At eleven years old I transferred to the Grammar School, where I found the work somewhat harder than my Junior school. However, I made the best of the situation, only making a few friends along the way. In my background, having ‘unbelievers’ as close friends frowned upon. We were quite a closed community of Christians from the ‘Open Brethren’. [I must explain for the uninitiated that in UK at least there were a number of groupings of the 'Plymouth Brethren' ranging from the very strict 'Exclusives' through 'Open Brethren' Glanton Brethren and quite a lot of variations. The whole setup, with no recognised central authority, lends itself to splinter groups sominated usually by one man, or one family. Although 'our' group were not the most strict, we had our own unwritten rules! But more of that later.]

Weekends followed a regular pattern: Saturday night Young People’s Meeting, which was well attended with at least forty present, at which we sang fairly lively choruses (compared with the regular hymns) and listened to a Bible address (some of the preachers were quite good). Sunday Morning was the ‘Breaking of Bread’ (Communion) at which any man was free to read a Scripture, comment, choose a hymn, or pray (all extempore, but generally based upon the Death of Christ). Then one of the men would pray separately in thanks for the bread, and the wine. The children present did not share in the bread or wine until after they had been baptised. No woman was allowed to  take any public part, as in all of our services where men were present. The hymns in this service were always sung without musical accompaniment. There were times when the meeting was quite moving and meaningful, but there were many occasions when the prayers were all too long, the singing very turgid, and the men taking part were ill-prepared and had little to say that was helpful. [We were fortunate that we had a few who were worth listening to.]

Sunday afternoon was Sunday School in our little hall. Most of the teachers were untrained, but did their best to interest lively boys and girls. Because of my retentive memory in those days, I had most of the answers when we had a quiz (I must have been insufferable at times!)  We sang a variety of very twee and trite choruses, some of which I cannot think about now without cringeing at the simplistic  - and often outrageous – words. Still, I duly moved on to become a teacher (untrained) after my baptism.  I must say that I tried hard to make the lessons interesting to a bunch of bored boys.

Sunday evenings we all attended a Gospel service which usually took the same pattern, week in and week out. The preachers were all from other groups similar to our own. The idea of having anyone from one of the other churches within our town would have been unthinkable. In this way, the ‘truth’ as we saw it, was safeguarded. There were a few preachers who did try to be different in their approach, and I for one benefited from them.

Following this service, the ‘Young People’ met in a private home, usually that of our youth leader (although he never had the title!) These times together were the major means by which we teenagers and early 20’s were built up in our faith in Christ. It was remarkable how many of us kept going because of this group. Looking back, I thank God for those young people; without them, I’m not sure that I would have continued.