# Transcript

EILEEN
So, I'm second generation Irish, so both of my parents are Irish Catholics, very religious – sadly no longer with us, but they had me very late in life, so they were forty-three when they had me. But I was brought up strict Roman Catholic. And I think when you're brought up in that atmosphere, I think it goes either of two ways, doesn't it? You either embrace it as an adult or you move away from it. And I certainly moved away from it. I didn't get married in a church, I got married in a registry office. I was estranged from my parents at that stage, so they didn't come to the wedding. I was married for nearly 20 years, and then I gave up that life completely when I was 40 in order to fulfil my dream of having a child, and I moved away from where I was living. So, I completely gave up everything to come to Stony Stratford. So, I had no sense of belonging, really. I came here knowing one person. I had a job in Milton Keynes, at Santander, so I worked for them for 20 years.
I then joined the Local Baptist Church in Stony Stratford, which is now called a community church. A very strong sense of belonging. And I immediately felt at home, immediately felt included, and particularly the emphasis on women, you know, getting involved in the various groups and helping to run some of them. So, a very strong sense of belonging, and that followed through into the school as well. So, when my son came along in 2008, and I was a single parent from when he was born, sadly, obviously a lot going on at the school, a lot to get involved in. So, there was another sense of belonging, but there were two distinct belongings. There was the school and everything that went on there, which was quite rigid, is..., well, was quite rigid. And then there was the church, which was so different. And even my son noticed it, as young as he was. The only slight tension was that my son, who was attending at St Mary and St Giles school, which is obviously a Christian school… there was some conflict at the school, and I won't go into any details, it's well known, it's out there. There were some irregularities, shall we say, and a lot of change happened at the school as a result of what was going on at the church. So, a number of parents took their children out. I didn't. I chose to stay. My son was very happy there. And so, he was attending school activities at the church. But we were going as mother and son to the local community church, which was entirely different, and, I have to say, absolutely fascinating. The things that we got involved in, all of the worship is all part of a-- you have a band, a very lively, very inclusive, lovely, lovely atmosphere, and lots of groups that you can take part in. So I was part of a group of ladies, and the whole idea of the group was that if a lady, any of us, if we were struggling or we needed help, then the others would support you, and pick you up. So very, very inclusive. And we'd meet weekly in each other's houses, lots of different activities with the children. And I then became part of the family fund group where each week we'd have a collection. There'd be two bags, one would be the general collection, and one would be any money that you wanted to give to the family fund, which was specifically for people in our church who may need some support. And it was very private, very respectful. But if you became aware that somebody might be in need, you could make it known to the relevant people and those people would receive some funds completely privately through their front door. They'd have a little envelope. They wouldn't know who it was from necessarily. They just knew it was the family fund, and they would be asked to sort of keep it to themselves type of thing, but it was lovely that you knew that there were people who were in need, who could be helped. So, yeah, absolutely fascinating time.
And then as a result of some experiences that I had, I'm now no longer a member of the church. I have much, much respect and love for the church community. But I'm now a spiritualist and I actually take part in providing reedings to people. It's a bit difficult to explain in a few minutes, but I had some quite prominent and extreme dreams about people, some of them which I knew... And I took the opportunity to contact one of them and say to her, I know this sounds really weird, I know you're going to think I'm mad. I've had this dream about you, I do these readings, would you like one is free of charge, absolutely not offended if you say no, blah, blah, blah. Long and the short was she said yes, she came to see me. It was all true, what I dreamed, and I've enabled her in some ways to fulfil a desire that she had, and it's gone from there. So, I do reedings for people, I often don't charge, and I don't advertise. I don't feel the need to, it is usually word of mouth, it's usually people that come back to me. But yeah, it's a fascinating part of my life and I'm very happy with it. So, yeah, quite a multifaceted religious experience, but yeah, that's me.