From my Autobiography: Birth

 Birth

Rain, it seems, has always been a comfort to me.

Many’s the time I’ve gazed out the window to watch tiny droplets splatter against the glass, and then trickle down in haphazard pathways to pool on the sill like miniature ponds and lakes.

During such times, my imagination took flight, and carried me to other worlds, other times, and other realities.

As a teenager—and even later in life during stressful times—I found that fantasies, dreams, and visions often became an escape from, or an alternative to, my real life, a way to deal with circumstances over which I felt I had no control.

I didn’t realize, then, that such times are meant for our growth as human beings—for the strengthening of our characters; the communion of our spirits with that of the Creator; and to give us wisdom and understanding as we seek answers to the questions of Life.

Even now, so many years later, I tend to forget that.

However, on my birth day, a strong afternoon shower hammered against the windowpanes of my mother’s recovery room in Moorland’s Maternity Home. 

She lay on her bed with my tiny body nestled in the crook of her arm, my soft gums tugging hungrily at her teat.

Only a few minutes earlier at 2:40 p.m., spirit and soul and body entered the world to be named as Michael Woodhead and, two days later, to be registered as such in the sub-district known as Rawtenstall.

Mum and me

Many are the small hamlets, towns, and villages throughout England; some are notable, others not so well known. 

Rawtenstall is, perhaps, one of the latter, although I’ve lately heard that it’s now known for its ‘dry’ ski slopes. 

Despite its apparent self-deprecating name [rotten stall?], nonetheless, it was my birthplace in the northwestern county of Lancashire.

This part of England can appear both depressingly bleak and yet strikingly beautiful at the same time. 

Its rolling, hilly moors with its often blustery and wet weather oftentimes evoke the adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective, Sherlock Holmes, particularly his hunt for the Baskerville hound. 

And a myriad of motion picture and television productions often mirror life in its quaint cottages, bustling factories, and cities, oftentimes with rows of adjoined homes.

Here, too, mysterious mansions and ancient ruins give rise to a multitude [and occasionally true] tales of hauntings, murders, and vanished people.

But such things I was not to learn until much later in life. 

And even though I’ve been away from my birthplace for so long, English blood still flows through my veins, and the spirit of the English soil ever calls to me, a siren song to which I must one day succumb, be I living or be I dead.

Our address at that time was in Stacksteads in one of the adjoined homes about which I spoke. Judging from a picture I’ve seen, it doesn’t appear to be as congested as many others.

From some of the information I have, my mum and her sister, Alice, must have lived at this address before/during World War II. Then, when Alice married, she probably moved out to be with her husband, after which our family lived here for several years.