantly wood and metal cabinet might have been the reason why this device had stood the test of time. For more than half a century, it is still in my possession, although it was years since it was last used, still in good working order. It was rather unlike the next step up in music technology - the all-plastic Cassette Recorder - small, compact, and portable, but in comparison with the open-reel, it had a shorter life span. I have always found the cassette to be something of a bane to use. I have learnt by experience never to wind back the tape to re-play the song I have just heard. This shortens the life of the tape, causing the playback to sound trembling, the vocals delivered with a quivering tone, only for the tape eventually to be chewed up by the pinch-wheel, lengths of tape stuck in the mechanism, and its life at an end. Yet this device had kept me entertained throughout the early 1970's when I was in my late teens. Another advantage the open-reel had over the cassette was that if during use the tape snapped, as it often did with the open-reel, the two ends can be spliced together with a special tape which was easily available on the market back in those days - an apparent recognition that such was a universal problem.

But if the tape in the sealed cassette snapped - unless I was lucky enough to have both ends exposed to fix - that was it. The cassette ended in the bin.

The cassette recorder of the 1970's.

However, what a revolution in home entertainment brought in by the stereo! Which included me when I bought my first stereo unit which I installed in my bedroom, as in those days I still lived at home. And sure enough, whilst listening to stereophonic sounds, it wasn't long before the sound of banging came through the floor. Mum was complaining that the bass tone was too loud. The only solution was to adjust the bass until the sound was practically tinny. But at least there was peace.

The bass. The very thing that caused complaints from neighbours after flying the nest and settling into my own apartment in the mid 1970's. Strange in a way; whenever I played secular music, I did not have too much trouble. But put on Gospel music and soon enough there would be a knock on my door. People complained a lot more frequently when I was listening to Gospel music. Especially from the single occupant of the apartment directly below me. Whenever he called, he stood tall and looming in a leather jacket, his darkened countenance looking down onto mine. I quickly learnt that with a fellow that big, I didn't want to cross him. Then one evening I was playing squash with a friend down at the Leisure Centre. At that Centre the squash courts were constantly booked, and at the end of each thirty-minute time-slot the two players must leave the court, even mid-game, and allow the next pair of players to enter.  

And so the bell rang to signal the end of our slot. I approached the door and opened it to let ourselves out. Standing right there with his partner was the fellow from the apartment downstairs. I was as much shocked as he was. He was shorter than me in his natural height and his build wasn't that impressive. Shortly after that incident he moved out, and he wasn't seen again. One thing I could say of him - he knew how to keep his footwear concealed, even if his soles were as high as a station platform!

And all this brings me to ask: Why is our younger generation obsessed with stereos so huge and powerful that such would suit a public ballroom? This brought on the turning of the tables, with myself making the complaint. Such as an incident which occurred in the Autumn of 2004.

Well into the night I was kept awake by the constant thump, thump, thump coming through the ceiling from the apartment above ours. No discernible music, just this tuneless beating. I wasn't too worried for either my wife or myself, but I was more concerned for our newborn daughter in case she was disturbed by the noise. So I crept upstairs to ask that their hi-fi can be turned down for our daughter's sake. The one answering the door said something like Huh huh, but did nothing to lower the volume. And there lies my mistake. I should have checked on my daughter. Had I done, I would have seen that she was sleeping well, got some earplugs and returned to bed. But instead, I returned upstairs to complain further. The female who answered the door spoke in a very arrogant, couldn't-care-less manner, explaining that it was her 21st birthday. Her attitude arose my irk, and I gave her what I thought was a gentle tap on her shoulder. She went down as if I gave her a hard push. Instantly three half-drunken men rushed out, along with two or three females, to lay me out. But I managed to reach my front door unscathed. Outside, they were pushing to get into our apartment while we were inside, with myself pushing to close the door. Fortunately my strength prevailed and the door closed. Safe inside, while the crowd was banging and attempting to bring the door down, my wife called the Police. It was they, two officers in our apartment and the other two upstairs, that the entire situation was diffused, and the long-for silence prevailed throughout the entire building. And you know what? My daughter slept through the entire ordeal totally undisturbed.

It was not long after this that those upstairs were partying again. But this time a young mother from another apartment called up from the yard outside, complaining about how their noise was keeping her child awake. Their reply took the form of a string of unprintable expletives. I have learnt much from the experience. The party-loving occupants upstairs did not have a great year. After cheering England with so much passion during the 2004 European Cup football tournament, their team was knocked out of the Quarter-Finals by Portugal on a penalty shoot-out, after a 2-2 draw. No wonder our upstairs neighbours were devastated, and we became the sitting duck for them to vent their frustration. 

As I write this blog, a birthday party is taking place at the house next door to ours (which we moved into just a few months after that party incident). They too have a powerful music centre which, to me seems so inappropriate, other than to irritate their neighbours. Like in previous times, it's a constant Thump, thump, thump, without any tune we could recognise or associate with. But unlike those before, they usually turn their sound right down by eleven at night. But whenever such situations occur, we keep ourselves to ourselves, and learn to be patient. We have never complained since, and I have found that yes, there is a price to pay in putting up with the noise. But the price we would pay would be much greater had we knocked on their door. As it is we remain on good terms. There won't be any hostilities, as Jesus would himself had said:

If you are smitten on one cheek, turn the other also; if someone tells you to go one mile, offer to go two miles, and give to those who asks. 

Matthew 5:38-42.

Sound advice indeed, if heeded will save from much grief and sorrow. Pity I learnt the hard way.

A Cause for Tragedy and Hope. (Fiction)

Ninety year old David Bull coughed and spluttered slightly as he reclined rather cheerfully in his favourite armchair, after his son Graham had dropped him and his 87 year old wife back home from a short trip out. As he cleared his throat and relaxed, his wife sauntered to the kitchen to prepare for him a cup of tea. None of this modern tea-bag rubbish, but the traditional brew in a china teapot, from which a strainer over the mouth of the cup will keep the beverage relatively free from a sediment of spent tea leaves.

The weather outside was awful - cool for late June, dull, and wet. Not that it mattered to the elderly gentleman. For where it was cold and inhospitable outside, inside his heart was warm, glowing with happiness - and pride. As he reclined, he began to let his memories slip back to that dreadful day as a seven year old boy, frightened and with a deep sense of uncertainty. For that was the day he felt that his parents were abandoning him to the fate of the boarding prep school, the start of the long, eleven-year separation from home for a military-style curriculum of full-time education.

Every morning he and all the other boys were escorted to the school chapel for the worship service, where the Christian religion was presented to them in a cold, formal manner. If that was not enough, mandatory grace was said before meals, with which the food was practically inedible, purposely prepared that way to set them upon the road for military service and leadership, and for the hardships that would come their way throughout adult life. David had watched two or three other boys at first refusing to eat, but of no avail. For the strict Matron made sure they ate, force-feeding them amidst weeping and tears. David knew better than to suffer such humiliation. So he ate without relish three times a day, an ordeal to be endured, but never without the thanksgiving to God delivered before the cutlery were lifted from the table.

Day by day, the youngster dreaded the cane, the instrument for corporal punishment, which back in those days was administered by any member of staff, as well as at the headmaster's office. And such was administered rather liberally, for even the smallest offence. When David discovered that there was a news agency not far from the school gates, during one break he slipped out, and with the paltry sum of pocket money, bought himself a Mars bar, a wonderful moment of taste and enjoyment after an endless sequence of horrid dross passing over his tongue. He didn't get away with it. Midway into his next lesson, the headmaster summoned him into his office, and there received five strokes of the cane across the palm of his left hand, before returning to the classroom with tears running down his face.

Those were the worst years of his young life. How he longed for parental love. The comforting arms of his mother. A mother he can run to and shed tears without a shred of shame and embarrassment. The encouraging father-son relationship. Missed opportunities for father and son to spend time together, for example, on a fishing trip, or even just a walk in the park. And an occasional treat such as a bar of chocolate. But no. Father was too involved with his military-allied job. Mother devoted herself to his younger sister. David began to see himself as a nuisance to his parents, always getting in their way. So he believed back in those days. Therefore their best solution was boarding school. At least that was him out of the way. It was years later did he realise their sacrifice through the cost of such education clearing out their bank accounts.

By the time he arrived at public school, his heart was already hardening against showing of emotion. Big boys don't cry - it's the sign of weakness, and therefore a potential target for relentless bullying. One afternoon, the droning of the history master caused his thoughts to drift. Suddenly, the master cracked his cane right across his own desk, making an ear-splitting sound loud enough to wake up the dead. David jolted upright. With his eyes piercing the student's, he ordered him to repeat the last ten minutes of the lecture. David was unable to. So the master brought him to the front of the classroom and in front of everyone present, administered six hard strokes of the cane across his buttocks. The pain was excruciating, but still made every effort to refrain himself from shedding the slightest tear. He had in the past watched other students receive the same punishment, then turned around to smile, and thanked the cane-wielding master as they returned to their desks. David wasn't quite able to reach that point of emotional stoicism. Instead, he wiped a stray tear which managed to escape his lower eyelid, with discretion, hoping that no one in the classroom had seen what he had just done.

Eton College, a famous public school.

It was at that stage in his lifetime that David saw Englishness and Christianity being synonymous with each other, no longer able to tell them apart. Daily morning assembly under Church of England liturgy and the keeping of religious laws were no different from the strict school rules from which the slightest breach would result in corporal punishment. Faith equalled stoicism to such a degree, that any show of emotion was a sign of weakness, and therefore seen as a betrayal of God's purpose, particularly for the King, Country, and Empire. Up to that point in his teenage years, David accepted the Christian philosophy as it stood, that God is a God of war and conquest, and that strict discipline and stoicism to military excellence met his approval. But on one Sunday, when David was at the school chapel with all the other boys, that something occurred which turned his heart against religion altogether. It was the lesson - the reading of Scripture aloud in public - which caused the teenager to shudder, for it was delivered with such an insincere tone of piety. For the Scripture read was 1 Corinthians 13, from the King James Version, followed by an explanation that the word Charity to mean love, and not merely a benevolent organisation. And who took the lesson? None other than the history master who had not long before had publicly smarted his buttocks.

For the rest of his life, David hated God, and everything else to do with all religion, not just the Christian faith. As a result, he became a committed atheist, which carried him along for the rest of his life. However, on the positive side, the school curriculum was good, and despite the total lack of love in a cold, unwelcome atmosphere, he learnt how to play rugby well during the Autumn and Spring terms, spruced up his swimming skills at the school pool, and excelled in cricket and athletics during the Summer term. The gym also featured a boxing ring, where during some P.E. lessons, he found himself sparring with a partner. But the crown of his long years of boarding school was to leave with five A Levels, which gave him a good standing for a University degree.

But after leaving school, he remembered having to join the Forces before attending University, and he chose the Army, the best way to release his pent-up frustrations, with a promise that he would attend the Officer's Training College based at Sandhurst instead of a civil University. But as this was still the War years, and after a few months of training (not a lot different from school discipline, except that the Sergeant had a louder voice) he was posted to Rhodesia, to keep a possible skirmish under control. It was there, as an indigenous uprising against colonialism was threatening the peace, that he was firing his machine gun pell-mell, without proper aim, through a village. As he was returning to base, he saw a young mother lying dead outside the front door of her home in a pool of blood, her dead newborn's mouth still attached to her breast. He realised that it was his bullets which passed through the baby and through its mother while breastfeeding. He felt an emotional blade piercing his heart, perhaps for the first time since it was deprived of all emotion during his school years. Instead, his upbringing compelled him to quicken his pace, and put such a sight behind him. King, Country, and Colony must come first. But the stab continued as a dull ache for the rest of his life.

Back to the present, as the elderly gentleman relaxed in his armchair and sipping his tea, his memory of that shooting was as clear as it had taken place just yesterday. His felt his pride and happiness drift away at the haunting of such a vision. and he began to feel troubled in spirit, the aching of his heart resurging.

The next day, he awoke to the news that the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union. That should have brought him joy, after the short trip to the polling station with his wife and son on the previous day. Instead he felt very apprehensive. Seeing that the day's weather was a contrast to that of the previous day - warm, dry with some sunshine - he decided to take a stroll through the high street. And so with his son Graham, who lived just a few blocks away, along with his wife, the three sauntered along the shopping precinct. They approached a coffee shop, and at one of the tables set outside the window, a Mediterranean-looking young mother sat, breastfeeding her infant, his tiny head adorned with a mop of black hair. The dull emotional ache he had always felt suddenly became acute, and he stood as transfixed outside the shop window, close to them. Presently, a group of very disturbing young men approached, three wearing tee shirts bearing racist slogans. The fourth was actually wearing a red tie over a white collared shirt.

The four youths began to sneer at the mother as she cradled the child to further protect him from view. At this, one of the lads yelled, "WE ARE OUT! GO BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY!" Then the smartly dressed youth threw a missile at the young woman, hitting her on the shoulder before lodging between her chest and the baby. David thinks the missile might have been the core left from an eaten apple.

Graham shouted "OY!" as all four cowardly youths took flight and ran off. Then both mother and son went over to console the young woman, and made sure she wasn't too distressed by the incident. Meanwhile, David's lower lip trembled and a tear rolled down his face. He also knew that love for Queen and Country had nothing to do with the racial abuse. Rather it was out of envy, disguised as patriotism, at the reality that someone had succeeded in fathering the next generation, whoever that person might be. Most likely, to them, some foreign pen-pusher with the sign Vote Remain proudly displayed on his desk.

The family returned home, with the son deciding to remain for lunch. As the senior citizen was weeping over his shocking reminder after so many years, his wife asked him if he would like to hear some words of Scripture. David knew that his wife was converted to faith in Jesus Christ some 25 years into their marriage, along with their son. Quite a contrast to the strong atheism she had when they first met at a ballroom while he was on leave. But throughout their marriage he would not buy it. His public school upbringing on State religion had made sure of that. But the haunting memories of that shooting in Rhodesia has made him think again about the best things in life. And one thing that was missing in his younger years was love. It was almost a miracle that he was able to love his wife as he did. He remembers her as a ravishing beauty that night he first set eyes on her. And to him, age has not faded such beauty, even if the world outside their home may think so.

She took out her Bible, and together they read these verses from the Authorised version:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but hath eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but hath eternal life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
John 3:14-17.

She then flipped forward through some pages and then read out this:

That if you confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
For all whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Romans 10:9-13.

David lowered his head as in deep thought, while his wife and son felt it was right to retreat into the kitchen. While they were gone, he started to pray with sincerity, perhaps for the first time ever in his entire life, knowing within that Jesus Christ has came into the world to die, was buried, and rose physically from the dead three days later, to bring peace and hope. He then called on God to forgive him for everything he has done, and to ask God to dwell within him, then thanked him for his mercy and goodness. He then called his family back into the lounge.

"I have called on God for forgiveness and peace," he announced. "Already I feel at peace with God, with the world, and within myself."

His wife and his son both jumped for joy, then embraced each other in a tight hug. Then they both went over to him and tightly hugged, beaming with happiness and joy.

In the early hours of the morning, while his wife was soundly asleep, David woke up to find himself in the loving arms of the risen Christ in Heaven.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although the story is fiction, all the incidents, including the shooting, were taken from the past testimonies of others, including from one or two whom I talked, and therefore are all historic.

Daddy! Daddy! I Want...Give Me...

On July 3rd, 1997 I boarded a Boeing 747 at Sydney Airport, Australia, which took off around five-thirty in the evening, bound for Los Angeles, California.  After flying across the vast Pacific Ocean, featuring a splendid view of Hawaii basking in the morning sunshine, the 'plane landed safely at around one o'clock in the afternoon on the 3rd of July.

Yes, I can say that I have literally went back in time, landing in Los Angeles before I took off from Sydney, despite being suspended more than thirty thousand feet up in the air for the better part of thirteen and a half hours. But that is one of the strange anomalies of long-haul travel, as the airline was literally travelling faster than the rotation of the Earth on its axis, the crossing of the International Date Line meant I had to re-live the whole of the 3rd of July instead of landing at Los Angeles on the 4th as a result of flying through the night. This make travel so exciting! This, along with looking up at the Australian starry night and seeing the Southern Cross Constellation right above my head, or the brilliant display of stars seen from the bottom of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Not to mention the abundance of tropical vegetation - Mangrove trees in particular, growing out of the sea at high tide, a phenomenon totally unknown around the UK, Europe or the Mediterranean.

A Mangrove tree at Arlie Beach, Queensland, 1997.

Travel became something of an obsession, I think, since I first believed in Jesus Christ as Saviour. It was due to the fact that I started reading the Bible, and the Old Testament in particular said a great deal about the nation of Israel with its capital city, Jerusalem. So in 1976, after touring Italy for the last three years as a solo backpacker, I flew out to Israel to see the city the Bible had spoken so much about, together with a stay in Tiberias, on the lake of Galilee, that part of the world so familiar with Jesus Christ and his disciples. Gosh, how I wanted to see Jesus at the time, while walking on territory he once walked on. As a twenty-three year old, I was quite naive and not realised that not only was he already with me, but also lived in me, and in a sense, was guiding me along where he had been before his crucifixion. After visiting Israel in 1976, my desire to see the rest of the world, particularly California, began to increase, a lot of this to do with big screen and television movies.

God allowed me to fulfil my travel dreams, simply because he is my Father, as Jesus taught us to regard him. As my knowledge of the Bible began to accumulate, my curiosity over the city of Jerusalem began to grow, and I wanted so much to be there to see for myself. I can't remember if I specifically asked whether I can go, but even as such an immature Christian back then, God knew my heart and he had opened the door. Apparently, for one to backpack the Middle East was so unusual back in the mid-seventies, that after I returned, it became quite a sensation at my place of work, a precision engineering factory which employed around two hundred people, both in the offices and shop-floor.

One of the Scriptures I have become familiar with is found in Matthew 7:7-11, where Jesus instructs his followers that God is willing to give good things to those that ask him. Good things? In my younger days, to me good things meant travel, and loads of money to do this. As a single person, good things also meant meeting a girl of my dreams, marry and raise a family. However, a fast car was not on the agenda, as I have proved myself not to have taken to the steering wheel. But reading what Jesus was comparing here, he was saying that although our hearts are evil, as fathers we are keen to give good gifts to our children when they ask for them.

Perhaps life was very different during Jesus' day. Did children really ask their dads for bread, fish or an egg? According to Jesus and his followers, these seemed to have been the normal things to ask for, as these were the only goods that existed in a primitive agricultural world. Yet in our modern day, I don't ever record asking my parents for food such as meat and vegetables. Neither have I ever seen or heard about any children ask for bread or a fish. Sweets (candy) - yes, and often given as a reward for being good or obedient. As for toys, I have seen more than one child scream as he or she was pulled away by Mum from a toy shop at the shopping mall, but I have yet to see a child scream if he or she is pulled away from a grocery store. Also it can be hard work trying to persuade children to eat their Brussels sprouts, or greens in general. Rather than ask for these items, they are often the last  taken from the plate, if they leave the plate at all. And that despite that vegetables have a lot of nutritional goodness in them.

And that's the point. When I was young, if someone had placed a portion of boiled cabbage and a bar of chocolate in front of me, then told to choose which to eat, I would have chosen the chocolate, even if there was much more protein in the cabbage. Would I have chosen the chocolate because I was rebellious? Not at all. I would have chosen it simply because I was a child, and the taste of chocolate is far more enjoyable than the taste of the vegetable. Because of this, I would have regarded the chocolate as an undeserved treat, while eating the cabbage was more of an act of duty. A lesson may be learned here with a plate of biscuits (cookies). When my Mum had a packet of chocolate biscuits and some plain wheat ones too, what she did was to wrap the plain ones in silver foil, and present them in the same dish as the chocolate ones. The ruse always worked. The ones in the foil stood out as special, and taking one of those represented a special treat, and I felt the need to eat it despite the anticlimax.

And as a young Christian, even as an adult, I regarded the goodness of God in a very similar way. How come? Because in Matthew's version, Jesus says that the Father will give good things to those who asks him, while in Luke's version (11:9-13) he says that the father gives the Holy Spirit to those who asks him! Therefore as a young Christian, I found Matthew's version a whole lot more appealing. With it, I did ask the Father if I could travel around the world. I did ask the Father if I would ever cross the International Date Line sometime in my life. I did ask the Father if I would be married one day. I also asked the Father if I could qualify for a desk job in an office - not because this was always my aspiration, but because I would be better loved, respected and accepted by other people, particularly in my church. But asking for the Holy Spirit? Not quite so appealing, despite that he was the best I could have asked for.

According to my experience, there seems to be a parallel between growing up physically and growing up spiritually. In I Corinthians 3, Hebrews 5:13 and 1 Peter 2:2, the apostles wrote about babes in Christ, who were engaging in quarrelling and envying instead of bathing in the grace of God. And these Christians were adults, yet they were spiritual children. It seems to me that it's natural for the new believer to pass through a stage of spiritual childhood, and yet we have a Heavenly Father who understands this. There is absolutely nothing wrong in desiring things we see around us or what other people have gotten or have achieved. Travel was, and still is, my passion and God has granted me the ability to have travelled the world, and enough money to finance it. God has also granted that I would have a wife, a partner for life. But he did not grant me to have a cosy desk job at an office, neither did he allow me to fulfil my childhood ambition to become a medical doctor or journalist. Back in 1980, when I was out of a job, I wanted so much to climb out of my working class status and become middle class. If only I could land an office job, I would have bridged the divide.

At my old church, the person's worth was evaluated by level of education and professional occupation. And one who came out of university was held in higher regard and greater respect than the one who didn't. The graduate found it easier to make friends, was wooed by the girls and even the Elders gave the graduate greater responsibilities as house group leaders and teachers of Junior Church, and so on. As a result of all this, there were times that my personal relationship with God was under some strain, and even thought, erroneously, that God loved some people more than others and I was near the bottom of the pile. World travel became the antidote against this line of thinking.

It is as I grew older both physically and spiritually that I began to realise that Luke's version of what Jesus taught was far superior. Whether these two sayings were slightly different variations of the same speech delivered or whether he spoke on the same theme at different times and places, really that does not matter. For Jesus to say that the Holy Spirit is available just by the asking is the greatest demonstration of grace God can bestow upon a person. Furthermore, it is an unqualified statement, it does not respect the recipient's level of education or social status. As with travel, this always ends with a bout of "post holiday blues" - a deep feeling of melancholy as I walked into an empty, silent but oh-so-familiar apartment after so many nights spent at a lively, bustling hostel socialising and making friends in the far corner of the globe, with the distance from work and daily responsibilities to match. But asking for the Holy Spirit to flood my soul with himself is actually a lot more fulfilling, not only because the gift is eternal, but particularly when I go through a difficult patch wondering how long my window cleaning business will last, the growing threat of rivalry due to superior sales patter, better equipment which demands hundreds, if not thousands of pounds investment, and an estate of ageing clientele leaving me very unsure about the future.

I have found that trusting in God and asking for the Holy Spirit to fill me on a daily basis has not only helped along in facing an uncertain future, but on the positive scale, has given me patience in dealing with difficult clients, to be gentle and accommodating when others poses levels of difficulty. And I give credit to the power of God in my life, a Saviour who is fully capable in renewing a sinner's heart. A long backpacking holiday, or even a sabbatical, may be an exciting idea but also a return ticket is included in the package. Not so with the seal and guarantee of eternal life. No return ticket there! Realising that asking the Father for the Holy Spirit is equivalent to a child choosing the cabbage instead of the chocolate, to walk into a clothes shop on a cold day instead of the toy shop, or for that matter, if a choice between a pretty picture postcard or a £20 note was presented, the child choosing the money above the postcard, despite that the card is far more prettier.

I believe that God's wish is to bless us. I don't believe that God is reluctant to bestow material blessings, which includes the opportunity to travel. After all, wasn't Abraham rich? And so was Job? And one of the richest men who had ever lived was King Solomon. Never mind that he erred in later life. Solomon was bestowed with a supernatural wisdom which could have only come from the Spirit of God, and was particularly loved by God at his birth.

King Solomon's splendour. 

God has blessed me richly with a wife and a nice home, two computers, a photo library of travel experiences, and niceties which enhances the pleasantness of being at home. But the best gift God has given me is salvation and having not just having the Holy Spirit dwell in me, but all of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit taking delight in making me their home.