steel, textiles. To enter the north of the county was to enter another world, to experience the stunningly scenic Yorkshire Dales and Moors. Once a thriving inland port, Knottingley was still an important center for boat-building and glass and chemical works. It was close to what became the UK’s last working deep coal mine, Kellingley Colliery, where I had my first job.10 The three cooling towers at nearby Ferrybridge power station were the tallest in Europe and could be seen all over the county. This was the industrial north at its grimiest and most Dickensian—smoke, soot, grit. Small wonder the health authorities wanted to take my sister out of this environment when they found she had chronic asthma. Nothing could have prepared her, or my parents, for the impact this would have on our family.
George Pease met and married my mother, Ada Cassidy, during the Second World War. He was serving as a soldier and she worked in the NAAFI,11 the organization that provided tea, toast, and cheer to British forces. George was one of two sons born to William and Alice Pease. William’s mother died in childbirth and his father didn’t have the necessary support both to work and care for a child. So my grandfather was sent some distance away to be bought up by his Aunt and Uncle Tasker. William never knew his father, nor whether he had other siblings, but retained the Pease family name. Alice’s mother also died young. Her father remarried and because her stepmother didn’t like Alice she sent her away to work as a domestic servant to another family.
My parents were Pentecostals and very devout. The Pentecostal movement started almost simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 1900s. It featured fervent and lively worship, spiritual gifts, and a strong emphasis on prayer for healing. In the UK it grew and spread in working-class areas like ours.
To grow up Pentecostal was to inhabit a highly charged spiritual atmosphere and a life that largely revolved around church. My father was church secretary and Sunday school superintendent. When he wasn’t working he was doing something at the chapel. My mother, although no less fervent, used to complain at times that church always came first. In bad weather, he was unable to work and no work meant no pay. Even so, he would diligently set money aside for The Bible Society, for The Leprosy Mission, for church funds and missionary work around the world.
“We can’t afford to keep ourselves,” my mother would say. “Let’s look to our own family first. The church can have its share later.”
Yet he would carry on regardless, funding missions with his hard-earned “brass.”12
I always knew we had little money and must have made things difficult for my parents with my relentless moans and requests for this and that. I couldn’t understand why my father insisted on helping all these other people!
If the community I grew up in was close-knit and insular, the church culture reflected that too. Yet there was also an outward-looking aspect, a concern for others that went beyond our small, grimy town and into the world beyond. My father knew he would have little opportunity to travel, but he did what he could in the only way he knew. He gave money we could often ill afford to causes he believed in. He was a gentle, faithful, and diligent man. We were all thrilled when he later received the British Empire Medal for “services to industry.”13 My father eventually became clerk of works for our local government authority. It was his job to independently assess the quality of structural, mechanical, and engineering works. Nominations are made without the recipient knowing in advance. It was testimony to my father’s hard work and attention to detail that architects and civic and community leaders all combined to put his name forward.
Mam was a very different character to Dad. She was sociable, friendly, and loved to talk about family, friends, and church. She took an interest in people. She never studied after leaving school and helped in the family bakery where she learned how to bake. I always remember listening to her sing as she baked and cooked. She often baked for people who were sick or going through difficult times. Mam had a strong sense of duty to her parents and siblings. Three of her brothers saw action in North Africa during the Second World War. Her father was Irish and lost both legs in a mining accident. Little wonder the last place she wanted me to work was down the mines!
Churchgoing was more common in the UK in those days, even in poor working-class areas like ours. There were Anglicans and Methodists, the Salvation Army and Congregationalists. Even non-churchgoers sent their children to Sunday school, largely to give themselves a break. There were a lot of good folk involved with the churches and chapels even though the surrounding culture did not conform to their ideals. It took me a long time to realize that some of my “uncles” and “aunts” were not blood relatives at all. Rather, they were people my parents knew through church or were other neighbors and friends. We needed their support. I was eighteen months old when my sister Pamela was sent away to hospital on the coast.
When they got married my parents were told that they would not be able to have children. It was medically impossible. So they did what Pentecostals do. They devoted themselves to prayer. They called for the prayers of the elders of the church and of the congregation. During one prayer meeting, a minister prophesized that their prayers would be answered. They would most certainly bear children. Imagine their delight when Pamela was born in 1947. Imagine their anguish when they learned she had chronic asthma and was not expected to live.
I grew up without my sister at home. I was only aware I had one because of the photograph on the parlor wall. It showed a bonny toddler on the street outside our house, a pint of milk behind her on our doorstep.14
“Mam, Dad, who’s that girl in the picture?”
“Your sister.”
“Where is she? Why isn’t she here?”
“She’s away. She’s ill.”
Mam and Dad invariably changed the subject. Perhaps they wanted to spare me the pain they were going through. Around once a month, on a Saturday, my father would set off to visit her in the children’s hospital near Liverpool. Sometimes my mother would go too. They could not always afford the fare for the two of them. I would be left with the Elleringtons, friends of my parents from church. I struck up a lifelong friendship with their son, John, who later became one of my charity’s first trustees. We often got into scrapes and John sometimes hid in the outhouse with his ferret to avoid Sunday school.15 We were both rebels even then. Yes, we both continued with church and owned our parents’ faith for ourselves, but we were not afraid to question or challenge anything we felt was ill thought through, unnecessary, or unhelpful.
It was the early 1950s and Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was still in its infancy. Founded in 1948, the NHS guaranteed treatment “free at the point of delivery” to everyone, irrespective of income, social level, or circumstances. It made, and still makes, an immense difference to people’s lives, particularly those who are disadvantaged or on low incomes. Back then, however, officialdom and deference were still big factors in British society. What the man with the suit and tie or the nurse in the uniform said went unchallenged, even when the consequences were clearly less than ideal. The authorities said that Pamela had to be taken away to save her life and away she went. She was away from home for three Christmases, effectively four whole years.16
Officials told my parents that Pam would die unless she left our dirty, smoggy town. My parents had little choice. I’m told they could have faced criminal charges at that time if they didn’t comply. We were poor. Where could we go? We didn’t know anywhere else and our support networks were all very local. There
