An American First

Never been able to keep up with all the 'isms', maybe I'm American?

 

When in primary school, I explained to the catholic priesthood in charge that if the creator had not wanted Adam and Eve to transgress, he (*) might have thought better than to give them the equipment with which to do it. I was very nearly expelled (that was the best lesson of all - one Peter Mandelson recently learnt). Sadly, I was “saved” by the belle (my mother) and had to endure another year!

(*) in those days, the creator was thought to be male

 

@LawnAndOrder - well done you Adam and Eve have definitely got a lot to answer for.

 

@LawnAndOrder my mother was brought up RC, in Latin, in Seaham. At 18 she left home to go and train to be a nurse at the RVI in Newcastle and decided to read the bible - as you do at that age. One weekend when home on leave she went to the priest and told him he'd lied to her all her life.

Excommunicated and expelled form the family home.

Nice.

She became a Methodist.

 

.

 

Oh no they’re not….

 

"The USA now has both the pope and the antichrist"

 

Aaaah, a lot of method in her madness!

 

It wasn't until my late teens that I learned that his title was not The Bloody Pope, which is how he was always referred to in my Strict Baptist upbringing.

 

Not funny to live with @Tidemark. She, and my dad, went to Tanganyika in 1950 to nurse lepers. Came home to become lay preachers and then she turned atheist when the Anglicans and Methodists signed an accord and we had to incorporate the Credo in our services. Too papist for mum who said if that can happen there can't be a god. Worshipped Thatcher later on.

Difficult woman but not, on the whole, as mad as Trump.

 

My father's family were serious Methodists.
At one point we were told a cousin was going to college to learn about becoming a missionary's wife and my comment about it being a missionary position was not appreciated.
In fact she went off became an accountant, married another accountant and I've heard nothing for 50 years.

 

There was so much of it about OH's family were Plymouth Brethren. Harrowing tales of aunts being separated from their parents and sent Goodness knows where to live strictly religious lives, never to be heard of again. OH was brought up by one of the aunts when his mother abandoned him at a year old. Not a joyful upbringing by all accounts! When you hear and read so much about the physical abuse inflicted by the Catholic church, it's easy to forget that they're not the sole perpetrators and that there's more than one way of traumatizing a child...
One of the quirkier 'punishments' inflicted by the PB was being made to ingest whisky, apparently That could explain quite a lot about OH's siblings

 

Yes, they haven't gone down too well ...

 

BBC’s Newsnight lives up to its slogan:
“with the best interviews and insight”

 

I saw some of that interview and the follow up with Diane Abbot. I have absolutely no liking or respect for that woman but she nailed Mandelson in her comments.