Memories from an ageing Pagan...

I’ve been a witch ever since childhood. I was raised that way. But even so, people are often surprised that I know as much about Christianity as many Christians. Actually, this isn’t all that odd. In my day (which was further back than I sometimes care to remember), pagans and witches took care to blend into the wallpaper. Going into school and asking to be excused from RE lessons or morning assemblies was the peacetime equivalent of poking your head above a trench in the Somme just to look at the view: not only dangerous but totally unnecessary.

Not that I was brought up with tales of the ‘Burning Times’ or stories about great-great-something-aunts being hanged, boiled or burned for hexing a neighbour’s goat. Far from it. My lot were far too clever to get caught. If they wanted to hex their neighbours I suspect they’d have made a bloody good job of it and ensured nobody even guessed what was going on.

Half the time my mother in particular would not even admit that anything supernatural existed.

‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I’d ask, and her eyes would narrow like arrow slits in a castle wall.

‘Of course not, don’t be silly.’

‘What about witches?’

‘That’s just an old wives’ tale. Have you made your bed this morning?’

‘Yes. What about…’ But I was never given chance to finish my questions because there would be that look again and I’d know that I’d crossed the invisible line of what was permitted and what was not. Even in the house, the silence was rarely broken.

Learning the Craft was all very subtle. ‘Nature walks’ were particularly popular because little hints could be dropped into the conversation like seeds, and left to take root. Of course if you weren’t interested the whole thing just passed over your head. But I was very, very interested indeed, and the slow pace of the lessons used to annoy me no end. I knew there was more to learn. And as I grew up I realized the truth of what my grandmother used to say, ‘There is always more to learn.’

Although not a witch, my father had an amazing occult library and a passion for science, especially alchemy. He kept chemicals in the kitchen on a shelf above the tapioca, and dark ridged bottles with a skull on the label denoted the poisons. Modern childcare gurus would probably have had a fit.

My father also taught me how to dowse. On one of his rare days off from his job selling furniture, he would take me out and teach me the various methods, but he was always much more open and direct about things than my mother’s family.

‘Hazels are best if you want to dowse for water,’ he’d say, taking his knife and cutting a forked twig. ‘But you must respect the tree. Just take what you need, no more.’

We would spend hours wandering the fields, looking for underground streams and buried treasure. Years later he bought a metal detector but he always swore he got his best results with a hazel twig. He even bet on the horses using a pendulum!

As a family we also wandered in country lanes carrying brown paper bags to collect nuts, berries and flowers for whatever country wine my father was in the midst of making. I had to keep quiet about it, however, because back in those days home brewing got you on the wrong side of Customs and Excise. (It still can, but only if you try to sell it!)

In late summer, early autumn we all went out mushrooming. Armed with an ancient Field Guide, my father gathered together me and a group of my friends, handed out cardboard trugs (cadged from the local grocers) and proceeded to lecture us: ‘This is a field mushroom. Look in fairy rings for them, and also near cow pats. Do not step in shit because if you do your mothers will give me a row. Do not pick anything with a long thin spindly stalk. Do not pick puffballs – they are edible but I don’t like them. Do not wander into the woods and pick anything. Do not under any circumstances pick this (here he showed us a picture of a Death Cap). If you eat this you will die – there is no antidote. If in doubt come and ask me.’

And all the while, back in school, I sang hymns alongside my friends, wrote essays for my RE homework and generally fitted in. Looking back, I think it probably did me good. I got to see things from both sides, and as I grew older I began to see the benefit in this approach. It gave me a sense of balance. I didn’t grow up – as so many did – feeling that mine was the only way. I knew, right from the beginning that belief comes in many shapes and forms, that there were choices, and also that I could be friends with people who didn’t share my own beliefs.

This wasn’t always reciprocated, however. I often waited for years before telling them I was a Pagan; most weren’t surprised, having long ago sussed that there was something a bit different about me. Some, I have to admit, fled. Some still do.

Occasionally however, the family’s silence was sorely tested. For example, one year the annual Christmas Carol Concert was held in the local Church instead of the School Hall. My mother turned up, dressed to kill, accompanied by a few of her sisters. This in itself was ominous. Mother on her own was one thing. Mother with an audience was quite another.

‘You will be all right, won’t you?’ I asked, tugging at her sleeve and rattling her great gold charm bracelet. Most of the fathers who attended were already looking our way. Not surprising, really. She was fairly stunning. Like Joan Crawford trying to play Medea.

‘Don’t be silly.’ She fixed her stare on the vicar. ‘Can you smell hot rum?’

The poor man turned bright red and looked away. Rumor had it he’d fallen off the chancel steps, drunk, at the Harvest Festival a few months previously. Stories like that travel fast round a small town. My Aunty patted me on the shoulder and smiled. ‘We’ll be fine, dear. Don’t worry.’

And at first it seemed she was right. The Church was all dressed up with holly, ivy and Christmas roses. We sang various carols; some children read, others sang solos, while above it all, my mother’s bracelet jangled as she fidgeted to show how bored she was.

Near the end, just before the final carol, the collection plate went round, eventually reaching the Vicar who took it and advanced towards the altar with his back to us. In a loud but quivering voice, he gave thanks, said a prayer and soon we were all on our way to the strains of ‘O come all ye Faithful.’

But my mother wasn’t finished. As the other parents waited for their offspring outside the church, she was almost incandescent with rage and turned to her sisters. ‘Did you see that?’ Her voice could have woken the dead that lined the path to the lych gate. ‘Did you? He took all our money off us and then gave it to the bloody wall!’