Sarah Jones - Call Me Evil, Let Me Go

I further disgraced myself when I was invited to a birthday party in a local hall by one of the sixth-form girls at school. I was much younger than nearly everyone else there and when the other guests started dancing I went round sipping their alcoholic drinks. It was a mad thing to do and I ended up being terribly sick in the ladies’ loo. My timing was terrible because there was a police raid just as I was throwing up. They were obviously looking for drugs and under-age drinkers, and when they found me in the toilets they rang my father. He came to pick me up but refused to say one word to me during the half-hour drive home. He didn’t have to. His look of disapproval was enough. Once we were home he said curtly, ‘I will speak to you in the morning, young lady.’ I went to bed feeling ill and stupid. Next morning Dad gave me a thorough telling-off. I knew my behaviour had been wrong and I felt ashamed that I had embarrassed my parents.

Mum and Dad remained very worried about me, and although it was obvious that I was not mentally ill, after all they had gone through with Roy they couldn’t face another spell of adolescent bad behaviour and the resulting tension at home.

Meanwhile Black’s Society of Christ’s Compassion was going from strength to strength and had grown to approximately 250 members. He wanted to expand further and so opened a new church building in the south of England, together with a school, in a derelict warehouse on the edge of town. The warehouse was bought with a combination of a large inheritance that Black had recently come into by way of a childless Scottish uncle and donations from nearly all of the church members (Black told his congregation that their gift was a way of thanking God for the blessing of faith). The school was called Tadford School, to tally with the new name that Black had chosen for the church – Tadford Charismatic Church.

That July Mum and Dad decided to go to the church’s weekend conference. I didn’t want to go as it sounded much too boring but they refused to let me stay at home on my own, or go to a friend. They didn’t trust me. I made such a fuss that Mum asked Pastor Collins what she should do. He told her firmly to insist I come too and she told me I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I was so furious and upset that I cried throughout the five-hour drive down south to the church. We arrived late on Friday afternoon and pitched our tent in a temporary campsite in an area of wasteland near to the church, which Black used whenever there was a large weekend meeting. It was a grim place and I was still sulky, telling my parents I didn’t want to go to any of the Church meetings. Mum said that was OK.

So the next morning I wondered off on my own and had a sneaky cigarette while they were praying. Later that day Mum said Ian Black insisted I come to the evening meeting in the church. I tried arguing but it was hopeless. I trailed along with them to the redeveloped warehouse dressed completely inappropriately. I had put my hippie period behind me and now sported a skimpy black top and very short miniskirt that just about covered my Union Jack knickers, which I had made myself. Inside the warehouse there was a garish floral carpet and row upon row of orange plastic chairs, which were filling up rapidly. There must have been at least three hundred people present. At one end there was a stage and I felt that perhaps we were all going to watch a performance. I was not far wrong.

It was very hot and stuffy in the warehouse-cum-church and I felt very bored. I made the point, as young teenagers do, of making sure my parents knew I didn’t want to be there. I refused to stand up when everyone else did to pray loudly or sing. Nor did I join in. Instead I looked around and recognized a few faces from my visit to the Black’s previous church with Mum when I was much younger, but I didn’t acknowledge anyone. In total contrast to me, my parents were obviously captivated, as were most of the congregation. I must have stuck out like a sore thumb.

We had to go through the same routine on Sunday evening, by which time I was so hot and uncomfortable that I suddenly decided I couldn’t take any more. Despite the fact that I was sitting in the middle of a long row and being stared at by Black I got up, squeezed my way through to the end and ran out towards our tent in the temporary campsite. Olivia, who was the wife of the senior pastor, Hugh Porter, ran after me and asked in a doom-laden, intimidating way whether I realized that if I didn’t return I would go to Hell. I was so shocked by her words that I started crying and then let her march me straight back into the church again. The entire congregation had seen how I behaved and my parents were obviously very embarrassed.

Black then seized the moment by asking the congregation to pray for me and led the prayers himself. They were all about saving me, not letting me go to Hell and trying to cast out my ‘rebellious spirit’, which according to 1 Samuel 15:23 is called the sin of witchcraft. I had never been involved in any sort of witchcraft and found the whole thing terrifying. My parents were traumatized too. They knew that to have a daughter labelled as rebellious was a very serious stigma within the Church and kept their heads bowed in shame. I sat quietly next to them, hoping desperately that Black would focus on someone or something else, but when he finished the prayers he said there was someone in the congregation who should go to the new Church school and called out my name.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and felt a mixture of shock, fury and embarrassment. Black then called me to the front and, with three hundred people’s eyes fixed on me, prayed over me yet again. He reeked of Brut aftershave and I really didn’t like him. The prayer meeting finished shortly afterwards and I asked my parents what was going on.

Unbeknown to me, my fate had already been sealed the previous day. Mum and Dad had been taken to one side on Saturday morning by Black and the Canadian evangelist Troy Tyson’s nephew, Charles, another visiting preacher, and told that they should leave me behind so that I could go to Tadford School. I am convinced the whole thing was premeditated. The school was in its first year and only had fourteen pupils aged between 4 and 18.

My parents were warned by Black and Charles Tyson that my bad behaviour was a certain sign that I was on the road to Hell. They were told that I was in mortal danger unless they moved fast and put me in the care of the Church. It was stressed that there was not a moment to lose and that my situation was so desperate that they shouldn’t under any circumstances even take me home with them to collect my things. My only chance of salvation was for me to be left behind immediately.

It was Dad’s first visit to Tadford and he decided to talk to Pastor Collins, who was also at the conference, before making such an important and radical decision. Edmund told him it was the best thing that could possibly happen, that it had come from the Lord and was a wonderful opportunity for me. This was a view he later fully acknowledged that he bitterly regretted. Dad’s qualms vanished. Not only did he admire Pastor Edmund, but he was also impressed by the Tadford Church members, who he said were the most devoted, loving people he had ever met. He and Mum were shown round the school. It was housed at one end of the warehouse, where swing doors led to the newly built classrooms. Dad was told that Black had started the school in response to the declining Christian, moral and educational standards that were apparent in the state schools.

The Church had a firm Statement of Faith and members were required to believe in a long list of tenets, such as the Virgin Birth, the Second Coming, the depravity of human nature and a number of other things that meant very little to me but which mostly sounded terrifying. Despite my total opposition to the idea, Dad liked the fact that all the teachers were Christians and thought it was a good, clean, godly environment. Although there was something about Black that made Dad feel uneasy and he couldn’t warm to him, he decided not to tell Mum and instead tried to put it to one side because he was so impressed by everyone else.