Hail Marys

Carol and I got the giggles in Sunday school. I don't remember what set us off. Probably nothing. That's how giggle loops work. The usual teacher (the vicar’s wife) was on holiday, and the woman filling in for her, whoever she was, had no patience for two little girls in a giggle loop. She told us to get out and not come back. Ever. I'd have been nine or 10 years old.

My mother sent us to Sunday school for one reason only, which was to get us out of the house for one morning of the week. Dad would go down to the pub at 11 o’clock so, for an hour or two on a Sunday, the house was hers.

Many weeks later, sitting at the bus stop in the village square where we all congregated, the vicar, Mr Mate, came up to chat to me. He sat next to me on the wall. Lovely man. He'd heard I'd had a little bit of a run-in with the fill-in Sunday school teacher. “Did I want to talk about it? Would I be coming back next Sunday?” he gently probed.

“No”, I said. “I wouldn't be going back next Sunday. She'd told me to get out and never come back ever again”. He said she must have momentarily lost her patience, it wouldn't happen again and I was more than welcome to return. I said “My dad's a Catholic, and I watch what he does and how he repents for what he does but never changes. And my mum's a Protestant, and here I am at a Protestant church being kicked out. So, my experience with churches and religion isn't very positive. I think I just won't bother.”

Mr Mate said he was sorry to hear that, he was there if I ever changed my mind, then off he went. He really was such a lovely kind man. For a moment I thought maybe I'd been too harsh, that I'd let him down. But by then I'd already seen too much. I’d lost count of how many times we’d been bundled up late at night and taken to live at my Gran’s house or into town to live with my Aunty and her family. There was plenty of drama inside our house. And mingled with the drama, my dad parroting what was no doubt said to him as a child … “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain!” I couldn't have used the word hypocrisy yet. I didn't have the word. But I knew the shape of it.

The family Bible was kept at my Gran's, eight doors down. All the names of the children her mother had birthed, written in beautiful fountain pen, dates of birth, dates of the ones who had died in infancy. She let me have it for a while. And just from reading bits and pieces of it I thought, even at that age, this is all a bit far-fetched. Adam. Eve. The rib. There were many other things I read and thought, oh, that doesn't sound likely.

Gran herself didn't go to church. She told me there were people in the village who were very unpleasant people, who went on a Sunday and put their money in the collection plate, and she always said that doesn't absolve them. That was probably the first time I heard the word hypocrite. She wasn't saying she didn't believe. She believed. She just thought it was all down to us as individuals. The church didn't enter into it. Gran's faith was its own thing, between her and whatever she thought was up there. She kept it to herself.

Mam had said to Dad at some point, “Jimmy, you wanted them christened Catholics so that's your responsibility. You take them to church on a Sunday.” That was supposedly the deal.

The very few times it happened, Dad took us to a park, gave us a bag of lollies (aka goodies), told us not to leave the park, and said he'd be back for us. He came back a few hours later stinking of beer. He had options and, from a young age, I was familiar with the names of the many pubs he frequented. From this children’s playground on Morton Park he was either trotting off to The Reiver or The Border Terrier. When he finally returned, we walked home high on sugar. As we turned up Cummersdale Road, he told us there'd be some more lollies coming our way if we just said we'd been to church. Months later the same thing happened again. Off we went. Dropped at the park with a bag of lollies, told to share, and away he went.

On one occasion, when it was just me, Dad took me to his sister's house on Morton Park. My Auntie Mary, who was heavily involved in the local Catholic church and appeared to turn a blind eye to her little brother’s many sins, was happy – if not surprised – I was getting a late introduction to Catholicism. Anyhoo, off we went to church together.

It was the first time I'd ever been inside a Catholic church. I was quite overwhelmed by all of it. The chanting. The incense flying everywhere. The Latin everyone knew but me. I hadn't a clue. And then it was time for the confessional.

That's when it really dawned on me. Because I was living with an alcoholic, a man who could be very violent, and he got the get out of jail free card. I don't know how many Hail Marys he got. Ten. Twenty. A thousand wouldn't have been enough to absolve him of his sins. But hey ho. That was his religion. How convenient.

I decided quite early on that it was up to me to be a good person. A decent person. I had to live with myself. I made plenty of poor choices when I was younger. Everyone did. Growing up in the late sixties and seventies was a wild ride and there was plenty of mischief. I knew kids often got caught and the punishment could be severe but, from where I was standing, the adults were getting away with things they shouldn't have. That much I knew.

There were people around me showing me how to be a good person though. My friend Elaine's mum, Christine who kept her back door open for me, wasn’t a village gossip. She gave people the benefit of the doubt.

My mam is a twin, and her sister had made different choices to my mam, which was its own kind of lesson.

The two of them, raised in the same house, had ended up living completely different lives. So, there were two columns, really. People who got it terribly wrong, and people who quietly got it right. I knew which column I wanted to be in.

By the time I came to Australia at 18 years old, I had been working it out for myself for a long time. Slowly but surely becoming an adult and being 12,000 miles away from anyone who knew me felt like being handed a clean slate. I wanted to keep it clean. I could just be whoever I wanted to be. Sing from my own song sheet. Free from the oppression of the British class system, free of a parent who wanted to keep me in my place.

I didn't want any more of those awful feelings I'd had as a child, watching, listening, being party to things I knew were wrong. Each time I'd done something I felt bad about or ashamed of I'd think, I don't want to feel like this anymore. I must make sure my choices make me feel good. The way I thought about certain things wasn't quite the same as how other people thought but my brain was programmed to accept the unacceptable. Even though my internal barometer was skewed I kept coming back to how things made me feel. That was the test. It always has been.

About two years into MV Skintherapy, around the time my best friend Bridget died, I was being pulled hard in the direction of the mainstream beauty industry. More superficial and focused on how we look on the outside with little consideration given to inner beauty, self-esteem or self-worth. Out there on the horizon but rapidly advancing was the fear of ageing. A marketeer’s dream come true with female disempowerment as the bottom line. Each time I was given business advice it was always about the financial bottom line and to survive I had to conform and compromise. This made me feel uneasy, and the uneasiness took me back to my childhood. To the feeling of being asked to go along with something I knew was wrong – something that did not fit with my values or my relationship with money.

Had I grown up differently I might have been swayed. Maybe this is what people do. But by then I had already developed a very determined and stubborn streak. I knew I was going to do things my way. With my set of values. Nobody else's.

I wouldn't change that batshit crazy childhood for anything. Without it, I wouldn't be who I am today. Every time I make a choice, it always comes down to how it makes me feel. It’s been the same since I was a little girl sitting on a wall at a village bus stop telling a vicar I wasn't going back to Sunday school. A childhood like mine makes you appreciate the value of making good choices. Choices that make you feel good. So that’s what I choose to do.