We Were Warriors

by Johnny Mercer

Home was not just a physical test to get through; it was also wildly inconsistent. There is no doubt that I can recall some good times, when the clouds would part and the sun would reveal itself. I remember being taken away by my father for a couple of nights in a bed and breakfast; I remember laughing as I jumped on the autumn leaves in the bin, squashing them down so that we could fit more in as we cleared up the garden together. But – and it is a deep regret of mine – these memories were swamped by others less pleasant. My family could embark on a fantastic day out without any cross words, which would end with sudden explosions of temper, for reasons I as a boy simply did not understand, but were usually to do with the impending Sabbath. And yet on the rare occasions I was listening at chapel, I heard tales of qualities which could have changed my life at home: gentleness; peace; forgiveness; children sitting on Jesus’s knee.

  When things were good they were good. When the moments were bad, they were very hurtful and scarring, and it is these memories that endure.

  The first real collision between the 1980s Mercer family and the outside world happened when my two eldest brothers, Neil and Keith, went off to join the Royal Navy. We had a strong family heritage within the Senior Service: Jack ‘Boy’ Cornwell, who was killed winning a VC at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, was a relative of mine. My grandfather was a radio operator in the Second World War. My father then signed up my two older brothers on their sixteenth birthdays and both attended HMS Raleigh in Torpoint, Cornwall, as ratings.

  It is hard to comprehend, yet alone describe on paper, the soul-chilling contrasts that my brothers experienced in the weeks that followed their first days of naval service in the early 1980s. It was tough enough joining back then simply on the grounds that if you didn’t have an eye-patch from the Falklands War you weren’t really worth talking to. Added to that, Royal Navy basic training was famed the world over for being intrusive, destructive and degrading. Tough for your average young man then; indescribable for my brothers, whose upbringing meant they were entirely unequipped for any of it.

  In chapel as children, we were encouraged not to mix with the ‘unbelievers’. School was manageable, in that its influences were necessarily limited – we all went home afterwards. But for Neil and Keith, thrown together with the unbelievers full-time for military basic training and reluctant to tell them that they were going to hell for – amongst other things – not observing the Sabbath, the experience was deeply challenging.

  Venturing beyond the confines of home was a tremendous shock for me and all my siblings, as it became clear to our young minds that not everybody in the world was a Strict Baptist. Shortly after we understood that other people were not the same as us, we realized we were going to have to get on with them anyway – and that these people could actually be our friends. It gradually dawned on us that some of them might be more stable anchors than our own points of reference – our parents or church groups. These ‘friends’ would end up looking out for us and some – as mad as it seemed – would end up loving us. This journey of emotional discovery was both remarkable for us and very hard to understand.

  Neil and Keith were the first to grapple with these issues, and I will never forget the unique and deep challenges they faced, that dull but do not disappear with time.

  In the early 1980s we moved from Dartford to Purley in South London, where my sister Naomi was born, before settling when I was five in Crowborough, East Sussex, the home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

  In Crowborough, my mother had one more daughter – Mary – finally bringing an end to my father’s reproductive efforts. We lived in the old parsonage on the main road running up to Crowborough Cross, which is still there to this day. The two older boys had left for the Navy, so there were six children all crammed in as we got on with growing up.

  There was a small personal benefit to me from Neil and Keith leaving, and widening their horizons, so early in my life. They were home on shore leave for Christmas 1987 when my father took issue with me again, this time for feeling Christmas presents under the tree. Neil and Keith caught my father disciplining me, and made it clear to him that if he didn’t calm down he would come to regret it. They saved me that day, and although the discipline did not disappear altogether, there was certainly less of it.

  It was around this time that my father became the area manager for Lloyds Bank. (I wouldn’t have fancied going to him for a loan; reckless borrowing and lending was not a problem in south east England in those days – he single-handedly took care of that.) Simultaneously, my parents decided to set up a nursery school in our home. Crucially for me, this process made our home life more public, which was a very good thing.

  It was a lot of work running a highly regulated Montessori nursery, and we all had to get stuck in to some extent. I had to get up early every day and clear either leaves or ice from all the paths around the house. I would then put out the toys for the children to play with in the garden, and put them away again when I got home from primary school. In those days I attended St John’s primary, a mile and a half’s walk down the road. I also cleaned out and fed the animals with which we now shared our lives, including some surprisingly aggressive guinea pigs and rabbits.

  Life was definitely changing. Thanks to the nursery, my mother and father had to employ and engage with members of the general public more than they had ever been required to before. My parents were beginning, very slowly, to relinquish control over our lives, as their older children’s independence made them realize the limits of their influence. At the same time, the stress this caused them was almost intolerable, and we all felt it in various ways.

  I have a number of memories scarred on my mind. The time Keith drove up from Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall to see us at the parsonage, only to be shooed away from the door with a chair by my mother until he paid for his accommodation for the night. I remember another brother coming home for Christmas all the way from Derby on the train and asking for a lift from the station from my father. My father refused, and my brother re-boarded the train and returned to a lonely Christmas on his own. My parents’ reaction to their loss of control became desperate; it was heartbreaking to watch and is still upsetting to recall.

  These are rather distant memories now, but I cannot forget them. My parents have grown old, changing physically and emotionally as life has taken its toll. But crucially for me, I now have children of my own, on whom I obsessively check in whenever I wake in the night. I had hoped that being a parent would expose me to the sort of stresses and frustrations that I assumed lay behind my father’s behaviour, and that I’d gain some insight into and perhaps a bit of peace with what went on. Unfortunately, it pushed me the other way, and I still can’t comprehend much of my childhood. I love my parents; they have indeed changed and time heals much. But it can never change what actually took place, or the effects of what happened to me at the most formative and precious stages of a child’s life.

  2

  A combination of my father’s career upturn and the lucrative Montessori nursery school in our home meant that when I was seven my parents could afford to send me away to boarding school.

  Temple Grove preparatory school was in Heron’s Ghyll, just three miles from home in the opposite direction to my primary school. It is now converted luxury accommodation for the wealthy of East Sussex; then, it was a delightful old country house. My younger sister Naomi went to the pre-prep, but Heidi and I boarded. Our parents could have sent us as day pupils or weekly boarders, but chose the option of full boarders who stayed at the weekends too. Although I was pretty devastated at the time to be separated from my mother, it was probably best for all of us.

  I’m told I loved some of the boarding experience, but my memories can be somewhat hazy. I remember corporal punishments, such as being made to eat a bar of soap for saying ‘shit’. I remember plenty of ‘double baths’ with my male friends – the sort of thing that would perhaps land a school in trouble these days. I also remember
the first time my mother bought me a Kinder egg for getting a ‘plus’ certificate. I rarely saw her, so when she did things like this it melted me.

  It wasn’t all such raucous fun. The weekends, when most of the other kids would go home, were staggeringly lonely, and I’d cling onto my poor sister Heidi like Velcro. I loved the outdoors where I could go and do whatever I liked without recourse. I was never scared outside on my own and I was fascinated by the darkness where no one could see me. I could be as odd as I liked, repeating identical prayers like a mantra or reading my ‘Olde Englishe’ King James Bible, which I had won at Sunday School for reciting long parts of scripture by heart. I did find almost everyone else at the school intimidating, at least to some extent, and darkness gave me the opportunity to hide from a world about which I was extremely confused. Some of my form masters seemed to enjoy holding a position of authority more than actually stabilizing a child who was clearly deeply affected by his early years. My friends were so much more worldly wise and able to cope with school than me. I struggled to find my feet and, bizarrely, longed to run away home.

  I used to work out how I could walk cross-country to the parsonage, how long it would take and what food I would need to sustain me. This was indeed odd, given the unhappiness of family life, but I think I missed the routine and regularity of home. In addition, now that Mother had opened a school and we had ‘outsiders’ coming in every day, the parsonage seemed a slightly more appealing prospect than boarding school.

  I was eight years old when Heidi outlined the folly of making my way home – I would only be driven back to school again. I had to adapt and overcome, and forced myself to do so. She was in the choir, and invited me to join, promising me it wasn’t like singing hymns at our Strict Baptist chapel down the road. Singing treble was easy for me, and I seemed good at it. It was a gift; one I did nothing to earn.

  I had made friends at school and knew they were good people. But I also found it tough to have friends who did not share my family’s beliefs; the Church taught that it was wrong and my guilt was simply too stifling. I felt pulled in two distinct directions; one minute I could be having fun with my friends, the next I’d be hating myself for breaking God’s rules by playing football on a Sunday. Looking back, I couldn’t have asked for better friends. I think people had an inkling about my home life and instead of bullying or teasing there was simple sympathy meted out by most staff and pupils alike.

  Lots of people say that they don’t care what others think of them; in my case being seen as so odd already by other children and their parents meant that by the age of nine I genuinely didn’t give a shit what people thought of me.

  So when it came to singing, I just got up there and did it.

  And I seemed to make people really happy. Some would cry when I sang, others would clap and get on their feet. I moved to Stoke Brunswick, an idyllic little prep school in West Sussex, that was better for music. There I was taken on by an inspirational and extremely talented music teacher called Mrs Barber. She managed to craft a pretty ordinary group of children into an award-winning choir that starred in BBC documentaries and won through to the finals of the Choir of the Year competition. Individually, I entered an X Factor-type competition to find the best chorister in the land – the National Choirboy of the Year Competition. I won the regional finals and came runner-up in the national final in 1993 to a boy whose voice broke shortly afterwards. As a result I fulfilled some of his singing commitments, while being trumpeted as Choirboy of the Year and instructed not to tell of his demise!

  I sang at the Royal Festival Hall, for the Queen at the Albert Hall and at the VE Day fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1995 in Hyde Park, and abroad at international competitions for my school and on my own. And, of course, I sung in almost every bloody church in Sussex at Christmas.

  In the process, I gained admiration and respect in spades; just not from the two people I, for some reason, still wanted to impress. Outwardly things looked great; once the car doors slammed life was still very different.

  Heidi was extremely gifted on the piano and went to Wadhurst College to advance her music skills there, but I was joined at Stoke Brunswick by my younger sister, Naomi. Bizarrely, my homesickness remained chronic. I had a wonderful matron called Miss Warriner who consoled me through some excruciating scenes involving my parents as my sister and I were dropped off again, usually on a lonely Sunday afternoon, at the huge, empty prep school. Miss Warriner often let me watch some TV (yes, even on a Sunday) to calm my nerves, despite telling my friends and parents she didn’t. She had a special place in my heart.

  I enjoyed much of Stoke Brunswick – particularly the sport – and made some friends, but I never really saw them outside of school. I seemed to be popular enough, but remember feeling desperately lonely, particularly when Naomi seemed to settle in so much easier than me. Quite simply, I felt I was very, very different to my peers; most were extremely wealthy and privileged, and had home lives to return to that were entirely dissimilar to my own. Regrettably, I began to wonder what was wrong with my head: Why did I find being away from home so tough when I didn’t even really like being at home in the first place?

  The main thing I did enjoy as a boy was breaking free from the confines put on me by authority figures other than my parents. My parents’ rule was so fearsome that others held no terrors for me, and I treated their rules with a distinct lack of respect. I would lead ‘dormitory raids’ from the boys’ to the girls’ dormitories in the small hours. Having achieved our objective, I would sit triumphantly on some poor girl’s bed before leading the raiding party back to our room. I was completely disinterested in the girls; I simply enjoyed the excitement of potentially ‘being caught’, whatever consequences that might have. I also managed to pick the lock on the tuck cupboard and regularly led a night-time patrol to raid some tuck, which I would then sell on to raise cash for all sorts of things I did not have – including a pair of jeans.

  Despite my bad behaviour at Stoke Brunswick, in 1995 I sung my way to prestigious music scholarships for myself and Naomi, who was by now my closest and dearest friend, to Eastbourne College, a beautiful Victorian secondary school.

  I was the first in my family to go to public school, something that caused consternation amongst my brothers. They were so deeply scarred by their upbringing that they almost resented any opportunity, however self-earned, that was presented to the younger members of the family. Because I was the only boy in the younger half of siblings, their resentment fixated on me. But I still saw the scholarship as an opportunity. Towards the end of my time at Stoke Brunswick I realized the folly of my homesickness; by the time I got to Eastbourne College it was largely cured, although the mental challenges of dealing with an unorthodox upbringing would manifest themselves in another way. Eastbourne College meant I could be truly away from home, and aged fourteen on a top music scholarship I thought musical greatness beckoned.

  It didn’t work out quite like that.

  For one thing, although their children’s musical talents had started off as something to be nurtured, they ended up as an obsession for my parents. We were required to perform as a family whenever relatives or friends from chapel would come over to our home. There was a rigidly enforced timetable for music practice, and some quite bizarre rules to go with it. I had taken up the violin by now. My mother was impressed at a recent concert by how high a violinist had held her violin; for many months afterwards I had a round pencil eraser placed (not attached) under the bridge of my violin. It was not to fall to the floor as a result of the violin not being perfectly flat under my chin, no matter how many hours I practised. Bizarre, and bloody torturous. It was even worse when my sense of guilt made me continue the exercise at school, in case God was watching and told my mother. Humiliating doesn’t cover it. My interest in music waned somewhat, and I focused on other aspects of school life.

  I particularly loved sport, where I didn’t have to interact verbally with others but could just run my guts
out and collapse at full time. I couldn’t play enough football, rugby and cricket. My rugby and football skills were poor compared to everyone else’s but I wasn’t too bad at cricket, and did a summer school to beef up my skills. I was very good at striking things in general and my father also introduced me to a pastime where you could stare at something and hit it as hard as you can without having to go and get it – the golf driving range.

  With no children left at home except Mary, my father’s outlet for his frustrations was said driving range, and I would go along too. Eventually he bought me a half set of clubs and I was hooked. I used to break in to the Royal Eastbourne at hole four and play until hole seventeen, where I would duck out and walk the four miles back to the school campus without paying a penny. Everyone at the club must have known what I was up to, but they let me get on with it; I was never challenged.

  I represented Eastbourne College at football, cricket, hockey, tennis, rugby and golf. Despite never being the most talented, I was usually made captain. I wasn’t loud – quite the opposite – but I found it easy to self-motivate, and others would simply follow my lead. Looking back, perhaps the leadership bug had infected me already, without me knowing it.

  While outwardly I was the popular sports captain getting stuck-in and appearing relatively ‘normal’, behind closed doors I was enduring a sort of mental, religion-based torment. I felt the heavy hand of religion on my shoulder wherever I went. Before bed every night I said the same prayer in my head that my father had taught me, thinking the right things at the same time. If my mind wandered I would have to start again, lest harm come to someone. I believed this would be my fault, and that my father would find out. I was to read the Bible every day, and I did so, petrified of misunderstanding it and thinking thoughts in my head that were wrong, and of God judging me.

  Whenever I shut my eyes and tried to sleep my mind became a battleground, as I wrestled with growing up in a world full of ‘temptations’ such as television on a Sunday, while being haunted by the contradictory and guilt-driven religion I had ingrained into me. My mother and father were very clear – deviating from what was taught at our Strict Baptist chapel would result in ‘eternal flame and gnashing of teeth’. It is difficult to articulate the effects of this on an adolescent boy, and I developed quite a case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Nights when everyone else was in bed, I was staring at taps, flicking light switches on and off, and washing my hands to the extreme, sometimes emptying a 500ml liquid soap container in one go. I was terrified people would find out and realize I wasn’t coping with home life as I should be, and I tried to do most of it in private when everyone else was asleep. Weirdly, the days were an entirely different matter, and none of the guilt really bothered me. It was just when I shut my eyes. I was an extremely disturbed young kid who went through boarding school barely getting more than four or five hours’ sleep a night.