I no longer whispered with the others in Religious Instruction, but folded my arms priggishly, and listened hard; memorized the names of the figures in long robes who hovered magically on the green baize board. It was like magic as the minister created one by one on the greenness the hills and stars, the sheep and shepherds, the stable and the baby. I looked forward to the hour on Thursday before lunch, until one day someone came from the Church of Christ: it was Dean Black’s father who took the Boys’ Brigade. He told jokes about Catholics and did not pronounce his aitches; he made the disciples sound like a football team. The delicate world of miracles and Virgin Births I had created for myself on the shores of a Lake Galilee, that looked like the placid Windermere in the poetry book, disappeared. I felt loftily otherworldly as the class laughed at the jokes I thought were common; as Mr. Black stopped on the way out, and asked me when I would be coming to Endeavour.

I persuaded my mother to take me to church. We went to the evening service at the Methodist one the bulldog chased me from. We followed the prim backs of the two Misses Bailey from the newsagent and stationer’s shop on the Beach Road.

I felt that everyone was staring as we filed in. The pews were hard, and there was a funny smell. I watched the minister’s Adam’s apple bob up and down. My mother was frozen under her pill-box with the little veil. We hurried out at the end, but the preacher was there first — waylaid us with his handshake. More strange people stared, and a woman with a birthmark said she hoped we would come again.

Of course we never did.

The programme on the wireless was called ‘The Voice of Prophecy’. The voice that prophesied was American. Gargled with honey and treacle and golden syrup. It was beautiful — like a film star’s. It quavered over the appeals, hesitated apologetically before rebukes. As I listened to the stories, cried over the sermons, and chanted the hymns I invented a father for myself. He was tall and gentle and looked like the Jesus in the Sunday School picture surrounded by the red and yellow and pink children, with a black one on His lap.

I sent away for the set of Bible Lessons, and each week I completed one and sent it in to the voice; each week it came back with ticks and comments in the margin. When I folded my question paper and licked the envelope and stuck on the stamp, I felt safe and washed clean in the blood of the Lamb. I pretended I was posting my answers to Jesus. I knew about Daniel and Moses, I could recite the names of the generations of the Children of Israel: I was a scholar.