Heather Bellamy spoke with Jim Ford about his violent life and his first encounter with Jesus

Jim: Yes I did, because I was this village idiot really; this redneck; this country bumpkin and I didn't know the rules. I quickly found out that the rules - we'll there weren't rules. It was almost, from my perspective anyway, like the survival of the fittest.

Heather: And how did you survive?

Jim: By learning to fight; because I was seen as this village idiot I was encouraged to have a fight with a lot more older boys than I was at the school that I was at. I promptly lost the fight because I just didn't know what to do, but I learned very quickly that you don't do that. I learnt very quickly how to fight and how to defend myself, because I wasn't a small boy, so I learnt very quickly.

Heather: And how did you relate to authority at that time; were you respectful of teachers?

Jim: Not really; no, because the whole trauma of coming here drove me inward and I had no respect for anybody. I felt really, I don't know how to say this, but I felt abandoned; I felt all kinds of things and it was the survival of the fittest for me and I thought authority doesn't come into this.

Heather: Would it be fair to say that you began to instigate fights and it wasn't just self defence?

Jim: Oh yeah. I mean I learnt very quickly that if you had a reputation, then people respected you. I really went into fighting with a vengeance. I can remember one fight I had, the first serious fight I had in that sense, was in a back alley in Hanley and the guy had got a bit of a reputation. He upset me so much that I really hit him and he pulled a knife on me. It was just like one of those western films, but I took the knife off him and did a number on him if you like and dropped the knife down the grid. What I didn't realise was all the people that were watching this, they were going, 'whoa this guy is really cool'. It made me feel good that now I the respect of all these other kids. It went from there really.

Heather: And how old were you then?

Jim: I was only 10.

Heather: And crime started for you quite young as well didn't it?

Jim: Well yeah; that's when I started on this life. You get a reputation and get to know people that are in that kind of sphere and so off I went. I committed my first crime when I was 10 breaking into a warehouse; it was robbery. It was a fruit warehouse and we stole all these crates of apples and sold them. That was the start of the life of crime and violence.

Heather: And how did you feel the first time the police came to your home?

Jim: That's quite an interesting question, because I didn't know what was going on. It was the first crime that I'd committed, but there was also this attitude, well I can't care less anyway; what will happen will happen. I think the nervousness was because I didn't know exactly what would happen when I went to court and I did go to court and I got found guilty.

Heather: For someone that was in an awful lot of trouble and getting in a lot of fights, you were a prefect at one point in school. How did that come about?