My Joseph Jacket

When I was a young man I bought a many coloured jacket made by Grafton-Manquest from a shop in Newport called Clobber.

I saw Pete townshend wearing one once. I also bumped into a girl wearing trousers made from the same amterial on one occasion.

I loved that jacket and have kept it ever since, always hoping that some else could enjoy it as much as I did.

Well, here is one of my sons doing just that the other night at a school bands evening.

More on his singing career on his blog here.

Reggae

I happened on a programme tonight that kept me watching longer than I might have thought. It was BBC 4's Reggae Britannia. See more here. I enjoyed Ken Boothe's 1974 hit, a version of Bread's Everything I own. . (I always want to sing I would give anything I own, Give up my life, my mobile phone, I would give ev'rything I own, Just to have you back again).

I happened on a programme tonight that kept me watching longer than I might have thought. It was BBC 4's Reggae Britannia. I enjoyed Ken Boothe's 1974 hit, a version of Bread's Everything I own. (I always want to sing I would give anything I own, Give up my life, my mobile phone, I would give ev'rything I own, Just to have you back again).

Past Diary Feb 01-03 1974

As I may have intimated the 1974 diary runs out once we hit February, where I make just three entries. As far as I can see I don't try diary writing again until January 1975. On February 1st I was still feeling unwell but able to go to school. I was still working through my list of vices and got to bad language. I note that I had given up swearing a year before but various euphemisms had begun to creep in and I was determined to quash them. We had a Mr Davies at YPF. I think that is a Richard Davies, uncle to the wonderful Irene, who gets another mention. Besides my regular reading from Matthew that day I was having a go again at 1 Samuel, conscious of my need to "gain a greater overall knowledge of the stories of the Bible".

I didn't go to Greek the next day as I was too ill. I did some Greek, though,  it says, and some homework, listening to Focus. That day I reached the final one on my list of vices - worldliness. Still struggling with that one, I'd say. An interesting note says that "I spent some of the afternoon and evening writing The continuing story of Adolf Hitler's moustache in my book". This was a short story that I think I had started sometime before and was keen to include in a book of writings that I was trying to assemble for myself. I think I have it somewhere. I also read a bit more of Whyte on prayer. It was a late Saturday night as usual.

Sunday's sermons appear to have been am: John 15:11 (could be 16:11, a version had appeared in the latest church magazine too I note) pm: Revelation 22:17. The Bible Class continued through John's Gospel covering 9:1-7. In the YPF we read two of Spurgeon's Sermons from newspapers. I prayed at the well attended prayer meeting before the evening service. I also read 1 Samuel 14-16 at home as well as my regular reading from Matthew (22:23-33). Despite all that I still felt I'd been rather worldly! Perhaps I had.

Past Diary Jan 31 1974

The last day of January 1974 was a Thursday. I had a headache all day but managed to keep going. I began and ended with the next bit of Matthew and could report at the day's end "I have continued to keep busy, I have not borrowed, and I have kept my temper". The next day I was planning to train my guns on dishonesty (where again I had plenty to confess). I think, prompted by something I read or heard, I must have made a list of my main sins and tried to work through them putting them to death. Sadly, victory is not the easy thing I seem to have expected. We had a CPBSU meeting that night and my friend Stephen Price led us in a Bible Study from Zechariah 1. The Banner of Truth Trust had just republished T V Moore's commentary on the last three books of the Old Testament I recall. We had a rather fruitless discussion about what a vision was. After a little homework I went to bed.

Past Diary Jan 30 1974

This day I was working through my sins again. Did I have a list or something? I seem to have done well with the temper. With a little irony I say that "tomorrow I intend to refrain especially from laziness" (to be fair I was writing at the end of the day). It was an evening of homework but at some point earlier on I was either out buying the Focus album Moving Waves or (more likely) I bought it off a friend. That surprises me as I would have thought that I bought that album before Focus 3. I'd certainly listened to it before then. I describe the experience somewhere (On first listening to Moving Waves). The day began and ended with Matthew 21:33-46 and I give six lines of commentary. I had a headache at the end of the day and seemed to be going down with something.

Past Diary Jan 29 1974

Bit behind with this. I rarely quote as the entries are so utterly cringeworthy (a fair bit of bad grammar too). Perhaps I can cope with this. "My mother finished knitting my tank top, which I wore to the prayer-meeting". Only 13 words but there's a lot in there, hey? At prayer meeting we were finishing 2 Corinthians and one point Mr Garwood made was not to be afraid to say "grace be with you" rather than us. I've remembered that, though I couldn't have told you where I first learned it. I was still working through my sins and wondering about restitution. There is a curious note about temper where I claim to rarely lose it but to be tempted to hold small grudges. I would have thought it was the other way round. I was quite tired when I went to bed as I'd been up until 11.15 the night before. I seem to have been getting to bed 10-10.30 those days but would often be up late on a Monday night and always went to bed at midnight Saturdays.

Past Diary Jan 28 1974

My Monday entry is very brief. I say something typically banal about my daily reading (Matthew 21-12-20), bemoan my failure to witness though I mention that my sister is reading her Bible still (I guess she was converted somewhere around this period) and bewail what I call the "many sinful vices creeping upon me lately". The only example of this that I give is (shock, horror) BORROWING! I tend not to name things that really did trouble me as a teenager but as someone who had been brought up not to borrow things I can see how this would have been on my conscience. I spent the evening, unusually, doing homework. I was also listening to Focus, of course. Probably on the old radiogram. I don't think I got my Philips 303 until the following May.

Past Diary Jan 27 1974

January 27 1974 was a Sunday so I heard two sermons (on John 14:20 and Acts 5:42). In the afternoon the Bible Class was on John 8:33-59. I preserve a quote from the morning sermon "The water of heaven fills the shape of the vessel it is poured into" which at this distance seems a little inane but obviously struck me then. The evening sermon prompted a confession of lack of witness. I felt that the previous year (I had been baptised the previous June) I had been witnessing all the time but not now to my shame. I also attended a prayer meeting (a new thing it seems) before the evening meeting and prayed and went to the YPF where we had a quiz followed by news of missionaries in Romania and China. I also had my own reading from Matthew and read from the book of sermons by Whyte again (which I have now discovered was first published in 1922 - see here). It had een a wet weekend.

Past Diary Jan 26 1974

January 26 1974 was a Saturday. In the morning I got ready for my Greek class then went along. (I think I only ever looked at Greek just before class and so didn't learn very much). We were on prepositions and came across the middle voice in the exegesis from Mark. In the afternoon I was off to town to buy a belt and the double album Focus 3 which had come out in 1972 but that I was only then able to buy. I listened to it while doing homework. It's a superb album and still one of my favourites all these years later. In the evening there was a birthday party at the home of a friend from church, Carol. Her father was a deacon. We are still in touch (at Christmas) and she is in the Lord. I have a vague recollection of the party. I was reading a book on prayer by the 19th century writer Alexander Whyte.

Past Diary Jan 25 1974

So it was on this day back in 1974 that I made one more effort to write a diary and kept it up for another 10 days or so. I think that intensity is probably unsustainable. I found it so anyway. So we begin that Friday with a lot of complaints about "silliness and idleness" (I could rarely resist the temptation to muck about in school or to be lazy at home) and being "unprayerful" and "routine" in Bible study (that's changed?). The Bible reading that day was Matthew 20:20-29 Zebedee's mother asking for her sons to sit either side of Jesus in his kingdom (I think I used to just read the next bit - never too long - not follow a scheme). Instead of my usual waffle by way of comment I have the frank "I cannot understand this Scripture". Despite that breath of fresh air I soon get back to waflle and prove my earlier comment was true. My statement "the chiefest amongst us will not only be a minister but a servant also" makes no sense at all. The day in school was not great but in the evening we were shown a film abut the early life of Wesley (the 1954 J Arthur Rank one I guess). That probably prompted the diary writing and a confession at the end of the entry - "I lie, cheat, deceive, steal, mock laze and go against God's will" which sounds bad but I'm sure I was only telling half the story.

Past Diary Jan 14/15 1974

I've let this get behind a little. As it turns out the diary has a gap between the 15th and the next entry on the 25th. So unless a find an alternative from another year soon you'll be spared this for a while. 
On Monday the 14th school had gone better and I was contemplating whether to give up my morning paper round but decided that I needed money for books. At that age I could already see how important books were but was very ignorant and accessing information was not as easy as it is now. I'd just worked out that the concise Matthew Henry is not a great commentary and had decied to buy a multi-volume set with my paper round money (which never happened) and wait until my birthday in May for my wide margin Bible. My friend Chris Buckingham came up that night with a list of 8,000 second hand books (a man in Portadown if I remember correctly) so the task was clearly a huge one.

One feature of the diary is a brief exposition of my reading for the day - usually not very good. Tuesday 15th it was Matthew 8:7-14. School didn't go as well as the day before according to the diary. After school I was with my friend Gwilym again. In the prayer meeting later Mr Garwood moved on to 2 Corinthians 11. We were urged to pray for Andrew Lovell, a member of the church who had gone as a missionary to work among the Aymara in Peru with Irish Baptist Foreign Missions. At that time there was great political instability and he wasn't being allowed to preach, etc.

Past Diary Jan 13 1974

January 13 was the Lord's Day. I wasn't up until 9.30. Mr Garwood's morning text was John 19:38-42. I don't mention the evening one but I did feel rebuked about a lack of intercession. In the afternoon Bible Class was on John 7:45-8:11 so textual questions were to the fore again. Mr G took the view that the text was only omitted from so many texts for fear of encouraging adultery. I still have a great deal of sympathy with that view today. After evening church it was more of the C T Studd tape. At 52 he decides to head to Africa. Between services I read more Bunyan. At the end of the day I'd mislaid my Bible so used my old one - a little tatty but still AV, of course!

Past Diary Jan 12 1974

Saturday mornings at this time was Greek class, as mentioned perhaps. Mr Garwood was taking a few of us through the rudiments. He tested us that Saturday. I had 70% on the grammar and 60% on exegesis (not sure if I'd do very much better now). We studied Mark 1:40-42. There is a textual question in 1:41 over whether Jesus was moved (splanchnistheis) or angry (orgistheis). Cranford (whose commentary we used) goes for angry I notice but Mr Garwood (a good TR man) had gone for moved I noted. Obviously as a 14 year old I didn't have much of an opinion but it was good to be exposed to such issues so early on. In the afternoon I went to town with my friend Stephen and bought a new suit and shoes (and a paper punch) -  brown three piece if I have the right one in mind. We also bought a concise Matthew Henry commentary for the church library with funds collected at the CPBSU. I had my eye on a Study Bible in the Christian Bookshop that I was saving for. In the evening my mam and dad were out assusual so my sister and I spent the evening at the house of friends of theirs as we often did. At last I managed to do some homework - the first mention of doing any that year I notice!

Past Diary Jan 11 1974

In those far off days I used to use a little old alarm clock with a luminous dot for each number. The face would move and on the night of the 10th/11th it being a stormy night I woke at 12.30 am and glancing at the clock got the impression it was 6 O'Clock. I read Matthew 17:14-21 and prayed and had a real shock when I got downstairs and saw the time. I went back to bed and had a fitful sleep until 6 when I headed off to do the paper round through hail, rain, thunder adn lightning. I didn't get back until 8.15 despite the early start but managed to get to school in good time. There is a reference to missing homework next. I was never very good at getting homework done for some reason. I also managed to drop someone's house key into a pool of mud for some reason which led to an anxious time. I think it was found eventually. Friday nights was YPF (Young People's Fellowhip) in those days. We apparently had a blast against evolution from the pastor and then I walked home the girl I had been admiring from afar until then. Her name was Irene and she had perfect skin. It all came to nothing eventually, of course, but I was quite excited.

Past Diary Jan 10 1974

This was a better day with a good early start at 5.45 and not too bad a day in school.  In the evening after doing someone else's evening paper round (second of the day) I headed off to what we called the CPBSU (Christians Prayer and Bible Study Union I believe). At that time there were a lot of young people in the church and we were very eager. Coming to prayer meeting and young people's meeting in the week wasn't enough for us. We had to have an extra meeting. That evening Paul Belcher, a boy three or four years older than me, led the study on the fall of Jericho. At the end of the day I asked myself "What is my Jericho?" and seemed to be able to think of things. It's not a great question really - not much better than the question arising from my own Bible study in Matthew 17 - "if I had been a disciple would Jesus have taken me on the mount?" (of transfiguration). A lot of self-centred subjectivity then but plenty of Bible intake at least.

Past Diary Jan 09 1974

I was up at 7.15 today (about half an hour later each morning so far). Despite a great start with Matthew 16:24-28 the day soon descended. Lots of complaints about my "idleness". I found myself wondering if it would help if I took my Bible with me to school or some Christian literature. I bemoaned my failure to witness. I think I thought that if I could make the diary more spiritual it might help. At this distance "lighten up a bit" is my reaction but I think that then I took myself so seriously such advice would not have gone down well. I think I was aware somehow of Wesley's journals and was trying to mimic that sort of thing.

Past Diary Jan 08 1974

Began the day at 6.30 reading Matthew 16:21-23 (which I returned to at night). back from the paper round by 8 and the off into a "typical sinful schoolday". No details but I was disappointed with myself. Tuesday nights were prayer meeting nights and Mr Garwood was going through 2 Corinthians. He was in Chapter 10 that night. I wrote that "It seems as this year wears on I am not gaining the belssings from the Holy Scriptures I gained before." My solution was to "earnestly and steadfastly pray for guidance of the Holy Spirit in this matter" which is fine. It might have helped if I had realised that a full day at school brings its own pressures.

Past Diary Jan 07 1974

I was up at 5.50 to read the next bit in Matthew then go off on my paper round. I got back at 7.50 and had a bath. After tidying my room (I was quite neat as a boy) I headed off to school (late start as it was a new term). That didn't go too well it seems. After a week of having nothing to do and not being with unbelievers I suddenly came back to reality and didn't like it. I watched TV all evening which didn't help either and headed tio bed at 10 rather fed up with it all. I like this very seventies line "After school, I went to hear my friend Gwilym's cassette recorder adn returned home at 5.15 pm."

Past Diary Jan 06 1974

So the first Sabbath in 1974. I got up at 9.30 and went to bed at 10 (or arose and retired at those times as I tended to do in those days!). I packed in plenty in between. Derek Garwood, our pastor, preached in the morning on Revelation 21:1-7, led a Bible study in the afternoon on John 7 then preached on Joshua 4:14 in the evening. I was there for it all and the after church young people's group where we listened to part 2 of a series of tapes on 19th century missionary C T Studd. Things seem to have degenerated a bit after that, the young people being a bit silly it seems (I complain of worldliness!). In between all this I managed to read Matthew 16:6-12 twice; an article on prayer from The War Cry (I think my dad had brought it back to me from their night out where some SA chap had sold it to them); the church magazine (which mentioned some books I thought I should buy but the books are not itemised); a bit more of the Bunyan biography.

Past Diary Jan 05 1974

This was the day of the Greek test. Our minister was trying to teach some of us some NT Greek. I also spent some time helping sort out the church library. I was looking forward to the Sabbath the next day. Didn't go to bed until midnight though (my parents used to be out until then).