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The Heatherburn Garden RailwayPersonal Details By Dave Bentley |
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I thought it would be a good idea to include a page on the site where I could share a bit about myself, my thoughts, faith, etc. I was born in Stoke on Trent in 1968 a month before the last steam locos on British Rail. During my early years my parents decided to relocate to Co Durham so this meant quite a few train trips up north. This is properly where my love of railways first started. Anyway we settled in the new town of Newton Aycliffe located between Darlington and Durham. A couple of years on my mum had to spend some time in Darlington hospital so in between visiting times were spent at Bank top station with my dad. Eventually this lead to my first train set a hornby royal mail set with a class37.When I was in junior school our class had the opportunity of being present at the opening of the new station at aycliffe. This also meant a trip to the NRM at york. So yours truly made sure that I stood next to the bloke with the cutters and got my pic in the local paper. As I moved into secondary school there was a group of us that used to hang out together on an over bridge on the nearby ECML. As usual after leaving school we all went out separate ways leaving me to carry on by myself. When I turned 17 I bought my first car (a mk2 escort estate) so I could learn to drive. Having the car meant we could get about more as a family so as well as day trips out we also started to attend the Elim church in Darlington. I had always had a church background being in a church school from an early age and by the time I was in senior school we were members of the local Methodist church. Here I would help out with the Sunday school with my newly acquired guitar skills! It was while we were at the Methodists that I had my first encounter with God. We had a team of people in our church one weekend and I remember all of the youth went to Durham for the day. Returning to the church that evening I remember walking in to a strange atmosphere and everyone was crying. It was this night that I decided to become a Christian. I didn't stay on the straight and narrow though as I tried to fit in with my school friends. Anyway going back to the Elim in Darlington it was here that I decided to give God another try. I soon got involved in the church music group first on guitar then progressing to bass. Just before my 18 birthday I decided to be baptised. Now I was christened as a child in the CofE but the bible says that the early Christians were all baptised by being totally emersed in water. So the evening of my baptism arrived and I remember having butterfly's at the thought of standing in front of everyone. One of the elders gave me a baptism promise from the bible. Mine was Romans 8v28 "all things work together for good for those that love the lord and are called according to his purpose" How true that has been over the ups and downs of the past 20 odd years! So after the promise I got into the tank and was tipped backwards under the water. When I came up it felt fantastic! The one thing lacking in my life was a young lady. A few years down the road I was unemployed and attending another church in Darlington. Thanks to a lot of prayer by my friends in the church I got a job at Samsung. This meant going overseas to South Korea for training. The Sunday before I left I got into a conversation with my mates mum who had a Christian dating agency. So on my return I signed up and eventually met Rachel from Wakefield. We hit it off right from the first conversation on the phone and six weeks later we were engaged. This lasted two weeks before we broke up. I was devastated and kind of went off the rails a bit. Five years passed and by this time I was playing bass in the local pubs. On the outside I was holding it together but on the inside my life was a mess. One day at work I ended up working with a young girl. We got talking and eventually she invited me to her church. I started going again and after a few weeks started attending a church where I live in Woodham. At the time there was a big event coming up and we were all asked to fast and pray on a particular day for the meetings. I remember going to work on the morning of said day(think it was a Tuesday) and arrived without my dinner as I had forgot to pick it up on the way out. Ok God I thought you have my attention so at dinner time I sat in the car and said a short prayer. The last sentence was thank you for my wife where ever she is. I went back inside and over the remainder of the day I started to think of Rachel. Now five years had passed and I had had dates but nothing really happened. I decided that I had to let go of whatever feelings I still had and I felt prompted to phone up Rachels mum and say sorry for holding a grudge against her as I blamed her for the break up. To cut a long story short Rachel got back together shortly afterwards by this time she had left home and more surprisingly had remained single.Talk about destiny! Three months later we were married and at the time of writing that was nearly eight years ago. We have had our ups and downs but looking back I can see God at work in the background. Presently I am unemployed having been made redundant before Christmas but I know that its all part of a bigger plan and "all things work together for good". Thank you for taking the time to read this and in this present economic climate I encourage you to seek God and ask for his help in these difficult times. Dave Bentley Jan 15th 2009 For further information www.pawsforthought.org |
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