HOW  TO  TRY  WITHOUT  REALLY  SUCCEEDING.

The autobiography of a man brain-damaged at birth

his frustrations, his accomplishments and spiritual insights.

Over the years many people have referred to me as a

‘stubborn old bugger’,

but I would inform them that I was also a

‘stubborn young bugger’.

My approach to life is perfectly summed up in this little poem my friends’ mother, Mrs. Mark, used to encourage me with.

“He started to sing,

as he tackled the thing,

that couldn’t be done,

and he did it!”

Dear reader,

     At the end of each chapter of my life story, I have introduced spiritual reasonings and inspirational lessons.  These are reasonings and lessons which have affected my life and made me the man I am today.

     For the reader who is interested only in facts, the parts, which I call my lessons, may be ignored.

                                   Charles Irwin.

Chapter  1  -  SURVIVAL

     “I’ve changed my mind!  I’ve changed my mind!  I don’t want to go.”  I have a vague memory of making this cry from a railway carriage as I was stolen from my parents by authoritarians.  

     I was five years old when the authorities decreed I had to be placed in a home for children.  Their decision was final and all avenues of appeal against it were exhausted when my father, to soften the blow of parting, talked me into what he described as an adventure.  It was not until the train began to move and the realisation came that I was leaving my parents forever, that I made my plaintiff cry: "I've changed my mind."

     When I arrived at the home my world changed, never to be the same again.  My loving mother and my fun-filled father were gone and in their place were grown-ups I did not know.  I did not understand what was going on.  There were lots of crippled children, but why was I there with them?  Okay, I couldn’t walk very far without falling over.  I shook uncontrollably most of the time for no apparent reason.  I couldn’t speak very clearly.  But, I’d been like this all my life, for me it was normal.  So, what am I doing here?

    My memories of that period when I was institutionalised are few and far between, but now, over sixty-five years later, I still tend to be an emotional hermit.  But let me tell you the whole story.

     I was born in 1932 in London, during the Depression.  My father was a bricklayer when he could get work.  My mother was a shop-girl who worked at Marks & Spencer - she started work with them when they were the ‘Penny Bazaar’.  She was so small she needed to stand on a box behind the counter in order to serve customers.  My mother had small hips, therefore when my journey into this incarnation began it was by a difficult route.  So difficult, assistance was needed in the form of forceps, which unfortunately slipped, resulting in damage to my brain.  Apparently I was a ‘blue’ baby - starved of oxygen during birth - quite feeble and not a good feeder.  I was put on the bottle almost immediately as my mother had no milk, possibly due to the poor nutrition of the times.  My father would try to feed me with the bottle, watching for the slightest bubble which would indicate milk had moved from bottle to baby ‘Bobby’.  Eventually I took nourishment and survived, although since then it has never been difficult for me to take nourishment and I have been known as a ‘good trencherman’.

     The slipped forceps damaged the nerves controlling the movements of my right arm and leg, made my speech slurred and caused my whole body to shake uncontrollably.  When I was old enough to walk, I walked on my toes with my left foot turned in.  Falling over constantly after a few steps was my normal way of progressing, sometimes after only three steps.  I was lucky to walk across an average size room without falling at least once.  My right arm shook uncontrollably.  I would hold it behind my back in order to keep it still.  My right hand was clenched with the thumb inside, I could hold things, or hold onto them, but had very little control over its movement.  My left hand was reasonably normal, but would shake a bit making it difficult to perform fine or delicate tasks.  Imagine a boy shuffling along on tip toe; one foot turned in; knees knocking with either bandages or scabs on them; right arm tucked up behind his back, bobbing along - that’s how I looked when walking.  For me to hold a cup of liquid without slopping and spilling it everywhere was almost unheard of.  For many years I maintained I did not like tea to drink.  This was not true.  When offered a cup of tea, it was acceptable to say I didn’t like tea, I would ask for water instead.  In this way I could go to the tap and help myself, which I could drink over the sink where spillages would not do any harm.  It wasn’t until I went camping with the Scouts I started to accept tea because there it didn’t matter if I spilled it, it was only on the ground.

     I was christened Herbert Charles Frederick, Herbert (after my father) Charles (after my mother’s father) Frederick (after the man in whose house I was born).  Despite this I was always known as and called Bobby or Bob until about a year after I had been in Australia when I started using my middle name Charles.  This was after I had done some study of Numerology. The anomaly with my name was due to my father’s dogmatic Yorkshire/Aquarian personality meeting that of my stubborn Cockney/Taurean mother.  My  mother wanted me christened Robert, but my father had a cousin from the ‘toffee-nosed’ branch of his family named Robert and there was no way he was going to be seen copying them.  Names were put into a hat and out came ----- Robert!   Still Dad would not concede.  Although christened Herbert Charles Frederick, I was always called Bobby or Bob by both parents and everyone who knew me.

     When I was about two years old, my grandfather (old father Preedy - my mother’s father) noticed there was something not quite right with the way I behaved and moved.  Then began the round of doctors and hospitals which was heartbreaking for my mother - it was by all accounts not such a great experience for me either, as after a time I would scream in terror whenever I saw someone in a white coat.  All doctors in those days wore white coats.  Apparently there was one doctor who would remove his white coat when seeing me.  The only clear memory I have, is of having what looked like a knitting needle being stuck into my right arm.  The mark is still there 68 years later.  When they told my mother her little Bobby had brain damage and was a ‘cripple’ can you imagine how she felt?  According to her - devastated!  The way home from the hospital led to one of the London bridges across the river Thames.  She stopped halfway across with the intention of  SPLASH!! end of story for both of us.  She hesitated.  The thought of a man crippled by polio.  Who had suceeded despite his disability and become President of America, came into her mind.  She walked on thinking,

“If F.D. Roosevelt can succeed, so can my Bobby!”  

When my father arrived home that afternoon my mother was on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor, filling the bucket with her tears as she did so.   

“What’s the matter Peg?”  

“Oh Bert! our little Bobby’s a CRIPPLE!”  

“Well Peg, even if he is, there is one thing we are not going to do.  We are not going to be ashamed and hide him away.  He will come everywhere with us.”  

He was as good as his word.  I went everywhere with them when I was young and have fantastic memories of fun times.  One of my favourites was, when I must have been about three or four, being at the Wimbledon Palais de Dance and my father danced me around the floor while I stood on his feet.  He was a real Yorkshire man, proud of his son.  

     Someone suggested that the doctor who delivered and injured me should be sued.  My father retorted,

“He was a man doing his best and he made an honest mistake.  He knows what not to do in future.  He doesn’t need to be sued, our son will be looked after”.

     Apart from the dramas of hospital visits and tests on my physical body my early childhood was magnificent, with lots of fun.  As well as the physical tests, there were visits to the psychiatrist for mental assessment.

“Well young man, can you tell me what horses are made of?”

“Skin and hair”.

“Very good indeed”.

“There is nothing wrong with your child’s intellect Mrs Irwin, he is an intelligent boy.  It is only the motor control of his right side which is damaged, resulting in partial paralysis of his right side, combined with a palsy which causes uncontrollable shaking of his right arm, which affects his whole body”.

That was that out of the way.  I had a brain which was damaged, I could think clearly and communicate (even though my speech was slurred), but I could not walk very far without falling over.  Because I could not walk more than 15 or 20 yards, I would be taken out in a push-chair.  My mother’s youngest sister Pat would take me out and we would ‘get lost’ exploring different neighbourhoods around where we lived.  I was still being pushed around when I was seven and half, after I had been released from Queen Elizabeth’s Home for Children.  I can pinpoint this age exactly.  My grandmother had me out shopping in my wheelchair along Bedford Hill.  She was looking in H. Samuel the jeweller’s window when I told her very secretively to back the chair up, which she did.  I then reached down and picked up a ten shilling note (a small fortune - the average weekly wage was about fifty shillings a week).  With this ten shillings I bought a green suit to attend my aunty Ada’s wedding.  All in all I felt and looked terrific.  I still have a photo’ of me kissing Margaret the flower girl.  

     By the time I was three or so, my father was in regular work and owned a motor-bike with a sidecar - my domain.  As a family of three, dad driving, with mum on the back and me in the sidecar, we would go out for weekend drives; Camber Sands was a favourite destination.  On one occasion when I was playing in the sea, my father encouraged me to venture out a little - I did, and promptly stepped into a hole and was out of my depth - splutter! splutter!  It took me quite a time to not fear going into the water again.  I suppose this episode indicated how my father treated me as a ‘normal’ boy.  We usually made a weekly visit to a Music-Hall; Kingston Empire; Brixton Empress; Chelsea Palace.  Some of my favourite acts were Billy Bennett; the Two Leslies; Max Miller; Wee Georgie Wood; Two-Ton Tessie O’Shea.  As a littley I could laugh, still can, and people would turn to look at me, still do.  My sense of the ridiculous helped many a struggling act I am sure.  I inherited this sense from my mother.  My Yorkshire granny used to say in her Yorkshire dialect,

“Peg’s laugh.  EEE!! she e’n made blooody Frankenstein laugh!”  

This arose from a family visit to a theatre in Yorkshire to see the play Frankenstein.  When the monster appeared, my mother saw this great big gawmless fellow trying to be scary and she got the giggles.  The poor actor playing the monster caught the giggles and had to take a turn around the stage to compose himself before he could carry on.  I’ve not managed a feat like this yet, but have come close!

     We lived in a flat at 57a Heaton Rd, Mitcham, Surrey.  In the flat downstairs lived Mr & Mrs Brown, their son Alan and dog Toby, a wire-haired-terrier.  The Browns used to look after me sometimes.  Alan was about eight while I was threeish.  It must have been a pain for him to look after me.

“Hello Bobby, where have you been?”

“I’ve been on Figgs Marsh (open common land) with Alan and his friends, dad.”

“What did you do?”

“I played football with them.”

“Which position did you play in?”

“I sat on the coats.”

Then, as I presume now, when playing football kids put their coats on the ground to mark the goal posts.

My  SURVIVAL  Lesson

     Contemplating my entry into this incarnation.  From where I am now, I am able to formulate various scenarios regarding it.  

At the moment of my conception, my soul knew of the difficulties my mother would experience while giving birth to a child.  Therefore chose to be born to my parents as a soul in a damaged physical body.

The forceps slipping during my birth delivery was an unforseen accident, as was the subsequent struggle for life by the delivered child.  During my struggle for life, my present soul took over from the soul which had originally chosen my parents to fulfil its karmic requirements.

However it was organized at birth, the result is I AM here NOW.  My soul/spirit has experienced much during the sixty-eight years it has inhabited this damaged physical body on its way to fulfilling the contract it made with spirit prior to incarnation.

     My gut feeling is I am a ‘walk in’.  When the soul which had chosen my parents as its vehicle to incarnate through, found the physical body had been damaged due to an accident, it returned to the Soul Pool.  Instead of the soul leaving the damaged  body and the baby dying, my soul - which was waiting in the Soul Pool for an appropriate vehicle to incarnate into - exchanged places i.e., ‘walked in’.  This is one explanation for the lack of feeding and lethargy during the first few days of my life.  

     Recently I have become aware of the contract I entered into for completion during this incarnation, which I shall share with you.  I feel, and deep within me ‘know’, it is my contract to alter the Mind-set of the Collective Consciousness of mankind.  This I will achieve, with help from the Angelic realm and through my own affirmations.  The human body was designed to rejuvenate and regenerate itself, evidenced by the way damaged tissue is repaired and the Biblical record of people living hundreds of years.  My affirmations will expound this and effect repair to the nerves in my brain which were damaged during the birth process.  The repair of this damage will allow total control of my limbs, thereby straightening them and allowing normal mobility and use.  Also because I have no Mind-set about getting older, or an age at which I shall ‘pop my clogs’, I shall look and become younger until my contract is completed and I decide to ascend (You Ascend when your Divine Plan, or contract is fulfilled in selflessness).    This will be achieved.  Through the youth hormone continuing to work efficiently and effectively, while the death hormone has been banished from my body.  Both these are brought about through affirmations.

     Why have I had to live my life as a disabled person and not use the repair kit at an ealier age?  I feel the answer to this question lies in the Before and After demonstration.  Many people know me as a disabled person and have seen what I have managed to achieve as such.  It is now time for me to start working on the nitty-gritty part of my contract - becoming normal.  It is only recently I have had the revelation from a ‘knowing’ within me, becoming ‘normal’ without a disability is my GREATEST FEAR.  It is now time for me to face my fear.  

     I feel when we recognize our greatest fear, we recognize the substance of the contract we have made for this incarnation.