It always seemed to me that my teacher disliked me so much that even thinking about me drove her into a shrieking vindictive fury, a fury that she was more than happy to vent on my parents by informing them that I was retarded. It was a depressing and nearly unbearable experience at the age of four to wake each morning, and have to go to school to be shouted at, beaten, and told that I was born inherently evil and could only be redeemed if I did what God told me.

When I read The Ecstasy Of Owen Muir at the age of 14 what stood out was the opulence, vanity and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. How, I wondered, had it become so much bigger than its boots? And how had Catholicism become such a schmick business, such a powerful entity, such a gross version (in my mind at least) of the doctrine of Christ?