Bierton Strict And Particular Baptists, A Testimony of David Clarke

224 Catherine Zeta-Jones All such experiences and more are to be related as my story unfolds and I hope they will be of help to any reader who has the same experiences or knows some one who may be suffering from manic depression.

I Work at Fareham College At this time I applied for a job at Fareham College and was offered a place. I took up the position in September 1988 and I believed this was God’s provision.

The Principal at that time was Mr John MacNab and the Vice Principal was Derek Feber, with Pam Robertson as the Bursar. I discovered later that Derek Feber was a Christian and helped with the Christian Union at the College.

It was a very fair interview and I believe the College selection process was very good in that it was truly an “Open Opportunities College”. My record from Luton College was either acknowledged to be good or ignored or kept secret. Mike Pease, Head of Division, and Geoff Whitefield, Principal Lecturer, selected me for the post at Fareham College, on the strength of my own presentation.

A record was later made in my personal file of my former stay in Borstal, and conviction of possessing a firearm without a license at the age of 18 years.

I was very please to get the job but this meant another move and involved the difficulty in selling our house. I had to move into lodgings in Fareham.

This was another Snailbeach situation, living in lodgings and travelling home at weekends. I missed being a father to my kids and living in my own home. This lasted for a further 18 months until we finally sold our house in Graham Gardens. During this time I was under a cloud of depression even though it was controlled through Lithium (Priodel). I was also, on reflection, experiencing the other symptoms, which accompany manic or bipolar depression.

Before I left to work at Fareham College, we were walking one day in the countryside on the Dunstable Down, and I saw for the first time in years, an erotic magazine that had been left by the wayside. My normal practice would be to turn away and not look at such a magazine but on this occasion I was tempted to look. The effect of these pictures were so great that I could not get them out of my mind and they followed me and were retained as erotic images for years to come. I did not resist this temptation and proved to be my downfall at a later date.

My wife had decided she would like to return to full time education and she took up the offer of a place on a degree course in Cultural Studies, at