About thirty years ago I foolishly let my then husband take some pornographic photographs of me

My instincts told me not do do so at the time but I did not want to seem stuffy to the man I thought I loved

Richard assured me that he would develop them himself and keep no copies

They were for our sexual pleasure only

How wrong I was because as soon as my back was turned he popped down to the local branch of Super Snaps to have them developed

I would have screamed if I had know this as I did not want to share my erotic parts with complete strangers who might take copies

But it got worse much much worse so bad that I contemplated harming myself

In short our photographs became confused with another set of photographs and were given to the wrong person

This person was the vicar of our local church Stephen Hathaway who I knew well as my parents had been members of the congregation of St James since I was small

How did I become aware of this you might ask

That was easy as Stephen recognised me and contacted me to explain what had happened

Instead of receiving photographs of the recent summer garden party he had been given our pornographic photographs in error

I cried immediately on the telephone and actually held a burning cigarette in my open hand until I screamed

The shame was overwhelming

Stephen asked if I would be good enough to meet him so that he might return my photographs and chat to him if I so desired

He assured me that I had not committed a sin and God was not angry with me

Far from it

We met far away from the church

As he thought it would be better that way

So we met in a park in Bristol

At first I could not meet his gaze

But he told me that posing for such photographs was not a sin

If I had been wearing my clothes would we be having the same conversation

No

He even said that my husband had been silly and that was all

Although I chatted to him for quite a while I cannot remember what exactly was said

I was in a daze

Stephen did say that pornography was a much overused word and that if anything was pornographic then war and other forms of abuse filled the box easily and angered God

He handed the photographs back to me in a plain envelope and advised me to destroy them

We parted and I burnt the photographs that evening without telling my husband who I believed thought they were lost

The worst thing was that I suspected that this secretly excited him

A couple of months passed and then out of the blue Stephen rang me and in a brief exchange said that he wanted to discuss something with me

I thought that now my emotions were not so raw I was going to be given advice or further guidance

This was far from the truth

For when I met him on the same park bench he appeared to have been weeping

His eyes were dull and red

I asked him what was wrong

He said he was not worthy of being my friend

And did not deserve to have comfort in the House of God

This had troubled him for a number of years

Stephen then told me a story dating from his time in the Midlands

He told me that he had met his lovely wife Linda in Stoke

I knew her but did not know her well as she was often very quiet

This I thought was down to shyness

How mistaken I was

In short Stephen had met Linda at a dance and although she was in a relationship with one of Stephens friends they hit it off straight away

They began meeting in secret and after a while things became sexual

He tried to fight his desires but was weak of flesh and so was she

And then his friend found out and in an act of extreme kindness gave the couple his blessing and wished them happiness even though he was broken of heart

After a period of reflection and pain they married as at the time they were much younger and were unsure of God’s actual purpose

They brought Adam and David into the world and slowly they began to forgive themselves

But then something really dreadful happened as Stephen’s dear friend committed suicide

He left a note which although cryptic read

I have faded and this is the best way
I once knew true love but lost it
I am not at peace with myself
Or more importantly God

Stephen said that this destroyed him and for a while his relationship with Linda suffered as they both felt dirty

In time through Stephen’s shadow guidance Linda began to live with herself

But Stephen never did although he hid it well

He was offered a church in Bristol and as he put it they ran away

They buried their past

Yet God was quiet

It was only when the theatre of my idiocy was revealed to him that he realised that after a number of years of silence God as speaking to him.

He asked me to forgive him

I said that I would but was I worthy of such a task

He said that I was more than worthy

I forgave him

And for a while quite discreetly we wept together