Changing Ways of Doing Things: An Autobiographical Account of Some of My Experiences in the Psychology of Religion

I had two early ambitions. One was to be teacher. My father discouraged that. He had what seemed to be a perfectly satisfactory career as a classroom and head teacher, but felt disappointed that his family circumstances hadn’t allowed him to go to university; teacher training in the early twentieth century was seen as a second best to university. My mother’s views and experiences were similar. She could have gone to university, she said, but the funding for her university place was contingent on teaching thereafter. So she opted to go straight into the workplace, but felt intellectually frustrated in her office jobs, and always regretted missing out on university. My intellectually frustrated parents said they were sure that “these days” (late 1950s) you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. They certainly encouraged serious reading. Our house was lined with books: history, biography, science, religious, and literary classics. So in our family, we read and read.