Story from the past

 'We always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.'

Oscar Wilde

That quote could have been written for me, and perhaps for some of the blog readers here today. I suddenly feel the need to tell my story. 

I was born a very long time ago, right at the end of World War 2. My father was in the Signals Corps and was one of the message-senders using morse code in Dover on D Day. After the war ended in Europe, he was sent out to the Far East to fight there. Years later I realised how much he had been damaged by his experiences - a childhood with a violent father, and as a sensitive young man conscripted at the age of 19. Then, four years later, he had very few days with my mother as his wife before he was sent away by the army again. I was born while he was in Burma.

My mother lived in a small village in the Hertfordshire countryside. I can remember her chopping wood in the wood-shed in order to light the range every morning. I can remember the tap in the road where she went to collect all the water we needed. There was no running water inside the cottages. I can remember 'the copper' where she did the washing, and the old mangle that squeezed water from the clothes. My mother also looked her own mother, who was suffering from cancer.

The war left its mark on so many people in those days. Many of my teachers had lost their husbands. How terrible for them to have to teach all those children, when they had none of their own. No wonder primary schools were places where some teachers threw the board rubber at children, or slapped them with a hand or a ruler, or a cane, like the one that stood in the corner at home. We used pens with nibs, which we had to dip into the inkwells in our desks. I once made an ink blot on my work, and my teacher towered over me, shouting as if she would have liked to kill me. I remember the fear as I was sent to the bottom of the class, as I sat among those poor children who were always there because they found it hard to learn. No wonder they were not very kind.

At home as well, I grew up terrified of doing anything wrong. My opinion was never sought. Discussions were never an option. When I had a family of my own, I imagined the life of my father after he came home from the war to an exhausted wife and a small child who probably couldn't understand why this strange man had come to live with them, and, horror of horrors, sleep in her mother's bed. And soon, aged four, I was taken by train, miles away, and left with my aunt and uncle for six weeks while my brother came into the world. Six weeks is a long time to a small child.

We, my brother and I, were the recipients of a harshly disciplined kind of love, and we were kept well in our place. Discussions were not on the menu, and opinions were never sought. It is difficult to make friends when you believe no-one likes you. 

However, once we moved from the village to the town, I did have a best friend who lived near me, and we played happily together, and also, we were sent to Sunday School. I know that God has always been here for me. For everyone in fact, if they simply realised it.

God has taught me so much through all those experiences. In my growing up years, questions were not encouraged, but now I am still making up for lost time. I ask questions every day. How lucky we are to live with the internet where you can ask anything, or sit in a classroom or meeting and be able to ask what you want/need to know. When I'm feeling a bit braver I occasionally throw a wild idea into the air and see where it lands. 

I was told as a teenager that 'Nobody wants to look at you,' and 'You'll always be ordinary.' But listen, everyone, whoever you are, nobody is ordinary, and if you feel you might be ordinary, please know that nobody stays ordinary, because God takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.

I started writing comics when I was a child. Scribbling on little bits of paper, my mother called it. My first published writing was in our primary school magazine, The Beech Nut. I went on to write, secretly, a play when I was a young teenager. I didn't show it to anyone, but it was a good learning experience. I didn't do very well at self-belief until I met the Christian man who became my husband. He was very good at building self-belief in me, right until the day he died.

So what I want to say today is this:

With God's guiding hand, we are given the ability to become more confident, more able to empathise with and understand others. We can believe more in our own creativity, and we can become encouragers and enablers, and we can strive until we are all the best version of ourselves that we can be. 

Veronica Bright has won over forty prizes for her short stories, now published in three collections. Her published work includes two books of short plays and ideas for school assembles, and a non fiction book called 'How to create believable characters using the Enneagram.' Veronica writes occasional reviews for Transforming Ministry. She is the ACW short story adviser, and co-runs the ACW Writing for Children group, whose members meet up on Zoom. For more details look on the Writing for Children Facebook page. And...  if you live near Plymouth, she runs the Plymouth Christian Writers group. Monthly meetings on Zoom. See the Christian Writer for details.