When I was horrible religious (4)

Futher adventures with Eric Hutchins”, and my downfall!

The “Eric Hutchins City Wide Crusade” ended in Bath, England. “Doctor Hutchins” as he liked to call himself (he had an Honorary Doctorate from a dubious American College) was about to leave with his team for South Africa. He was more than willing to preach to segregated congregations.

He summoned me to his home in Eastbourne, Sussex, and then offered me a new job. I was to visit Cities where he’d previously held crusades, and there peddle his monthly magazine (with a picture of him on every page).

I accepted the bait. He, his wife and I traveled back to London by train “First Class” on a Pullman car, on which we breakfasted in style with table linens, fine silverware and reasonably decent food. The Hutchins’ liked the finer things in life, and paid themselves well.

First I went to Brighton and stayed with a lovely host family. I visited Church after Church, but made few sales. The magazine was quite dreadful (and I knew it). In Brighton I watched the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill on T.V., that was in January 1964.

Then to Nottingham where I stayed with a pious and working class “Peeb” couple. They were so proud that their daughter was a missionary. Nottingham had what the British call “Trolley ‘buses” - double deckers on rubber wheels, with an overhead gantry to receive electricity. That was rare in 1960’s England, and it was fun to ride them. (Cambridge, Mass still has single decker “electric ‘buses).

The magazine would not sell. One good Minister told me why. It was not a news magazine but a monthly hagiography for Eric Hutchins.

Then to Birmingham, where I stayed with one Mrs. Porter, an elderly crippled woman, in her cold, damp un-insulated “prefab”. She in turn was excessively proud of her son, a Dr. Lawrence Porter who was a noted “Peeb” Bible teacher.

Somehow I encountered the “Birmingham Bible Institute” with its wonderfully eccentric founder and Principal, Dr. Harry Brash Bonsall. He was an odd combination of being a Scots Presbyterian who spoke in tongues. He took me to the wildest Pentecostal services, presided over by two fiery women.

Of course the magazine would not sell. I confided my frustration and sense of failure to Harry Brash Bonsall, and he recommended that I should resign from the Hutchins organization and return home. It was good advice.

He also recommended that should I ever enter a Bible College it should be one which majored in “Systematic Theology”. “Systematics” he barked, “make sure that they are strong in “systematics.

So it was back to Bristol. The conquering hero returned with his tail between his legs! I consulted an friend, Hugh Thompson another “Peeb” Evangelist.

( I knew Hugh’s brother-in-law, Tim Burt, and had been best man at Tim’s wedding in Wishaw, Scotland. I have never seen Tim or his bride since their wedding day!).

Hugh was a “Peeb” who had been “baptized in the Holy Spirit” and like Harry Brash Bonsall spoke in tongues. The “Peebs” disapproved of this strongly, so Hugh was all set to create “new apostolic Churches”.

Hugh Thompson offered to take me under his wing, and to train me as an Evangelist. Off I went with him in his green “Austin” van, with bunk beds in the back.

First we went to stay with a couple who owned a Dairy Farm near Tewksbury, Gloucestershire. There I earned my keep by delivering milk.

Then we traveled up to Yorkshire where Hugh, and a Gamekeeper on a large country estate, planned to “plant” a new Church. We stayed in the van on this estate.

But “who I was”, began to emerge. I never acted on my desires, but Hugh “sussed me out”. He gave me a strict lecture. Either I was to allow him to “cast out my demons”, or I would have to leave.

Although the words “gay”, or “queer” or “homosexual” were never used, I knew what Hugh meant. And even though I hated my gay feelings, I knew that they were not caused by demons.

I would not submit to an exorcism.

So I was driven to the Railway Station in York, and given a one way ticket to Bristol.

But I was too ashamed to return home. So I got off the train in Birmingham, and got myself to the Birmingham Bible Institute. Harry Brash Bonsall and his wife offered me a room (for rent) in their home, and I found a job as a Carpet Cutter in Lewis’s Departmental Store.

There was another “draw” to Birmingham. There (despite my gay feelings) I had “fallen in love” with a wonderful woman named J.. C……… It was lovely to be with her. She was a part of my life, on and off for the next nine years. J.. was a nurse and in 1974 she stayed overnight a couple of times with my Dad when he was dying.

(In the end I treated J.. very badly. I simply walked out on her. In 1998 I traced her address and wrote a letter of apology and amends for the way I had treated her. She replied “of course you hurt me very much ……… but I forgave you years ago”. Such grace from a very wonderful woman. [Jan’s first very loving husband died, and she is in a second and equally happy marriage]).

I knew of course that being a carpet cutter in a Departmental Store was hardly the route to success, so after about five months I went back to Bristol again. This time with my tail firmly between my legs. I truly was a failure.

The Westminster Bank would not re-employ me, and I was “on the dole” for ten weeks. The unemployed had to register twice a week at the “Employment Exchange”, in order to receive dole. There we waited in long lines in order to meet a Clerk. Every man in those lines smoked, and that’s when I began.

In due course I found a job to be a low level Clerk as a Civil Servant at the “Inspectorate of Armaments” in Woodland Road, Clifton, Bristol.

I was resigned to my fate, not to be a Preacher, but to be a pen-pusher. I was 21 years old, and faced a lowly future.

And I was questioning “fundamentalism” even more.