Did you ever have any sort of religious upbringing at all?
Well I went to church, it was different when we were younger, you know we were, my Dad was a lay preacher, he was, he was, he was a good person my Dad, he was a magistrate, but he came from the cobbled streets of [town] and he worked himself up, so he was a lay preacher and a magistrate, so he, he made me go to church every Sunday, but I never really had any strong convictions of, oh I certainly haven’t now.
So a spiritual belief hasn’t helped you at all?
No, no. The only, the only, one thing I remember doing was when I was talking earlier about the awful six or seven months I had with [my daughter], and her behaviour, I remember lying in bed one night and just, just for the first time in my complete adult life, I was praying, I said, “Please just help me Steph. God, whoever’s listening just help me get through these next few months, because I’m going under here, you know, and I’m going to lose [my daughter] You know so I’m not good with it, I can’t, I can’t cope.” And the next few weeks, her behaviour did kind of start to improve a bit, so that made me think; offer a little thank you to whoever.
So you think there might be something in prayer after all?
Oh, I’d like, [sigh]. I don’t know. I’m still quite cynical about it, I think it’s a kind of self defense thing people have to make themselves feel better, a part of me thinks someone’s listening but, I still tend to believe it’s just a cruel difficult world and once someone’s gone you’re left on your own. And that’s the black and white situation. I’ve been to the cemetery and I’ve just, there’s, there’s, there’s a little walk of about three hundred yards from I parked the car, nice little walk, it’s a lovely cemetery where Steph is, and sometimes when I’m walking down this little path I think something’s going happen, you know, to make me feel better, or she is going be around, but when I get to the headstone, it’s just the same old headstone in the ground, and that’s what it’s always like for me, because I’m just looking at a piece of masonry stuck in the grass, and I’m thinking, “What am I doing here?” I only I only ever stay for five minutes at the most, because it, it just does nothing for me whatsoever, and, I don’t know if other people get any comfort from it, I, I don’t, it just makes me feel worse so, I rarely go now. The only time I go is just to refresh the flowers or just try to tidy up a little bit. Just do it out of respect for Steph really to try and make it look nice, but I don’t get anything spiritual from it at all.
