Sculpture Information
This sculpture is made of icons that represent just a few of the stories in my life before I became a sculptor. They are all connected by a golden thread in that they are all inexplicable. My explanation is that it is a supernatural thread of the Holy Spirit. I am calling this piece Doxology which means a song of praise or thankfulness because I am so grateful for each and every experience.
The Open Door
I had just started secondary school and my mother interrupted me and my little brothers evening viewing of the early series of Star Trek, with the dynamic Captain Kirk. She asked us to get ready for a meeting. We had lost our father to a heart attack two years earlier and my older siblings were away at college so if mum wanted to go out, we had to go with her. We reluctantly got ready and caught the 630 bus from Tyersal and alighted next to St Georges Hall in the centre of Bradford. That night in the month of September 1978 an evangelist Dick Saunders was preaching. I honestly cannot remember a thing he said other than feeling mildly uncomfortable. At the close of the meeting, Dick invited people who wanted to follow God to get out of their seats and come to the front. I wanted to go, but I didn’t have the courage to get out of my seat. But to my surprise, my little brother Jonathan turned to my mum and said he wanted to respond. So as they got up to go, I trotted behind them. I remember walking down the corridor with the walls almost swaying as I was inexplicably sobbing. It was quite a walk from the upper Grand Circle to the front of the ground floor. It was like being drawn by magnetism. I arrived at the front of the hall, and a tall slim lady on the elderly side, dressed in a Salvation Army bonnet and uniform called Auntie Cherry came to comfort me. It’s funny the details you remember nearly 50 years on. She was very earnest, gentle and religious in her language. We filled out a pale blue card to mark the decision of becoming a Christian and the date. When we got onto the 630 bus to return home, I felt as though I had lost a great weight. As if my feet were inches off the ground. From that day forward I believed in the existence of God. Although I could not hear him and reading the Bible was like chewing chalk dust, I knew he was there. Like the knowledge of a father in the background. That decision set the course to where I am today. I was 11 years old.
The Influx of Gold
Since being at Junior school I attended a traditional Methodist church called Eastbrook Hall, also in the centre of Bradford. Three years after my experience at St Georges Hall, I was a member of the Eastbrook Hall youth fellowship. I went with about 20 other teenagers on a retreat to Whaley Bridge in the Peak District with Margaret Grimley (who also lead the church choir). It was a mixture of walking, games discussion and teaching sessions. One afternoon we had teaching session and then went off to our rooms to be quite to be alone and work out where we were spiritually. One of the meditations we were given was to look at an old chorus, ‘All to Jesus I surrender’ which was a bit of an old song even in those days (originally written in 1896!). I got to the third verse, and I couldn’t relate to any of it….’Let me feel Thy Holy Spirit, truly know that I am His’. I did not know who the Holy Spirit was, and I didn’t feel as if I knew God was mine (although I knew I was his). So, I went down to the chapel where Margaret was sitting alone in prayer. We discussed how I felt, and she offered to pray with me. I then asked, in my own words, the Holy Spirit into my being. I think she may have laid hands on me in prayer but not sure. It was then I had one of the most powerful experiences to date of the power of God. In the distance, I could hear or feel a wind but not a physical wind. It was like the movement of intense energy, as though a train was heading towards an empty tunnel. The energy passed through me. This experience is a milestone in my existence. It completely changed my life. The effect was like moving from seeing in black and white to seeing in colour. Or having no sense of smell and then being able to smell. It was like a door to another realm had opened. I would describe it as the coming of life and love that I had never felt before. When I went into the sitting room next door where the others had begun to gather. I could see mist between people as they spoke, and I knew this represented unkind words. I could read people. I was overwhelmed and left the room to sit on the hall step shocked and asked God to take this ability away. The gifting subsided but the intense sense of love and life remained. We later returned by coach from the retreat to the church kitchen for an evening meal and I felt absolutely bursting with love for everyone, even the people I didn’t like! When I went to my Bible it was as if God were speaking directly to me, through the words on the page. I began to keep a journal so I could monitor messages I felt were coming through (the Bible) and my mind. I also noted the prayers I asked and when and if they were answered. This way I could try to begin to work out which was the voice of my wishful thinking or subconscious, and which was the Spirit of God. Something which I still occasionally mix up even today.
A Bradford Bus
I had chosen to go to Crawshaw Comprehensive School in Pudsey, Leeds, to stay with my primary school friends perhaps not the best choice of secondary education to get good grades. The children who lived in the village of Tyersal had to catch a coach (laid on by the council) to go to school in Leeds. It was a rough school with a wide socio-economic profile. To give an example, I was attacked in the loos by a girl known to be a bully and I went straight to the Headteacher, Miss Riley, to complain and her response was, she is from a bad background there’s really nothing we can do! I barely passed my four A levels. I was told we didn’t even finish the curriculum for two of the subjects. So, it would have been impossible to get good grades even if I had worked hard. So, I decided to retake my courses by studying both the upper and lower 6th classes at a more reputable school. I went to St Joseph’s Catholic College for Girls on the other side of Bradford; two bus rides away. I had to travel into Bradford Interchange and change buses from the 630 to a bus that went up Manningham Lane to St Joseph’s Catholic College. The teaching was absolutely fabulous. The teachers would persist in helping a student until they understood. They finished the curriculum early and spent the rest of the year doing past questions. What a contrast! I was happy there. I particularly remember the respect the students had for the staff, the attentive teachers (where nothing was too much trouble) and a beautiful oak panelled library with green leather upholstered seats!
One day I was rushing home after a long day at St Josephs and arrived at the Bradford Interchange. The bus interchange had covered walkways between the bus lanes. To take short cut to get to my bus I decided to cross the bus lane. I was just about to step out into the road when I heard somebody call my name, ‘Deborah’. It was from a distance and not a voice I recognised. I stopped and looked in each direction, left and right…nobody was there…empty. When I turned my head to the front, ready to step out, my hair was sucked into a vortex of wind as a bus swiftly passed in front of me a whisker away. I was so shocked I began to shake. I crossed the road and caught the next bus home. I discussed the incident with my mother, and she said you were saved by an angel. I had no concept of their existence. Why would supernatural beings be interested in my life? However, if I had not heard that voice. I would certainly have been injured, if not killed.
A Husband
After getting good grades from St Joseph’s College, I wanted to do something to show my gratitude to my maker before heading off to Birmingham University to study Biological Sciences. So, I signed up for ‘Village ‘86’ a Methodist Rob Frost Mission where teams went into villages to help the community in any way they could. The year I applied the project was going to be based in Devon. Before the mission, we met with our team leaders. Mine was called Tim. Tim contacted us all and arranged a time and place for us all to gather. One of the team members worked with my sister in a touring drama group and I had a serious crush on him but because he lived down south, he unfortunately wouldn’t be joining us. When Tim picked me up in the car we talked, and he seemed surprised and enthusiastic about my answers especially about my spirituality. The team had a great day getting to know each other and Tim also gave some of us a lift home. My mother said, ‘ooo I think he likes you’. I responded, ‘don’t be disgusting mother he is a Methodist Minister and nine years older than me’. Anyway, to cut a long story short. After the mission in Devon, I asked Tim if he would give me a lift home (along with some of the others). After dropping off someone in Sheffield, Tim told me he had feelings for me. I said I was not interested firstly because he was too old and secondly a Methodist minister. My mum invited him to stay for tea. That evening as he left our house and was walking down our driveway the voice cried inside my head, ‘Do not let him go’. I felt it was God. He was usually a quiet voice, so I knew it was serious as it was louder than usual. I ran after Tim and said I would consider a date. After dating him for nearly a year and three marriage proposals I finally said yes. We have now been happily married for 38 years!
Spitfire
Tim and I had been dating for about 10 months and I knew I didn’t love him as he loved me and I was considering finishing it. So, I sat down with my Bible and set time aside to pray in the small box room of my childhood home. ‘What shall I do?’ I prayed. Just then our cat, Tussie, jumped onto my Bible and it flopped open at Genesis chapter two (verse 24) and my eyes settled on the passage. ‘For this reason, a man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one’. At that moment the cat moved across the eiderdown on top of the bed and jumped up onto the window bottom. Out of the window I saw two jet streams join as one as they went towards the horizon. Oh no, he wants me to marry him I thought! I can’t marry someone I don’t love. So I set my mind to come clean with Tim and finish it. The following occurrence sounds very strange, even as I type it now, but the next time I met Tim, I knew I loved him. It was like a switch had been flipped. Looking back, it was like I was given a gift of love for him and made an inner decision. He proposed again soon after that and I accepted! Little did I know the aeroplanes were significant as he was head hunted to become a chaplain in the Royal Air Force.
The Womb
My sister had three miscarriages and was found to have a translocation where the genetic legs of genes 7 and 17 had exchanged and were probably missing important coding material, hence causing the miscarriages. I was tested and found to have the same translocation. Consequently, Tim and I went for genetic counselling with a specialist consultant. On discovering I had studied genetics at Birmingham University he pulled down a very thick book from his bookcase and proceeded to show me the deformities we could be expected with this kind of translocation (e.g. anencephaly, three breasts, six fingers etc). Weirdly I got excited as it was so interesting but once we left it began to sink in…
Tim and I had been trying for children for 7 years. We just thought it would happen when the time was right. However, my father-in-law, Freddie, would often ring for a chat. Once whilst we were at RAF Halton (our quarters were the beautiful old game keeper’s cottage of the neighbouring Rothchild Manor) Freddie rang up and candidly asked, ‘Are you thinking of having children?’ I explained that I believed God would bring children at the right time. He gently prompted me to ASK God for children. So, after finishing on the phone, I sat on a chair at the dining room table and asked for God to give me children. I felt the presence of God put his hand upon my womb and say twice, ‘May the fruit of your womb be fruitful’. I missed my next period and gave birth to John and two years later Becky.
DNA Strands: Becky and John
We had the children tested for the genetic translocation at birth. They were both free of the translocation. The problem stopped with me.
I was early in my pregnancy with John and was wondering what to call him/her. One morning I woke up with that inner voice, that I had begun to trust, saying, ‘call him God is gracious’. I looked up in the name dictionary which names this could include: It included Sean, Ian, John etc. I chose john.
When John was at the crawling stage we lived in the Methodist manse in Dalton-in-Furness. The lounge had a large carved wooden fire surround upon which rested a large mirror. One day John was crawling in front of the fireplace and the mirror slipped from resting upon the wood (no idea why, after being there for so long why it should begin to move) and began to fall. It was falling to where John was situated. In an instant unaware of the falling mirror john crawled a foot forward and the large mirror narrowly missed him and spiked into the carpet.
When John was about three, I left him in the front passenger seat of the car whilst I went to fetch something from the house. The car was stationary and without the keys. I came out of the house to find the car rolling across the main road. John must have pulled the hand brake off. We watched in horror as the car rolled across Park Drive, a normally busy road, and drove smoothly into a drive situated diagonally from ours and stopped still.
Then there was the time on Coniston Water in the lake district. We were in our inflatable dingy with our life jackets on and John fell backwards into the water and disappeared under the boat. For what seemed like an eternity of me fishing in the water under the dingy with my sleeves soaking wet trying to find him in panic. I eventually dragged him saturated back onboard. All of these instances could have been far worse scenarios. I was grateful we had escaped three potentially tragic accidents.
From an early age my daughter would have crying fits before going to sleep. I would often be at my whit’s end trying to settle her. Tim would sometime take her out in the car until she went sleep. Once he did this at 2am! In the occasion I will now describe she was about three years old and confidently walking and talking. Becky was crying again and I was desperate. So next to her bed, I fell to my knees with my head to the floor and prayed for God to help me to settle her. As I prayed, images of the recent past flashed in my imagination like the pages in a book. The page stopped on a scene when I was pregnant with Becky and John was a toddler. Tim and I had just finished having a heated row. I was isolated, he was out working most nights and I was unhappy. I was so angry with him I had felt murderous. I thought God was showing me that Becky’s crying fits were related to this event. As if my hatred had opened Becky up to something evil. So, I quietly said sorry to God for having such hate in my heart towards Tim at that time. Instantly Becky stopped crying. Then I saw a small star rise from within Becky’s chest, it continued to rise up and then quickly went out of the window. Then this is the strange part. Becky leaned over and said, ‘Mummy the big bear has gone’. She rarely had crying fits after that night.
Bones of an Arm
We moved from Barrow-in-Furness to Bristol. I was taking an MA course in Marketing. I was cycling home down a hill from a UWE lecture. I was going about 30 miles an hour and a car pulled out in front of me. I was tossed over the handlebars and the car bonnet. Everything went into slow motion. I decided to let my body go limp to reduce the impact when I hit the tarmac. I landed on my right arm. I called Tim and he arrived in the car and took me to A&E. From the X-ray it was confirmed I had a radial head fracture. I was told my arm might never straighten again (the nurse said she had broken her radial head and showed me her perpetually bent arm) and it would take at least 6 weeks to be right. I had my arm in a sling. I couldn’t straighten it and couldn’t even put my clothes on as my right arm as was so weak I needed help dressing.
A few weeks after the incident I was flicking around the TV channels and stumbled on the God channel. I would never have wittingly watched it as I am deeply suspicious of any evangelist with an American accent. But there was a preacher covered with tattoos (I think he was called Todd Bentley) and he said, ‘Tonight’s bones night, if you want healing stand up, right where you are’. I found myself standing up in my dressing gown in the sitting room. And then sat down sharply wondering what I was doing! I reached over the for the TV remote…with my broken arm…and it was completely straight. I was shocked. I went into the next room to where Tim was typing up his MSC management dissertation. I showed Tim that I could completely straighten my arm. We both stopped stared at each other not saying anything. I had a doctor’s appointment a few days later and I explained why I could now move and straighten my arm. The doctor called in the nurses and got me to recount what had happened whilst holding up my previous X-ray. He signed me off as, ‘A remarkable recovery’. I had to attend court to help prosecute the driver and later a lawyer assigned me £7,000 compensation even though my arm was healed, he said the X-ray was proof enough that I had suffered an injury. I had been unemployed that year, so the finance was a big help.
The Mountain
I had a dream that I was taken to the top of a mountain and looked towards the sea of the Furness peninsula. A voice in the dream said, ‘all of this I give to you’. Soon after somebody posted a folded A4 yellow flyer with a Job description for the role of a schools worker for the charity NISCU. On the front of the flyer was a sketch of a map that covered the area I had seen in the dream. I applied and got the job.
We were about to move to Bristol and whilst we were on holiday at my in-laws I saw a job advert for a youth worker at Redland Park URC (in Bristol) in one of their magazines. The deadline was my birthday. I thought, um that’s funny. A week later Tim’s mother posted him an article from the magazine about chaplaincy and guess what was on the back…the job advert! I applied and got the job.
Black Zig-Zags
After three years at Redland Park URC, I decided to leave. This is when I became unemployed. I have never been through such a dark time in my life. A couple of ladies from the Pentecostal church would come round and pray with me once a month which I was really grateful for. In one of the sessions, I noticed that something spiritually dark and spikey had moved from within my head onto my shoulder. We all prayed for it to leave. At that moment my mind went from being like a stormy sea to being completely still like a mill pond. The condemning voices had stopped. I hadn’t noticed that I had been living with a continual churning of belittling voices until now. I guess I was used to it. But now they had gone and I could remember what they were saying, ‘your rubbish, you will never amount to anything, nobody likes you, why bother’. Now the voices had completely gone and actually have not come back since. A few days later, without me saying anything to anyone, my friend Jackie Frost in Devon send me a postcard of her latest textile artwork. It was a dark red spikey swirl made out of fabric. It was called The Spirit of Deception.
A Lion
During my time at another Church I had been taken on one side and verbally disciplined by someone I was fond of. I felt the things which were raised were unfair. But I didn’t say a word in my defence. I walked to the bus in the heavily pouring rain crying my heart out. I sat on the back seat of the bus, and a tramp came and sat beside me and said, ‘Jesus was betrayed and never uttered a word’ and then went to sit back in his seat. When I got home the rain had stopped and I told Tim all that had happened. We were looking out of the kitchen window and saw in the sky a cloud shaped like an angry roaring lion. We both laughed. It was so clear. I knew God had seen everything and perhaps God was angry on my behalf?
The Rope
Soon after the hurtful incident at church, Tim had had a spiritual picture of a rope dropping down above him and shared it with me. At a similar time I had the words, ‘it’s time to cross over’. I asked Tim if he had seen any jobs he wanted to apply for. He had seen one advert for a job in London at Methodist Head office, but he didn’t think he had enough experience. I told him to apply anyway. He submitted a quick application, had an interview and was offered the job in quick succession. That afternoon the church offered me an arts chaplaincy post to the building where artists had their workshops just across the road. I said, ‘I’m sorry you are too late, Tim has just got a job in London, and we are leaving’.
11.11.11
We had to find a home in London which was another amazing story but haven’t included it here. But we moved from Bristol to London on the 11.11.11. from 11 Rockside Drive (Bristol) to 11 Flambard Road (Harrow). We knew it was right because 11 is my number of confirmation. Clues for my future as a stone carver were beginning to emerge in the street names of the homes we lived in; Rockside Drive (Bristol) and Headstone Lane (Harrow).
Provision for a Home
We were going to be moving to Gloucester from London for Tim to take up a part time chaplaincy and church role. The month we moved my mother died leaving a small amount of money and our endowment also simultaneously matured so we knew we needed to invest the money in our future home ready for when Tim retired. I saw a house, and it looked strangely familiar to me. Like I knew it. Tim wanted to wait and look around for longer for a house but as we waited the property prices were going up (£5,000 a month) and we were not going to be able to afford a house and would have to buy a flat. The house I saw was taken off the market as subject to contract. Tim asked me which house we should buy, and I said the one you missed! The next day the house came back on the market. We bid for it, but we were £7,000 short. We were clearing out the study at the time and in the bottom draw of the filing cabinet found an uncashed cheque for £7,000. The bank agreed to honour it although it was old. And we just managed to buy the house which is where we live now.
