Diana's Bio
I cannot recall a time I did not believe in God. For the first fifty odd years of my life I was Church of England. Granddaughter of a vicar and great niece of two nuns, my great-grandfather had been a verger and my other grandfather led a Baptist Church in Guernsey. I was baptised, went to Sunday school every week, was confirmed in and attended services at the village church. When I left home to train as a nurse in Poole, the first thing I did was join the Nurses’ Christian Fellowship. There was a convenient church next door to the nurses’ home. When I moved on to midwifery in Plymouth, I continued to attend church regularly.
Some years later I transferred to ophthalmic nursing at Moorfields Eye Hospital. There I met both my future husband and the hospital chaplain and his wife. They became close friends and he married us at St Giles in the Fields, where he was curate. My husband was a Christian and at the time attended an Assemblies of God church. My friend the chaplain was given his own living and I transferred with him to St Mary’s, Bryanston Square. I became first secretary to the Parochial Church Council and then a churchwarden. By the time my friend got preferment to Worcester Cathedral, my husband and I had moved to Kingston and I felt I could no longer face the journeys every Sunday.
I tried local churches but none seemed to suit me and I eventually, for the first time in my life, stopped attending. This did not mean I lost my faith as I continued a constant dialogue with the Lord. Life and an extremely busy job running a GP’s Practice began to get on top of me and I sank into a very low mood until eventually I just stopped – I spent several days sitting in the dark, not seeing or talking to anyone but haranguing God about the pointlessness of life. One day I was sitting in front of the television, not really watching but suddenly seeing the door of a Cathedral and on it an engraving of hell. It was as if I was being told this is where you will end up if you do not do something. The following Sunday I went with my husband to his church, New Malden Evangelical Free Church.
That was almost two years ago and here I am still. The people were friendly, kind and accepting, without my knowledge they had been praying for me for a long time and were happy to witness the outcome. I still feel Anglican, I do not pray aloud or wave my arms but I love the fellowship and worship here. Somehow I have ended up writing the weekly notice sheet and I am pretty sure that I will be doing more when Bob Mullins and the Lord have their way.
