About thirty years ago I foolishly let my then husband take some pornographic photographs of me <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My instincts told me not do do so at the time but I did not want to seem stuffy to the man I thought I loved <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard assured me that he would develop them himself and keep no copies <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were for our sexual pleasure only <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How wrong I was because as soon as my back was turned he popped down to the local branch of Super Snaps to have them developed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would have screamed if I had know this as I did not want to share my erotic parts with complete strangers who might take copies<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it got worse much much worse so bad that I contemplated harming myself<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short our photographs became confused with another set of photographs and were given to the wrong person <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This person was the vicar of our local church Stephen Hathaway who I knew well as my parents had been members of the congregation of St James since I was small<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How did I become aware of this you might ask <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was easy as Stephen recognised me and contacted me to explain what had happened <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of receiving photographs of the recent summer garden party he had been given our pornographic photographs in error <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I cried immediately on the telephone and actually held a burning cigarette in my open hand until I screamed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shame was overwhelming <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephen asked if I would be good enough to meet him so that he might return my photographs and chat to him if I so desired <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He assured me that I had not committed a sin and God was not angry with me<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Far from it <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We met far away from the church <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he thought it would be better that way <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we met in a park in Bristol <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At first I could not meet his gaze <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he told me that posing for such photographs was not a sin <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I had been wearing my clothes would we be having the same conversation <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He even said that my husband had been silly and that was all <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although I chatted to him for quite a while I cannot remember what exactly was said <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was in a daze<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephen did say that pornography was a much overused word and that if anything was pornographic then war and other forms of abuse filled the box easily and angered God <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He handed the photographs back to me in a plain envelope and advised me to destroy them<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We parted and I burnt the photographs that evening without telling my husband who I believed thought they were lost <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The worst thing was that I suspected that this secretly excited him<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A couple of months passed and then out of the blue Stephen rang me and in a brief exchange said that he wanted to discuss something with me <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought that now my emotions were not so raw I was going to be given advice or further guidance <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was far from the truth <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For when I met him on the same park bench he appeared to have been weeping <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His eyes were dull and red <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked him what was wrong <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he was not worthy of being my friend <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And did not deserve to have comfort in the House of God <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This had troubled him for a number of years <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephen then told me a story dating from his time in the Midlands <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He told me that he had met his lovely wife Linda in Stoke <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew her but did not know her well as she was often very quiet <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This I thought was down to shyness <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How mistaken I was <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short Stephen had met Linda at a dance and although she was in a relationship with one of Stephens friends they hit it off straight away <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They began meeting in secret and after a while things became sexual <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He tried to fight his desires but was weak of flesh and so was she <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then his friend found out and in an act of extreme kindness gave the couple his blessing and wished them happiness even though he was broken of heart <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a period of reflection and pain they married as at the time they were much younger and were unsure of God’s actual purpose <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They brought Adam and David into the world and slowly they began to forgive themselves <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then something really dreadful happened as Stephen’s dear friend committed suicide <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He left a note which although cryptic read<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have faded and this is the best way
I once knew true love but lost it
I am not at peace with myself
Or more importantly God <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephen said that this destroyed him and for a while his relationship with Linda suffered as they both felt dirty <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In time through Stephen’s shadow guidance Linda began to live with herself <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Stephen never did although he hid it well <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was offered a church in Bristol and as he put it they ran away <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They buried their past <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet God was quiet <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was only when the theatre of my idiocy was revealed to him that he realised that after a number of years of silence God as speaking to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He asked me to forgive him <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said that I would but was I worthy of such a task <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that I was more than worthy <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I forgave him <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for a while quite discreetly we wept together <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About thirty years ago I foolishly let my then husband take some pornographic photographs of me My instincts told me not do do so at the time but I did not want to seem stuffy to the man I thought I loved Richard assured me that he would develop them himself and keep no copies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13999"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14002,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13999\/revisions\/14002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}