Heather Bellamy spoke with Arthur Wakelin about his journey of faith and how he and his wife coped with health challenges including prostate cancer and septicaemia.

Arthur: I left school at 15. I left school on the Friday and my summer holiday was Saturday and Sunday, because on the following Monday I started work at a place called Midland Rail Makers in Crewe. I started there as an apprentice fitter and turner. I didn't particularly want the job. I wanted to go to art school, but that's another story. My dad got me this apprenticeship, so you do what your dad tells you to do. I spent some time in the factory there and I got my leg pulled in all sorts of ways, but I had some amazing conversations with some of the older men there.

Heather: What were you saying about art? Are you quite an arty person? Is that drawing or painting?

Arthur: Well, drawing and painting; but if you don't use it you lose it. I try and do a bit now and again, but not as much as I used to do.

Heather: So where did being a Methodist minister come in then?

Arthur: It was while I was doing my apprenticeship at Rail Makers. Cycling home one night I felt God calling me to the Methodist ministry. I didn't go home; I went straight to see Eric Challenor. He said, 'You need to have your O Levels.' I said, 'Well, I haven't got any of them.' He said, 'You'll have to go to night school and get them.' So I decided this maybe wasn't the way for me. I didn't want to go back to school. I hated school, so I let it lie for a bit. Then when Muriel and I got married we went to live at Mow Cop and went to Mow Cop Pentecostal church, the Assemblies of God and through that I became a Home Missions Worker with the Assemblies of God and I served in Sandbach for a while and Whitchurch; sort of pastor of two little works they'd started through crusades. Then to cut a long story short, we moved back to Alsager and I went back to the Methodist church.

Heather: With going back to the Methodist church, was there still the obstacle of needing the O Levels?

Arthur: Oh, yes, I'm coming to that. I resumed my local preacher's studies. I'm the longest person 'on trial' as a local preacher; I must be. I started when I was about 18 and finished in 1989.

Heather: So does that mean that you are being trained to preach?

Arthur: Yes, that's what I was doing, but I didn't need that in the Assemblies of God, you see. I went back and I candidated. I went to a ministries day at Cliff College and that settled it. I asked that question, 'As a mature student, (by this time I was 45) do I still need these O levels?' They said, 'Oh yes, you need those.' Bill Davies who was principle at Cliff College said, 'Well, you can come here and get those.' We'll set a programme out for you so you can get them. I wrote to the local LEA and they don't give grants for places at theological college; teacher training college, yes, theological college, no. So different people raised the money to get me to Cliff College and off I went to do this training.

Arthur and his long lost sister

Heather: How did you handle that training? How many years was it?

Arthur: One year at Cliff College. I got these four GCSE's, two A's and two B's and re-took my local preacher's exams. One of the grades I'd got in the old system was too low, so I took the new Faith and Worship course and got through that and was candidated from the circuit, which was a year long thing. I went through the church, through the circuit, through district and was questioned about this and that. I went to the final candidates committee in Manchester, which was a 24 hour process and I was thinking I'd really stuffed this one up, well and truly, but I hadn't. A guy on my committee said to me the following morning after I had spoken to the committee, 'How do you feel?' and I said, 'I know I've failed." He said he couldn't tell me that I was ok, but he said that we need working class people like you in the ministry. He'd got this twinkle in his eye. The truth was I'd actually been successful.

Heather: How did you feel in passing that?

Arthur: It was very challenging to do the candidating process, but then I'd got to go to college for two years. I went to Queens College, which is an ecumenical college shared with the Anglican's, URC and the Methodists. It was interesting.

Heather: So how's it been? Do you feel it was the right decision all these years later?