00:01
At that point I'd been married for roughly 23, 24 years.
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I would have thought we were fairly happy,
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then one morning she got up and left.
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At the time I didn't know why, but the world collapsed.
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My name's Andrew and this is my story.
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Things got to a point where one night,
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I couldn't take anymore.
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I ended up sitting by a major road,
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and I stepped into that road
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with no intention of getting across the other side of it.
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Somebody pulled me off it,
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I felt an an arm around my neck.
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I was told afterwards, the wing mirror of a tipper lorry.
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I got taken to hospital, three minutes with a psychiatrist
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and then told: "oh no, you can go home now."
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I rode around for...a good hour,
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and I suddenly found myself parked outside a church.
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And for some reason I walked up the path,
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and I knocked on the door of the vicarage.
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This older man opened the door,
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I just said to him: "can I sit in your church please?"
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And he went: "yes, I'll just go and get the keys."
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We went into the church,
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he sat a good ten yards behind me,
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right at the back of the church.
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I didn't even know he was there,
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And for a good hour I sat there,
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crying my eyeballs out, in a right state -
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trying to find answers.
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And I left and said thank you and he asked me
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to go back in a couple of days, which I did.
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And eventually he said to me: "would you come in on Sunday?"
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So I did and one Sunday led to another,
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And the service started
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and one of the readings was Psalm 23:
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though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
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I will fear no evil.
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a song that I never thought I'd ever hear in church:
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You'll Never Walk Alone, Gerry and the Pacemakers.
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It was like dominoes collapsing,
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or a house of cards coming down.
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It just all fell into place.
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The sudden realisation that, yes, there is more.
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It's a life of love.
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Because there's so much goodness there
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it's just unexplainable.
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After some months things happened and
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me and my wife talked to one another,
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and yes we've been back together for five years
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and we celebrate 30 years of marriage next year.
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He's given me a life that
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I never, ever would have known about or even
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thought about steeping in too.
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If I'd known all those years ago,
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I would have come running towards it.
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I would have come running towards it.
