Upfront disclaimer:
I know it’s entitled “Memories of Hillary”, but an awful lot of this post is, in fact, all about me – and our hero doesn’t actually get much of a look-in in this part. But I need to tell the story right, and it starts with me. Besides - it’s only fair. Hillary took up tons of room talking about himself on the thread supposed to be about me. :-)
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Late last year I received an e-mail – via a famous UK schoolfriends-reunion website – from someone who had attended the same school as me. The interesting thing about this was that, at school, I had never known him. We only became friends after I had left. It was Hillary_Step, with whom I hadn’t spoken in almost twenty years.
I first became aware of Hillary during the course of that first summer that I pioneered. It was a glorious, long hot summer that year, and I was just coming to terms with the enormity of the change I had wrought in my life, leaving school the way I did.
Some background, then…
Unlike Hillary I had never been “ a lone wolf... who makes friends with difficulty”, my natural inclinations always led me to being one-of-the-lads, a real gang member. In any social group I’ve ever been part of, I tended to be one of the jokers, “the funny one”, even if I say so myself. I guess it comes from wanting to fit in, a desire for approval. You can see where this might cause a problem to a fine young Witness - “But, to be pop – u - lar, nev - er do toil!” and all that.
In fact, I was, I think, a fairly popular member of class, not an obviously dysfunctional, nerdy, wierdo misfit, like so many down the hall. In truth, I think I was probably a pretty good advert for the movement
And I was seriously into The Truth. I mean, I really really believed it all – the whole thing - with a passion, and was entirely unembarrassed about telling schoolfriends all about it. You might recall in a recent post how I remarked about how annoyed I got upon overhearing my mother tell someone that “Duncan still believes it’s the truth, but is too wrapped up in the World these days…” – well, of course, you do hear Witnesses say the exact opposite thing too, after you’ve left them: “Oh, I don’t believe that Duncan ever REALLY had the truth in him” – and, if anything, that makes me even madder. I KNOW what I felt back then.
I should never have left school when I did.
I’m not talking about what a waste it was, about how I missed out on an education and a good job – I took care of that stuff later on, and I did subsequently okay, work-wise.
I mean, if the Watchtower had actually got any sense, they’d had left people like me where they were – a tolerably-high achieving student, popular and well-regarded – influential, even. I hosted class debates on Faith, the Bible, Evolution, and so on (the teachers obviously thought I was pretty good value at that kind of thing); I started a bible study with a close friend, James, and brought him along to the meetings. There was even something called “Scripture Union” – a school society for Bible-reading - I accepted their invitation one evening, and I went along and put them straight, too.
At school, despite being a Witness, I really fitted in. And, while I was at school, I was a pretty good Witness.
But, of course, at every turn I was encouraged down the hall to leave, to pioneer. The End was so close! And not only this – I actually got so I was longing to leave – I just couldn’t wait. How come?
Looking back now, I guess I was pretty stressed-out with the effort of being a Witness (I put in good hours, and was used a lot on the platform, TMS parts, and all those school-witnessing experiences) on top of the work needed to keep up grades in a pretty high-achieving competitive grammar school.
I have a son now, similar age to me back then, who is also at grammar school. A much better student than I ever was too, diligent and hard working, he won the school prize last year for top-achieving boy in the year. The reason I mention him here is to state that I know just how much support and help it takes from parents to keep a lad like him performing at that level - encouragement, taking an interest, help with homework, research, help with presentations and so on and so on.
Back then, for me, I had not only an absence of support, but positive discouragement. Apart from the fact that none of my family had any conception of the demands placed upon a grammar school student (all the other siblings having attended the local-estate secondary school), when I ever did get out some books to study at home, my mum would be around with “ Oh, Duncan – studying the wisdom of men! You know it’s all foolishness in the eyes of Jehovah! Do something else – read up for the bookstudy!” It sounds nuts, I know, but I’m sure there are others here who have had similar experiences.
I just re-read that last paragraph, and I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m simply going for sympathy here – “Oh, Duncan, poor you!” I’m only trying to explain my circumstances at the time, and why I was so looking for an escape from the treadmill of constant schoolwork on top of witness-work. Also, the schoolwork did seem genuinely pointless.
I saw pioneering as not just “an important Life-saving Work in this Time of the End” but also as a release into a more spiritual life, a higher plane, a christian , tranquil stress-free way of life.
So, I left school, earliest legal age I could. Outraged all my teachers, and peers. Endured endless sessions with various concerned teachers, and the Headmaster, all regarded by me as “persecution” for my faith, and all retold down the hall on a Tuesday night as faith-strengthening experiences. At this point, I had no idea who Hillary_Step was, the knowledge he had of my situation or the interest he took in it. He had yet to show up down the hall.
So, now I was a Pioneer! In Jehovah’s full time service!
And, of course, now getting closely involved with Jehovah’s Organisation, that’s when my faith all started going wrong.
And this is when Hillary starts coming in and starts to be important in my life.
Hillary, I promise, in the next post, you’ll have a larger part.
Duncan.