16.0 Move to Luton
During the time at Shropshire I tried to assess where had all my contending come too and began to question many things. I was far from happy. And I felt forsaken of God.
It was then I decided to put myself and family first and move back to Luton where I had work. I felt in my soul I would answer to God for my decision as I felt I was going against what I believed the scripture taught. From here I would try and sort out church after we were living together as a family. I had always believed we should put the things of God first and God will look after you.
I hated living like I was away from my home and family. When we were at Bierton I had always been able to read and pray each day , as the head of my family, before they went to school but now we were fragmented. I hated it. I felt I should be with my family and not living like we were.
The prices of houses in the South were rising rapidly whilst those in Shropshire and in Snailbeach, where we lived were hardly moving at all. To give you some idea we had sold our house in Bierton for £92,000 in December 1995. This was a lovely 4 bedroom detached chalet bungalow with double gates and half moon drive way. We owned this house apart from a £24,000 mortgage.
We were able to purchase a three bedroom detached bungalow in Snailbeach for £37,000. which we purchased out right with no mortgage.
When we came to sell it and move back to Luton in 1988 it was sold for £41,000. This value had risen by £4000. At that time we bought Graham Gardens for £78,000 and had to raise a £42,000 by way of mortgage. This was only a small 3 bedroom detached house however the awful thing to us was our old house in Bierton was up for sale for £199,000. These house prices had risen so much due to inflation we had to buy a house way down on valuation the list. Had we stayed at Bierton we would have owned a house worth nearly £200,000 or alternatively moved from Bierton to Luton we could have owned the Luton house with no mortgage. Instead we were in an inferior house worth only £78,000 but with a mortgage of £42,000.
Both my wife and I found this difficult to swallow and I felt robbed. This was to be a hurt to me for many years.
Whilst at Luton I began to recover but was still unhappy about the church situation.
I did not fell ready to re enter the Gospel Standard cultural set up due to the awful problems I had encountered whilst at Bierton. At the same time I was not free to get involved in churches which where not Calvinistic due to my experience in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. So we found our selves unchurched again.
91 Discipline A Problem
During all this time I still held on to my job and taught at Luton College. Discipline ho ever was not my strong points. How to keep control of a class of 24 teenage students from various ethnic backgrounds was not an easy task. I adopted my own methods.
When I was training to be a teacher at the Wolverhampton Polytechnic one teacher, taking the subject of discipline in the class room told us only of one method. This was my course in class room management.
This lecturer had to teach a class of craft students and wanted to assert his authority before they got out of hand. Craft students are noted generally to be awkward to manage. He decided this would make sure he would have no problems with them later on in the course.
During the class when he was teaching technical drawing, he asked one of the students to go out to the building sight and bring to him a large plank of wood. When the student returned with the wood the lecturer took it from him and with one mighty karate chop, broke the wooden plank in two. He then proceeded to use the plank of wood as a ruler on the chalk board just as though nothing had happened. He did not say a word to the students. The students stood back in amassment at this show of strength and took it as a warning . This was the lecturers method of saying to the class don’t mess with me or you will get what this plank of wood .
I found this story amusing and from this I was supposed to learn all about class management. With this limited knowledge I took it that you had to find your own method of discipline in the class room.
One of the problems I initially found was enforcing the college rules. One rule was no eating of drinking food in the class rooms. How do you stop it. Sweet papers were evident, empty drink cans evident , so it went on whether they were allowed to or not. Even when they were told they still broke the rules.
I decided I would talk this problem my way. I thought if you cannot beat them then join them. I made it a rule that if I found them eating sweets or food then I would share them with them and help my self to their food and proceeded to do so. It soon got around that I was taking their food. Whether this stopped the eating problem I do not know but on this one occasion the student got one over on me.
I saw at the back of the class two students messing about under the desk and their mouths were in operation. I stopped teaching and went to the back of the class room and sure enough a lovely fat juicy Mars bar was in Chavda’s hand. I had caught them red handed. I said come on you know the rules give it to me. Not without their protest I took it from him looked forward to a big bite. As I consumed this mouth of Mars bar the rest of the class burst in to laughter-they all knew-I didn’t. I discovered pieces of white tablets mixed in with the chocolate. They had laced the Mars bar with laxative tablets and got their own back one me.
They were totally amused and from that had no real trouble.
On another occasion I had some trouble with Chavda again and could not stop him from causing a disturbance in the class. I must have ruffled his feathers as on this occasion he threatened to sort me out. He was and Asian about 17 years old and I must have been about 30 years old with out much experience in dealing with this type of situation. In my determination to sort this problem out I challenged him to do it in the boxing ring. Thinking this would put as stop to it all. How ever the class took up this suggestion and he too went along with the idea-Yes- OK. How.
Oh dear I thought to my self how am I going to get out of this one. I said they must go to the college Gym in the lunch hour and ask if we can use the boxing ring for half and hour. This sorted the problem out and we all got back to work. They must have been looking forward in anticipation to this fight out.
Sure enough off they went to the Gym during the break and shortly after wards I got a telephone call from the women Gym lecturer asking me what was going on. She said they were not really allowed to do it. I seized on this and said good please tell them that and that will get me off the hook.
They came back after break feeling let down as they were all looking forward to this boxing match. However there was no Chavda nor was he there the next day. I was told that he had got wind of the fact that I was a welter weight boxing champion and was looking forward to sorting him out. This again landed me on my feet.
92 Muslims Want To Convert Me
During my time Luton College of Higher Education I taught classes with a lot of Muslims and other religions.
It was easy to speak to Muslim students about the things of God and they insisted they were right and God could not possibly have a son. From time to time I would visit their homes and meet their parents and they soon respected me.
I had gone through many trials and difficulties and believed I should speak to these Muslims about Jesus and what he came to do.
I could talk the them about the Omnipotence God, the Omnipresence of God and Omniscience of God and they began to think I would soon become a Muslim.
I was invited to there young persons meeting on a Friday evening so I took with me a Muslim missionary who had been looking for an opening to meet the Luton Muslim community. We had a reasonable time just talking and listing.
Word got around that I was interested in the Muslim religion and the student president of the Muslim community came to se me one lunch hour for a meeting.
I fact some of the students nick named me God and had rang in to the local radio station, Chiltern Radio in January 1988 to say they had named me God. See my reply.
There must have been about 10 or so keen Muslim students together with their president and I was spoke to them as best I could about the Lord Jesus.
I suggested I pray for them and with them. They said this has never happened before and that they pray different to Christians. They said they pray on the floor so I suggested we should do the same.
One of the students in his respect for me took of his jacket and placed it on the floor for me to kneel on and as I kneeled down they all kneeled down behind me as I lead them in prayer.
I prayed to the effect after thanks giving the my God and Father would open the eyes to the truth to what I had spoken to them about.
Afterwards I was informed this had never happened before they had never prayed or had a Christian pray for them.
I did not see any results from that time but they held me with respect and were always curious to me.
I had met a Muslim missionary called Paul ? At the time connected with Spicer Street Independent Church in St Albans and asked him to come with me to their Friday night religious instruction classes. This we did and spoke to them about the Lord Jesus Christ.
I learned the address of greeting with the Muslim and it was
A Salem Ali com ( Hello) and the reply was Walli com Salem ( Good bye).
93 Astra Satellite
I found it a great relief to be living near I worked. I had been living in a shared bedroom at the Royce’s away from my family and in my car for over 18 months. I was good to be able to come home from work at lunch time and return at leisure. I began to get well and be more involved in my work.
It was the year of the launch of the Astra Satellite and soon got involved in preparing training courses for satellite installation technicians.
At the same time we had difficulties with Isaac at school and eventually we had him accessed by an Educational Psychologist as he had Specific Learning Difficulties which was called Dyslexia. The Bedfordshire County Council denied the word and would not accept Dyslexia as a reality. In the end we went to a leading Education Psychologist, Beve Hornsby in London to assess Isaac and this did the trick and got Isaac recognised as having learning difficulties. This was sufficient to get some him help at school.
I too had always had problems in reading, writing and spelling. I could understand concepts and problem solving was no problem to me but the ability communicate with the written word was virtually impossible for me. How I got though teacher training college I do not know. I often thought they must have been hard up for students at the time. I can how ever remember the Head of Technical Studies calling me to his office saying he was worried about my written work. He Arranged for me to have remedial help. I went to one of two sessions but it I found it was not helpful at all. It was so boring and they had no Idea how to help me. It was only when I became a Christian that my desire to learn more and more about the things of God and what Jesus had done that I was compelled to learn to read and understand words. This leaning had helped me write essays to gain entrance into the Technical Teacher Training School at Wolverhampton. So in reality I taught my self and then I taught myself to type. With these skills came the revolution and a disgruntled wife.
95 The Apple Mac Computer
This enabled me to write letters, memos, technical notes and print them all straight away. I was able to communicate with the educational and business world. My ideas of developing a training school for Satellite Television was only able to work because of the use of the Apple Mac computer and printer. It freed me to communicate my ideas with the written word in a simple and uncomplicated way.
I am sure I am dyslexic but I have never been statemented. We discovered later that my wife and Esther and David were all diagnosed as Dyslexic and were statemented . Dyslexia is really regardless of what the authorities say s. David still receives help with his learning difficulties. He has exactly the same problem as I did.
My wife later received an educational award due to her Dyslexia when she started her degree course. She bought an Apple Mac Powerbook 170 , which was beautiful, I would have loved it. This computer was portable and this enabled her to do all her written work which other wise she would not be able to do. She graduated 3 years later with and upper Second in her Degree in Cultural Studies at Portsmouth University.
As you can see I am an Apple Mac fan and not a PC fanatic.
95 Entrepreneurial Venture
Soon how ever I had a run in with the management at Luton College. I had what I thought a good idea to make money for the college. At that time the Astra Satellite was about to be launched and Alan Sugar had announced he had intended manufacturing 3 Million satellite receivers that coming year all of which would have to be installed. I had been to a conference in London and meet a satellite installation technician called Steve and I talked with him working with me at Luton College teaching about satellite systems. I wrote to the CAI ( Confederation of Aerial Industries suggesting the Educational Standards and Industrial technology come together in a joint venture to train satellite installation technicians and award a City nag Guilds or similar award from the start. At that time very few people had installed a satellite dish or receiver.
I spoke to my immediate boss, Derrick Curren but my idea did not register or he did not see that my idea was any good. I was not prepared to be put off so in the summer holiday of that year I asked to see the Director of our College a Dr. Wood.
I explained my idea saying that our Centre for Applied Technology and Innovation (CATI) at Putteridgbury, was in ideal venue to set up a training school to train technicians how to install satellite TV systems. That, together with the CAI and City and Guilds and the industry we could earn money by charging reasonable fees for students. He thought it a good idea. I explained I was due to go to a meeting with the CAI in London in the next few days and he said he would direct my Head of School Derrick Curren to go with me. I had recorded our meeting with my portable tape recorder so it was clear to me I had the backing of the Director of the College.
The meeting went well, Derrick was late but the CIA were sufficiently impressed with the idea of education and industry coming together to ensure quality and set standards. I invited them to come to Luton to discuss these thing further.
My head of school was sufficiently impressed to give me the go ahead and make all necessary arrangements.
I was able to contact many people in industry inviting them to our meeting at Cati Luton. The purpose of the meeting was to show the technical facilities of the Engineering Faculty to the CAI and other interested parties, so that a joint venture may be pursued with those concerned. Also to show the Cati conference rooms so that marketing and educational directors may consider using our centre for future operations.
Assuming a favourable outcome we shall form a working party of technical personnel to determine future course needs and make the appropriate arrangements to start training immediately.
96 7 Th September 1988 Meeting
And many more. Most of these people came to the meeting except Alan Sugar. I had thought he might have arrived in his helicopter.
I even thought of inviting Arthur C Clarke he would have had to travel from Shrilanka.
I gave the address to this meeting sharing the plan and ideas and I was introduced by or Vice Principle , ( who himself was called Dr. Clarke ), as the Director of Satellite Communications. An impressive title which suited me down to the ground.
The meeting went down well and things looked extremely good.
It was afterwards the problems arose as a women called F H, who I could not depend upon as she changed her mind and ideas without reference to me, ran Cati. She generally cut across what I had arranged and I felt extremely frustrated with working or trying to work with her.
After several confrontations with her the management decided to reduce my powers and make me just responsible for just the equipping of the workshop area and to write a text book. I was told was not to contact any out side organisations. They had decided to take over this venture as they planned to charge £100 per head per student. The CAI had indicated they might have 2000 persons wishing to be trained.
I was angry at their decision because I knew they could not make things work that way things were at College. They needed entrepreneurial skills and management to deal with industry. They did not have what it took to make it work. It was then I wrote to the Director saying I had sacked Fioana Howorth and Derrick Curren and would sort things out my way. I had worked so hard and secured may thousands of pounds of worth of sponsored equipment and had the support of industry is seemed a shame for me to stand by and see it fail due to management incompetence.
I believed I had, at all time, the Directors backing for what I was doing and thought if he knew what was going on amongst the middle management he would not approve. I believed once he found out what was going on a few heads would role. I had the original recording of our first meeting and informed the management I had this recording which actually gave my commission and so I had the and Directors approval.
They wondered what had happened to me and would no longer listen. They had decided they did not want me working for them any more. The College management asked the NATFHE union to be involved but I was not a member. This of course was a difficulty for the management because they did not want to deal with me directly. The management asked the Chairman of the Union a Mr Tom May to act for me and with them. He acted in the interest of the Union he informed me it was in the interest of the union to do so. It was in the Colleges interest to pay me £6000 in lieu of notice to leave . I did not really wish to leave but rather than me risk being sacked I agreed to take the money and leave, provided I could have a good reference. I realised the Management could not handle the situation and it was in my best interest to leave.
I was asked by the Director to destroy the tape recording of our original meeting.
It was at this time I went to the doctors because I was not sleeping and had been very active and busy working on the satellite adventure. It was suggested I had a bi polar mood swing. I was prescribed some medication to bring me down as I was not able to sleep. My mind had been filled with many ideas to develop training for the satellite industry. The effects of the medication did not take effect for a few weeks but when it did it took place on one day . I remember the day it took effect.
Since leaving work I was not prepared to be put down I had gained a lot of support from industry and secured over £30,000 worth of equipment and tools for the training venture.
I decided to go alone and I advertised my training program and taught future satellite installers in my home. The man next door got a bit upset because I had 5 satellite dishes in the garden and he said it looked like a Radio Transmitting Station. We had a little write up in the local news paper about this training venture.
It was on one of these training days that this medication took effect. I felt a wave of depression come over me half way through the day. I was teaching a group of students when it hit me. This depression was to last for a further 2 or 3 years. I became so bad I had to rely on further medication. I could hardly leave the house through the agony I was facing. I was struggling with the things of God and did not know how to handle the problems I was beginning to face. I wondered why in the providence of God this had all happened and reasoned I had given my self over to too much work to the neglect of the things of God.
97 I Work At Fareham College
During this time I wrote after a job at Fareham College and thankfully I was offered a place and took up the position in September 1988. I believed this was God’ s provision - yet again.
The Principal at that time was Mr. John Macnab and Vice Principal Derek Febber with Pam Robertson as the Bursar. I discovered later that Derek Febber was a Christian and helped with the Christian Union at the College.
It was a very fair interview and I believe the College selection process was very good in that it was truly an “Open Opportunities College”. My record from Luton college was either acknowledged to be good or ignored or kept secret. Both Mike Pease, Head of Division, and Geof Whitefield, Principal Lecturer, selected me to the post at Fareham College on the strength of my own presentation.
A record was later made , in my personal file, of my former stay in Borstal, at the age of 18 years.
This meant however another move but involved the difficulty in selling the house. I had to move into lodging in Fareham. This was another Snailbeach situation living in Lodgings and travelling home at weekends. I missed being a father to my kids and living in my own home. This lasted for a further 18 months before we finally sold our house in Graham Gardens. During which time I was under this cloud of depression even though it was controlled through Lithium Carbonate (Priodel).
At this time my wife had decided she would like to returned to full time education and she took up the offer of a place on a degree course in Cultural Studies at the Portsmouth University. She had previously done an Access Course at Barnfield College during the time I was working at Fareham.
When my wife began her first year on the degree course we moved into rented accommodation at 8, Queens Grove, Southsea and the children went to St. Jude’s junior school in old Portsmouth.
It was whilst living at Southsea I began to shut my ear to the Word of God and allow temptation to enter my thoughts. During this time we had been going to St. Judes Church in Southsea. I was, as Steven Royce had called me , like Mephibosheth, Crippled and living in Lo debar. Mephibosheth was a crippled and had been driven out from his rightful place in his fathers kingdom ( King Saul) and was living in a place called Lo-debar, a place of dry land and no pastures.
I began to entertain various sinful thoughts and then actions . I found greater arguments and reasons to explain away Gods dealings with me in the past. It could not be denied I had really believed in God and experienced many remarkably deliverances and provisions from God but the subtlety was in the form of:
“But how do I knew that it was God working and not just the product of misguided interpretation of events. i.e.. Yes you believed God worked for you and yes your life had been radically change by that belief or faith but surely all you believed could have been just not true-granted it would have effected your life just as it effects other people-but believing in something does not actually make it true. You have believed in something just like others and what you believed is not true. That was the argument and I begin to accept it. ( Reader this is a lie from Satan, don’t you believe that).
Reader as you read this I want you to know that as Peter was astonished and all that where with him, at the draught of fishes that they had caught when they fished at Jesus’ command I believe I have written this account at the command of my Jesus and we too will be astonished at the many fishes caught through this testimony of the loving kindness and faithfulness of God. to me.
Though I do fall away from God, as Jesus told me on the night of my conversion, “David I will never leave you”. He does restore and seek the lost and the prodigal’s sons.
After 6 months we were in the position to buy a house in Fareham and we moved to 8 Appleton Road Fareham in 1990/1. My wife continued her studies at the Portsmouth University .
When we moved to Fareham we went to the Titchfield Evangelical church but I felt lame and described my self like the cripple in the New Testament lying beside the water pool at Bethesda. I wanted to be healed but had no one to put me in the pool to get healed. I took my family to church but it was more out of routine than any thing else and I was in a barren spiritual state.
I had needs but was turning from God at Titchfield church I met my wife to be.