Tag Archives: England

Seasons Of My Childhood

It is Spring. I am seven years old.

It is early morning and still dark outside my window when I hear Dad whispering in my ear.

Glenys, get up…let’s go swimming.

It’s Saturday! I jump out of bed and pretty soon we’re on the bus, going to Wigan Baths. The pool is huge and the water is cold but Dad has already dived in. Not me. I’m an inch-by-incher my dad calls me, and I take forever to get in the water.

But that’s not the only reason…. I am afraid. I can’t swim.

Dad takes hold of me and with one strong arm under my stomach he supports me over the water while I vainly flap my arms and legs. I look out over the deep end and vow I will never go there.

But then an amazing thing happens. I realize my dad has taken his arm away and I am swimming!

I’m swimming Dad, I’m swimming!

We both laugh and I know that next week, I’ll be in that deep end and I’ll be swimming under my dad’s legs like a little fish.

On the way back I savor every one of my Benson’s Cheese and Onion Crisps but I will still have room for the piles of crusty toast my dad will make for us when we get home.

It is Summer. I am eight years old.

I wake with the birds and see that Dad is already packing the boot of our blue Vauxhall Victor.

He crams my tennis racket down by the side of the box of beans and cornflakes and biscuits that we have been saving for our holiday and then the best part begins…..

We race into Mum and Dad’s bedroom and tip our jars of pennies on the bed. Whatever we have saved will be doubled by dad and spent in the little camp shop at Blue Anchor Bay.

And then we are off!

I curl up with my little I Spy book that will occupy me for most of the journey, and dream about days at Blenheim Gardens and Watchet and Minehead and Dunster.

Most of all, I dream about the day when it will be my turn to have The Big Ice-cream.

I will choose a Mr Whippie, with huge, soft vanilla and strawberry swirls that hang over the edge of the cone.

And me and my dad will play tennis and badminton and hunt for glow worms at night. And I know I must be the luckiest girl alive to have a dad like that.

It is Autumn. I am nine years old.

We are walking down to Roby Mill Methodist Church along College Road.

The pavement is strewn underfoot with a million brown, crunchy leaves. Dad leads the way and we scrunch, scrunch, scrunch behind him.

Fast forward a few months on that same road. Dad helps us find twigs and we race them in the rushing stream of rain that tumbles along the edge of the pavement.

Oh no! I’m in the doldrums! the cry goes up.

But it’s a funny thing….no matter how many doldrums our little boats get stuck in, Dad never wins. Always, one of us kids is the winner.

It is Winter. I am ten years old.

The nights are long and dark, but Dad knows just how to cheer me up.

Who’s ready for a Secret Supper? he asks.

We all cheer and a plate is produced with a quarter of a buttered Eccles Cake, a small piece of Kit Kat, half a Bourbon biscuit and a cup of Ovaltine.

When those nights get really long and dark, our suppers are upgraded to a Special Secret Supper, or even a Super Special Secret Supper.

As I nibble at the edge of my biscuit, I am reminded what a Super Special dad I have.

We curl up in bed and he reads The Lost World and I am transported to a strange forest where all kinds of adventures await me. And from my dad, a life-long love of books and reading is rooted in my soul.

Before I fall to sleep, we play Show Me and we take it in turns to find tiny images in the pictures. One day, I will play that game with my grandson….and my dad’s legacy lives on.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…..seasons of my childhood spent with the most wonderful dad a girl could ever have.

Thank you Dad. I love you.

What Happened in a Little British Primary School on my First Author Visit..

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I look out over a sea of red. More than three hundred young voices are raised in exuberant song. Boys and girls are swaying and smiling. One of them glances my way to wave shyly at ‘the famous author.’

It is my first visit to a British Primary school. I’m here because my sweet nephew, Jake, carried his copy of Love Letters from God to school one day and showed it to his teacher.

I’m here to sign the copies that were bought for each classroom and to read the children’s favorite stories to them.

I’m here to inspire these young children; to encourage them to be the best they can be; to remind them that dreams do come true.

Because fifty years ago, I was one of them, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the assembly hall in my red British uniform, in a school not too far from theirs. I never would have imagined that one day I would be living in the United States, or have the enormous privilege of being an author. And so I’m here to inspire these young minds, and to help them dream of what might lie beyond the horizon.

I don’t really know what to expect on this sunny British morning – but I’m definitely not expecting this. ..

A welcome enthused with so much warmth that it makes me feel like JK Rowling;

a prayer written especially for me;

a trio of smiling girls who lead worship during assembly and then use their free time to patrol the school in order to check that everything is being done in a Christian manner. They form part of a wider group of children, known throughout the school as ‘ The Ethos Warriors.’

I don’t expect to see halls and classrooms so boldly and brightly decorated with stories and scenes from the book;

or wonderful children’s letters to God displayed on every wall.

And I am moved by what those letters say, and how their contents reveal their need for God.

I’m honored by the huge bouquet of flowers waiting to greet me on the ‘top table’ at lunch time, along with eight smiling pupils who have earned a place there.

And most of all, I am truly amazed and humbled as I witness the school’s ‘show case’ at the end of the day, where each class shares a presentation of work based on the book.

The youngest children wear the colorful animal masks they made and parade in two by two.

The oldest show videos they created based on the story of The Lions who Lost Their Lunch.

And in between, classes sing songs and perform raps; they read out their letters to God and proudly show their paintings inspired by the story of the Wind and Waves.

None of this wonderful work was I expecting.

I’m sitting on the plane now, flying high over the Atlantic Ocean, homeward bound to the USA. In my suitcase I carry a book, made by the children of Sutton Oak Primary School in St Helens, England. It is decorated painstakingly and beautifully with little colorful stamps, just like the ones my illustrator created for the book.

And in my heart I carry memories of wonderful, committed teachers;

of children being nurtured in a Christian atmosphere; of little ones learning every day about the One who made them.

And I know that God is wonderfully at work in the world, through words that I was somehow privileged to author.

Saying Goodbye to Grandma

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It was very early this morning, still dark outside, when I heard the pitter patter of rain on the roof.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled ever so quietly. And then for a moment, there was stillness. I lay in bed with my eyes open and wondered about that. I wondered if, four thousand long miles away, my mum had opened heaven’s gates and stepped inside.

And she had.

She wasn’t my real mum, but she might as well have been. Her other daughter-in-law affectionately calls her Joanie, but she was always mum to me.

She made the best breakfasts…of bacon, and eggs, and tomatoes and mushrooms. She had a special plate that was just for me. And she always told me I ate like a bird.

It was her who came to stay each time I had a baby. She would knit them hats that were far too big, and bounce them affectionately on her knee.

When our four sons were young, it was always to her big house, in the sunny south of England that we would go for our summer holidays. We would pack up the car with our six bikes hanging off the roof and drive, like the Clampetts, for two weeks of fun at Grandma’s. And even though she scolded us when we tramped the red sand of the beach in on our shoes, she loved us being there. And even though it sometimes rained, we always remember the sunny days.

She would walk with us down the little stony path, through the woods to our favorite Elberry Cove, where we would sit on the pebbly beach and eat our crisps and salmon butties. Once we clambered together in a blow up boat and rowed around in the shallow waters. I remember her laughing in her floppy hat.

Sometimes, we would go out walking together at night. She loved big houses and when it was dark, you could see in peoples’ windows.

She was full of energy and life, and was often found to be doing her ironing and dusting at one o’clock in the morning. Even when she retired, she cleaned houses in her spare time, and even though she didn’t have much money, we always found a few pounds tucked away in the envelope whenever she wrote to us.

She could paint with two hands, and loved to water color. She could magically grow any plant from the tiniest shoot or seed; and outside her kitchen window, there was always a row of flower pots standing proudly on the little stone wall, spilling over with fuchsias, or sweet peas, or carnations. She talked to them every day, and always knew what they needed.

She loved to go for rides in the countryside, and was always the first to notice and name the yellows and purples of the wild flowers that danced in the Devon hedgerows. One day, she wrote about them in my diary.

And I think about time, and life, and how fast this one, precious gift passes us by.

And how we must snatch it, and hold on to each moment, and cherish the memories of summer days, and floppy hats, and wildflowers that dance in the hedgerows.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver

What I wished I had known When I was Little…

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When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a farmer’s wife. I wanted to emulate the lady in the apron who came swinging cheerfully through the kitchen doors carrying a steaming hot platter of roast ham and new potatoes for the kids whose adventures I loved to read about in the Famous Five.

The Farmer’s Wife was always happy. She was everyone’s favorite. You just had to love her. She was popular; she was treasured; she was special. And I wanted to be her.

But it didn’t take me long to realize that I couldn’t cook. And all farmers’ wives can cook. I couldn’t grow vegetables either. And all farmers’ wives grow vegetables.

When I was a young teenager, I wore my skirts short and etched my eyes in deepest kohl. I wanted to be like my friend…the one who always had a boy holding her hand. The one who was chosen; the one who was beautiful; the one who was loved. I wanted to be chosen, and loved, and beautiful too.

But no amount of makeup could mask my pimples; no high heels could make me as tall as her; no expensive conditioner could make my hair as smooth.

And even though I was raised in a Christian home, the voice of the world was always louder than the Voice of the Word. I just couldn’t hear when God tried to whisper hope into my heart.

And even though I had a Bible, and knew all the exciting stories it contained, I somehow missed all the wonderful promises that were just waiting to be discovered within its pages.

And I wish, when I was that long-ago girl, I could have read a book like Love Letters from God. Because maybe if I had, I might have heard God whisper:

You will be my special treasure!

Maybe then I would have known that I do not have to be a good cook or grow vegetables to be popular or special or treasured in God’s eyes.

And if that book had been mine, I would surely have cherished every letter that bore my name, and claimed every promise when God told me:

I have chosen you!

I will hold your hand!

I have loved you with an everlasting love!

And maybe if I had truly believed those wonderful words, I would not have needed to strive to be beautiful in the eyes of the world. Because surely then I would have understood that I am chosen by One whose enormous love for me would last beyond all my time; whose strong hand would always hold on to mine; and in whose eyes I am beautiful indeed.

But it is never too late. And that is why I wrote the book—so God’s letters could be read, so God’s promises could be claimed, so God could gently whisper hope into our hearts.

The Story You Won’t Believe…

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One day I sat on the edge of a high, high roof swinging my legs in the air like I was a little girl.

Except I was twenty-five. And although in my youth I loved to climb trees, there was no way I could have climbed on to that roof. I flew. And it wasn’t actually day-time either. It was in the middle of the night; under a dark, cloudless sky; under the stars and moon.

And I know what you’re thinking…. that this far-fetched tale belongs in the pages of Alice in Wonderland. But it’s true.

I’ve never written about it before. I don’t think about it much. But when I do, it comes back to me as clear as if it happened yesterday. I still don’t understand it.

Thirty years ago I woke in the morning and looked over the side of my hospital bed, just to make sure that my newborn son was still there. He was. Snuggled safe; sleeping tight; lying on his side; just one day old.

Later that day, my husband came to visit and I told him about the weird and wonderful dream I had in the night, of how I flew out of my body through the window, and sat on a high rooftop somewhere in the dark, and swung my legs over the edge and laughed. How I felt full of an inexplicable and uncontainable joy after the birth of our first son.

How I was suddenly overtaken with the feeling of having to return, because it wasn’t safe. And how I fearlessly jumped off the edge and was reeled back into my body, like one of those tape measures that skitters swiftly back into place when the button is released.

It felt SO real David, I say.

Then I forget about it.

And it’s not until a few days later, when we leave the hospital to go home, and I climb in to the car with my new baby snug in my arms, and turn to glance through the back window at the hospital as we leave, that I see it.

There’s the flat roof. There’s the windows. I see that tall hospital building reaching high into the sky. And I know that’s where I sat, swinging my legs in the dark, right on the very edge. And I know it was no dream.

I don’t know why it happened. I don’t understand it.

Like Nicodemus, the intellectual, who came to Jesus at night, who just couldn’t fathom how the spirit blows where it will, or comprehend the things that Jesus tried to explain, the things that point towards another realm, those inexplicable moments that whisper:

there is more to this life than we mere humans can ever know.

And what happened to me that night thirty years ago? There’s no rational explanation. But it was real.

I’ll never understand how that feeling of pure and utter joy, that sheer elation, could fill my soul and make it fly.

But it did.

Looking for Something Special in the Darkness of a Christmas Eve…

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It’s Christmas Eve in a big old house in northern England. Above the fireplace in the front room, eight socks dangle- empty, but expectant. Each sock has a name attached tightly to it by a wooden clothes peg. The fifth one says GLENYS.

On the hearth beneath sits a glass of milk, a plate with one home-made mince pie, and a carrot. The stage is set.

Night is falling and bedtime approaches. We scamper upstairs, my seven siblings and I, and congregate in the darkness of the bedroom. The curtains are parted, and we peer into the night. For a moment all is quiet. Our eyes search.

Where is it, Dad? Can you see it?

I see it! The cry goes up from my youngest sister. It’s over there!

She points and we all gaze in the direction of her finger, scanning the darkness until we see it too.

It’s a light.

A light, flickering and traveling in the darkness.

There it is! My exuberant and energetic dad exclaims, seizing the opportunity. He’s on the move! He’s getting closer! You’d better get straight to bed. Father Christmas won’t come if you’re not asleep!

And we jump into bed and pull the covers over our heads, and dream of morning, when our front room will be filled with love and laughter, presents galore, and eight socks will bulge with promising and peculiar shapes.

We will marvel at the mysterious bite taken out of the home-made mince pie and search for Rudolph’s teeth marks left in the half-eaten carrot.

But amidst these wonderful memories, always, always for me, one will remain uppermost…

Looking for Father Christmas’s light on Christmas Eve.

We lived atop a hill, overlooking the town of Wigan. On any given night, a million stars shone, and hundreds of lights twinkled and traveled in the darkness.

I’m sure that those eight little faces, glued to the window in the darkness of a Christmas Eve, each saw a different light. But it didn’t matter. We saw the magic. We felt it in the air. We share the memory.

That ritual on Christmas Eve, created by a dad who was so full of fun and love and life, is one that I will replicate with my grandchildren this year. For the first time, I will be with them on Christmas Eve, in their home atop a hill.

And as we stand at the window and scrunch our noses against the glass and search for Father Christmas’s light in the darkness, I’ll be thinking of my dad, and a faraway home in England, and how utterly precious is family, and how fleeting is time, that passes by so very, very fast.

The Secret In the Wall

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In the brick wall of a big old house in northern England lies a secret. It’s been lying there quietly for over forty years, undisturbed, just waiting to be discovered. The secret is a small piece of paper- folded carefully, and most probably faded. If you were to find it, and unfold it, you would see a name. It is mine.

I was about ten years old when I wrote my name on that piece of paper and stuffed it in between the bricks of my bedroom wall. I wanted it to be found, years and years later, by someone who would wonder about me: who I was; where I was; and what I was doing now.

I wanted to be known.

I’ll never forget the day, not too long ago. when I sat with my son to watch the little one minute video, created by Zondervan, to promote my first children’s book. I remember squealing with delight as my name floated into view.

That’s me! That’s my name! I shrieked.

Even more exciting was the day I saw my name written in bold font, proudly displayed on the front cover of the book.

And only two weeks ago, on a golden October morning, I was thrilled to add my name to the visitor list at HarperCollins publishers, and even more thrilled to see the name of Lee Strobel written above mine.

And I think about my need, our human need for our names to be known, our names to be recognized; our presence to be heard in this world.

I think about all the names carved on benches in parks, and on trunks of trees; on public walls, and inside prison cells. I think of the names we discovered on our living room walls in England, hidden beneath wallpaper, scratched years ago, alongside faded potato prints that were used to decorate homes during the scarcity days of the second world war.

And how our names, etched and carved and written in a myriad of ways, and in a myriad of places, all say:

I was here.

We all yearn to be known.

And we are.

My name, your name is recorded in a far more wonderful way, and in a far more wonderful place than one written on a piece of paper hidden in a cavity; or one carved on a tree trunk; or one printed on the cover of a book.

Paper disintegrates. Trees are felled. Books go out of print.

But somewhere, in a marvelous and mysterious place that no eye has ever seen, written in permanent, never-to-fade, glorious, indelible, and eternal ink- is your name.

It is written forever on the palm of One who knew you before you were even born.

I am known.

You are known.

Somewhere, in a mysterious place that no eye has seen, written in permanent, eternal ink- is your name.

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The Person Behind the Curtains

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I never knew who was behind the flowered curtains. But I knew someone was there. I could tell by the way the material was twitching.

I hoped that whoever it was couldn’t see me. And just to make sure, I tried to make myself invisible by shrinking further down behind my dad’s legs. When that didn’t work, I simply hid behind my hymn book, and only lowered it when it was time to trudge to the next corner.

I was here under duress. Given the choice, I would much rather be climbing the laburnum trees that hung over our driveway, or bouncing around dangerously on my pogo stick, or lying on my bed reading my latest Schoolfriend comic. Yet here I was, standing on street corners, singing hymns with four of my seven siblings while my dad, in his loud preacher’s voice, invited all who would pass by, and all who would hide behind curtains, to come to our small village church.

My mum and dad and their eight children must have been an answer to prayer for that little congregation. We were a ready-made Sunday school, with a preacher, teacher, and evangelist rolled into one.

Not even the British rain could dampen my dad’s enthusiasm. Sunday after Sunday, he would drive around the neighborhood and load up our car with a rag-tag bunch of children who jostled on knees and hung out of windows until the doors burst open and kids spilled out into a tiny church to hear about a man called Jesus.

Day after day, my dad stepped out from the pages of the Book he believed in to become the person of the parable; the shepherd of the sheep, and the sower of the seed.

And this I learn: we are called to be people of the parable; shepherds of the sheep; sowers of the seed.

We are called to be people of the parable; shepherds of the sheep; sowers of the seed.

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Because even though that tiny church will never open its doors again;

even though my dad now sits, unable to walk…

somewhere out there is someone who knows about Jesus because of what he did.

And somewhere out there in this big old world is someone who believes in God because they peeped through a flowered curtain to spy on a little singing band in the street.

And now, I’m proud that I was part of it.

Leaving England Behind

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It is early dawn in England on June 26^th 2000. My footsteps echo on the kitchen floor—the way they do in an empty house. Our cupboards are bare; the furnishings gone. Our parsonage is empty, its walls waiting patiently for the cheery new coat of paint that will greet the new pastor and his family. In the front room, twenty boxes stand in wobbly stacks waiting for the moving truck—the four tall ones carry favorite toys, and games, and books. Choose wisely we told our four young children. Take only what is precious. Continue reading →

A Tale of Two Teachers

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This is the only photograph I have of myself as a girl.

Just five years old, I sit in a wooden chair, wearing a beautiful little dress with blue collar and blue bow that no one else has. I know this because my clever mum made that dress just for me, in preparation for my photograph day at school. That long-ago morning she has carefully parted my hair, and clipped back my curls. None of this I remember, but the photograph whispers it to me.

And I perch on the edge of my seat and smile, in the big old assembly hall where every morning we sit in rows on the cold floor, cross-legged and straight backed, and sing 17th century hymns like John Bunyan’s He who would valiant be from the giant hymn book sheets that swing down from the wall.

I don’t remember much of my time in that British Infant school. I do remember playing in the huge sand pit outside my classroom door; I remember fumbling with two needles as I learned to knit; I remember running around the playground with my friend, whose dad drove lorries and on wonderful days would stop outside the playground gates and pass chocolate to us through the bars.

And I do remember Mrs. Moorfield.

Mrs. Moorfield had a huge hairy mole near her mouth. If you were close to her you could see the hairs quivering when she talked. I didn’t like her. But maybe I would have done if I had a different story to tell….

Mrs. Moorfield had a memorable system of teaching us to read. We would stand in a circle around her chair with our books at the ready. As we stood, we were to read silently. And when our turn came, we would step up to her chair and read out loud.

If we read without mistake, we may return to our seats. But if we stumble on a word, we must stay in the never-ending circle, and continue to walk around her chair, waiting for our turn again… by which time, we ought to have figured the word out. No clues, no help.

Just figure it out Glenys.

A little girl could end up staying in that circle for a long, long time… even if she needed the bathroom.

I am holding my Janet and John book. And I LOVE reading, and I am GOOD at it, which makes the memory even more horrible. And the very fact that I can still remember the word that made me do it… speaks for itself. I glance at Mrs. Moorfield’s hairy mole and try my best:

Janet and John stopped and looked at the siggna, I say, hopefully. I know it does not make sense. But maybe a siggna is an animal I have never heard of before.

Wrong. Stay in the circle. Try again.

Please may I go to the bathroom?

No. Not until you figure out that word.

I stay in the circle. I go past The Hairy Mole several times, each time trying to pronounce this strange word differently. I say it fast. I say it slow. But I never do figure out that:

Janet and John stopped and looked at the sign.

And then it happens. Right in front of the whole class. I am just a little girl. I just can’t wait any longer.

It’s a memory I would love to erase. But I can’t.

***

However, a few years later, in the Junior School next door, I would meet Mrs. Kelsall, the memory of whom I would never wish to erase.

I would meet her in the warm and cozy staffroom; a mysterious place; usually forbidden to us children; a glimpse into which we only ever caught when the big door swung open to reveal the roaring log fire that always burned in the grate.

But every Wednesday, it was here, with notebook at the ready and pencil in my lap, that I would write. It was here that Mrs. Kelsall would introduce me to the wonderful world of new words, and poetry that painted pictures in my mind and life changing literature.

And at eleven years old, my final day in that red bricked building, when the bell clanged for the last time, and the doors flew open to release excited children to the High school, Mrs. Kelsall was waiting for me at the gate, with a gift of five little words that I would never forget:

Glenys. don’t. ever. stop. writing.

I never did.

Mrs Kelsall will never know the impact she had on my life. She will never know how much she encouraged me; how she restored my faith in teachers; how she helped me to try to be an encourager myself; how she inspired me to be an author.

But I know.

And God knows.

And maybe that’s all that really matters.