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I
was raised in a warm, musical, traditional Jewish family in
the heart of a large Jewish community in Hackney, in the East
End of London. Our extended family, although not a very orthodox
group, was nevertheless totally Jewish in identity and heritage.
My first recollections include wonderful annual festivals
such as Passover, plus traditional rituals such as the lighting
of candles on a Friday evening to welcome Shobbes (Shabbat).
I
suppose I believed in God from my earliest days. I took His
existence for granted. The State school I attended taught
the Bible and I loved the Bible stories very much. However,
because my school had a Jewish Headmaster and a large Jewish
contingency among the pupils, we Jewish kids had separate
R.E. (religious education) classes and assemblies. As a consequence,
I never heard of a New Testament or a Jesus until I was around
six years of age. One day, a non-Jewish girl came up to me
in the playground in quite some distress and blurted out,
"You killed Jesus Christ!". I was devastated and
confused by this accusation. I had never killed anyone in
my life, and who was this person with the strange name, Jesus
Christ?
At
14, while still at school, I had my first hit record. That
led me to go into show business, travelling the world, singing
at many famous venues and having more hit songs, including
'Walking Back to Happiness'. I was carried along by all the
fame, meeting celebrities and royalty and didn't give much
thought to spiritual things until the late sixties. At that
time, it seemed that everyone was searching for the "meaning
of life". It was the 'hippie' era. Thankfully, I did
not become involved with drugs or cults. However, members
of my family had taken to visiting mediums, clairvoyants and
other such folk to make contact (as they thought) with relatives
who had died. Having always had a curiosity with life-after-death
issues, this fascinated me. I began to visit such people myself,
on occasion. I also started to read books and magazines about
spiritism, Buddhism and all kinds of psychic phenomena. I
developed a system of beliefs, over the years, which incorporated
a little bit of this, a little bit of that - a smorgasbord
of 'isms' which, these days, would be called 'New Age'. To
my own way of thinking, I was not remotely involved in anything
evil or sinister. I associated everything I
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Helen Shapiro
today
Helen joins the Beatles, Dusty Springfield and host Keith
Fordyce on Ready, Steady, Go! in October 1963 |
EMPTINESS
For
quite a number of years, I was comforted by what I had discovered.
It seemed to fill a void in my life - until I turned 40. A few months
after this milestone birthday, I woke up one morning and, to my
own great surprise, I found I no longer believed in any of my 'New
Age' ideas. It's hard to explain,
but my belief in the supernatural had vanished overnight. Try as
I might, I could not believe in any of my 'isms' any more. This
presented a dilemma for me as I had always equated all my beliefs
with God. Did this mean that there was no God? I found the whole
thing very depressing. For the first time in
my life, I had nothing to believe in. My Jazz and Pop career was
going well. I was in a relationship with the man who is now my husband.
I was successful, but inside I was empty. Looking back, I can see
that this was God's hand.
In
those days, my musical director was a man called Bob Cranham. He
was a Christian and more than once he had spoken of what his 'Lord'
had done in his life. These were wonderful things, but I couldn't
consider them for myself because I am Jewish. This was the Gentile
God blessing His people. In the midst of my turmoil, I called in
at his house one day, to pick up some music. Now, neither Bob nor
his wife knew anything of my inner struggle. Nobody did.
Bob
dropped a bombshell that day. He said, "I'm thinking of giving
up the music business." I asked him why. He said, "Because
I believe God wants me to be a preacher." I thought to myself,
"Oh dear. He thinks he's hearing from God." Here was a
professional, sane and sensible top-quality musician, composer,
song-writer, producer - and he's talking about giving up everything.
Nothing I could say would sway him. He seemed so calm and sure and
so willing to take this drastic step, if, as he believed, God wanted
it. I found myself becoming more and more impressed by how real
and sincere his faith must be if he could surrender all that for
his 'Lord'. I went home and told my boyfriend John how much I envied
Bob. I had many opinions, but Bob had real convictions. I wanted
what he had! I guess I was 'provoked to jealousy'.
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