Acquiring the faith in 1946 was a process that lasted a year and a half and was predated by two circumstances that probably had an influence which outlasted the years of belief one was that I happened to have an uncle who – despite never going near a church even at Christmas – was a quite remarkably good man, and the other was that apart from the conventional influences of my Anglican school I was brought up in a fundamentally pagan and easygoing home.

No doubt because of this nominally religious background, when the faith did impinge on my adolescence it was all the more virulent – there had been no saving inoculation. Certainly it was quite unlike anything I had previously come across.