Heather Bellamy spoke with David Carr about overcoming phobias, dyslexia and going on to work with footballers and pastor a church.

David Carr

David Carr has had a colourful life; from working as a bouncer, to working in finance with footballers and he is currently the senior pastor of Renewal Christian Centre in Solihull and Bishop Abbot of The Order of St Leonard's. He's also released his autobiography - A Life of Two Halves. Heather Bellamy spoke with him to hear his life story.

Heather: So you were born in 1945.

David: Afraid so.

Heather: What was life like growing up after the war?

David: Well it was post-war; the war finished two or three weeks in Europe after I was born. As a child you don't know any different, but rationing was there until I was nine, which to a modern generation means you were given little tickets to buy food and clothing. There was great shortage, but of course you were cocooned from that because your parents tried to protect you. In hindsight you look back and you think there's a lot of poverty in the nation.

Heather: And you suffered a lot of fear and shyness as a child, tell us about that?

David: As a child I had health problems, I had severe sinus trouble where I had my nose broken. I had to go in for operations to save me going blind or deaf. Then I had five major phobias that manifested themselves, which caused me to hyperventilate if I was near water, animals, people, the dark, or doctors. So my life was really messed up with this. Because of dyslexia, which of course we class it as now, but in 1950 when I went to school I was classed as stupid, thick, insolent - all these type of titles, it made my life a living hell for most of my childhood.

Heather: And how did you eventually overcome the fear and dyslexia?

David: It was when I became a Christian. I was a twin and the other died at birth; I didn't realise until only a few years ago speaking to a senior psychiatrist who was in my church that the emptiness and the loneliness and the phobia I had was because I was created as two. Even though I never met my sister, I was the surviving part of a two. Even though my parents loved me I felt worthless and valueless and I was illiterate until I was 18. So when I became a Christian I had a sense of purpose and a sense of worth and it was suddenly a wonderful thought that somebody greater than humans actually loved me and valued me.

Heather: And how did you find faith? How old were you and how did that happen?

David: I'd been brought up in a Christian home and they had a form of faith, but I had anger through being so disadvantaged and I had an uncontrollable temper. I had two brothers older than myself, which made it difficult because they had proven records. One was over 18 hospitals and the other was an architect and I was throwing people out of night-clubs. I said to myself one day, life has got to be more than this. I was so angry, I didn't think I'd ever get married; I didn't think anybody would love me. I just shouted out, "God, if you're real..." I always believed there was a God, I mean I wasn't that stupid - I didn't believe that we just happened. I just said, "If there's a God, change me". I'd like to say it was a superman experience, but what it was, it was like walking out of a surgery on a very cold and wet day when you've been told you've got bronchitis and not lung cancer. I just felt that my problems were not as bad any more as I thought they were.

Heather: You just touched on the fact that you had a job as a bouncer, tell us about your experience as a bouncer. Were you a Christian at that time, or was that all before your faith?

David: That really solidified that I needed a strong faith. I had a belief, but not a faith. A lot of people believe. I believe in the Queen, but I've not met her personally yet.

It made me very hard. A girl I started going out with who is now my wife said that I was very hard. I lived on my nerves. A young lady come up behind me one day and jabbed me in the ribs and I knocked her out. I knocked a guy over a pew in a church once. I was getting very cynical and very hard. I got beat up by four drug addicts one time, which gave me my beautiful looks. The Daily Express once said, "If you sat opposite this man in a carriage would you know what lay behind his much lived in face?" So that really propelled me to having a real genuine faith.