Born in North London, I spent much of my early life in hospital. Because of illness I did not learn to walk until I was four years old, and soon after, because of the War (the second one!), I was evacuated to a small village in Essex.
I had a good voice and was soon enrolled as a choir boy in the village church in Castle Hedingham, where I also attended school. I went to a Sunday school at a different church in the afternoons, then back to Castle Hedingham to sing in the choir in the evening.
After the Second World War ended, I returned to my parents' home in London and started attending a Sunday school at the Baptist Church about 400 yards away. I remember very little of what went on there except the annual outing to the seaside.
When I became a teenager, I was allowed to go to the Young People's Fellowship, and although the main attraction for me was the table tennis, I did at least begin to listen to the Bible talk at the end.
