Heather Bellamy spoke with Paul Poulton

Paul Poulton

Paul Poulton is a singer/songwriter whose passionate love of music was birthed when he was only four years old through watching his Dad play. Having played thousands of concerts that love hasn't waned and he released his latest album Words earlier this year. His love for God has been the other mainstay of his life, not only providing the focus for his music, but also where he found the answer to his infertility. Heather Bellamy spoke with him to find out more.

Heather: Paul we've just been talking about a really hard time in your life in your twenties when you were ill and it really defined a lot of those years, limiting what you were able to do. Did you have girlfriends in that time; did you have a social life or was there just no energy for anything?

Paul: I did have some good friends and I was also married at the time as well, but I didn't get strength from that marriage; that didn't help me get well at all. It was a really hard time for me physically and emotionally as well. I ended up divorcing my wife because she had been seeing another guy. That's always hard to go through. I was a bit of a dead duck at the time; I couldn't get out working properly; I couldn't provide much money. The man is supposed to be the provider and stuff like that, but I couldn't earn much money at the time, because I just couldn't get out doing it. I don't think adultery can have any excuses; it's a bad thing to do; but sometimes you can say I can understand, or see why somebody did that.

Heather: What affect did that have on you, because that's an incredibly intense thing to go through? How did you recover from that?

Paul: There is medicine for all things and I think if you get into a good relationship suddenly that helps in a tremendous way. When relationships don't work, we can think, I'll never fall in love again. We do think like that sometimes; I've met people like that; but I don't think like that. I think if you get into a good relationship with someone it's a fantastic thing and its medicine and it helps you get strong.

Heather: And is that what happened to you?

Paul: Yes, that's what happened to me. I met Lorraine who's my wife now and we've been married 22 years, coming up 23 years and we feed off each other and we give each other strength. Although we sometimes have a volatile relationship; we've got our own opinions about things, but that's good because we learn from each other.

Heather: So how did you guys meet?

Paul: It was a blind date actually. Some friends of mine were going out for a meal and they've both got girls and they said, "Do you need a girl if you want to come"? So I said, "Ok" and I happened to be in a music shop at the time and the guy who owned the music shop says, "Oh I know a girl, she's a nice girl and she's just come back from America; she started coming to my church, do you want me to fix it up"? I said, "Yeah ok then" and that was how we met. I went up the garden path and knocked on the door and she said, "Hey come in" and I said, "Ok" and that was it. We fell in love straightaway.

Heather: So were you able to trust each other having come from betrayal?

Paul: Lorraine had had a similar experience as well, so we were very cagey with each other at first, because you think if somebody's going to be unfaithful, you think everybody will. That's not true; it's grossly untrue. There are a lot of people who are faithful, but at first you're not sure and you think is this person going to hurt me? It was very tentative and we nearly didn't get married at one stage because we were both so twitchy about the whole thing, but we did and we're glad we did. Even at the wedding reception we were sitting there and Lorraine was saying, "Who are those two women there"? "They shouldn't be on that table, on the top table with us". I said, "They're my aunties" and she said, "Oh ok". I thought I hope I've done the right thing. Sometimes we have to leap out and trust God because marriage is a bit of a leap. It's worked out great for both of us; we've loved it and we often look back and laugh about how twitchy we were about each other.

Heather: Do you have kids?

Paul: Lorraine and I were told that we couldn't have kids. I thought it was probably me, but when we went to the hospital they did want to test Lorraine as well; but I was sure it was me because I'd been ill for such a long time. They tested me and they said, "You've got nothing that really works well. Your sperms don't swim like they should and you've hardly got any of them; you need millions" and they weren't able to swim. They said, "There's nothing we can do for you; we can't even get enough out to do IVF, because you need a certain amount of sperms".

We prayed about it and we went to hear a guy called Reinhard Bonnke in Birmingham who was doing his outdoor event. I took my neighbour with me. He brought his Ma, because I'd sometimes go to gigs with him and he lived next door but one. I said, "Do you want to come to hear Reinhard Bonnke"? He said, "Oh Reinhard Bonnke, is that like a band"? I said, "Well no, although there will be a band there". He came and he brought his mum. We were all standing there at the edge of the crowd and Reinhard Bonnke said, "Now there are some people here who've been told that they can't have children. I want to pray for you". He also said other things like there are people here who've got bad back pains; somebody's got a problem with their kidneys and all that stuff. Then he said, "All those people I've mentioned, I want you to put your hand on the affected part of your body". I thought that's awkward, because I've got my neighbour here, but I kind of tried to distract their attention a bit because I thought I want to do this because I think he's talking about us. I managed to do the necessary and it wasn't long after that that Lorraine came downstairs one day with this little bottle of what looked like diluted orange juice and she said I'm taking this up the health centre because I think I'm expecting a baby. I said, "Wow great let's go". We went off up there and they came back and they said, "You're expecting a baby". I laughed and Lorraine cried and it was just such a wonderful thing, because we had been trying to have a baby for seven years and going to these hospitals and paying money as well.