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Stand up for the Lord
Frankie Mulgrew, a young stand up comic in the Manchester area, is one of the organisers of the upcoming Northern Catholic Conference. Below he tells his faith story, and how God has led him to do what he is now doing.
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"Bullied at school" My dad was a cradle Catholic, but my mum was a Mormon, so as children we spent our time between the two churches. The Mormons were good people but we children all preferred to go to the Catholic Church. Part of this was because Mass was a lot shorter than the three hour Mormon services. My mum gradually dropped out of the Mormon faith and when I was 13 I was baptised a Catholic. Sir Cyril Smith, the local Rochdale MP, who was a friend of my dad's, was my godfather. I was really happy that at long last I could receive Holy Communion which I hadn't been able to do before. I was even more made up when the local parish priest asked me to be an altar boy. I took it all very seriously, making sure I wore black trousers and black shoes, while most of the other boys wore track suits bottoms and trainers under their cassocks. Looking back I have always had an awareness of the presence of God, even when I was quite small. I remember when my mum was sick when I was about 12 I would borrow the key to the church and go and pray for her during the lunch hour. So prayer was something quite natural for me. Most of my friends weren't religious though and I remember at secondary school when I told some of them that I went to Mass on Sundays they fell about laughing because they thought I was winding them up. "On the road" I couldn't wait to leave school and go on the road with my dad. Even before I officially left I was helping him with his props and acted as his dresser and later his road manager. It was great. At the same time I also started to think seriously about my faith. I thought I might as well go the whole hog and make Jesus my friend. My local parish priest gave me some books about the lives of the saints. My favourite was St Catherine of Sienna whom I had a big devotion to. After Mass I fell into talking to some of the ladies in the parish who had been to Medjugorje. Inspired by what they told me about the messages of Our Lady I started to read the gospels and pray more. I had a fantastic upbringing, but I think the side-effects of being bullied at school started to kick in and when I was around 18, I went into a bad patch. I had a very low opinion of myself and felt really miserable. In show business there are lots of temptations and ways to deal with this, but I decided to go the prayer way, and see if God would deliver. I started going to daily Mass and would hang around in the church afterwards and pray for 2-3 hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I really experienced Jesus' presence there and this, and going to the sacrament of reconciliation, brought me great healing. I had always put on a bit of a mask for my family so they never knew what I was going through, but many times, like a lot of teenagers, I was really hurting. "Plenty of time to pray" As I only did a show two or three times a week I had plenty of time to pray and I fell in with a prayer group in Manchester. They took me to the healing service at Ormskirk run by Myles Dempsey. I offered the music ministry, Andy and Nicky Kiely, my services as a drummer and they literally pounced on me. It was only later that I found they had been praying for months for a drummer to come along. Through them I went to the New Dawn conference at Walsingham. I was blown away when I saw how many people were there and how on fire with their faith everyone was. I had an incredible week and a whole new dimension of community opened up to me. Before it had been just me and Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament but now I was coming into contact with a whole new spiritual family. "I don't like your smile!"
I did this. I was told to keep up my spiritual direction and that I needed to beef up my educational qualifications and it was suggested that I do an English Literature A level. I really grafted at this, which was very hard, as I had never been very academic and had got out of the habit of studying. But I put my heart and soul into it and I was rewarded with a C, which I was really pleased with. I remember when I sat doing my first exam paper, I looked up and I saw a classroom display of St Catherine of Siena facing me. It was such a blessing, like she was encouraging me. I ended up putting the priesthood thing on the back burner, however, as shortly afterwards I got chatting to David Alton, the Catholic Lord, at the Celebrate conference. We started discussing how great it would be if the Salford diocese had a youth mission team like Hexham and Newcastle. David gave me some advice as to how to go about it and offered his name for the council of reference. Through his help and that of others I made a proposal and went round to chat to the bishop about it. He was very interested in it, but in the end the idea got put on hold and when it was taken up again, it was put in other hands. I suppose I was a bit disappointed, but I realised that the important thing was that it happened, and God had used me to do my little part. "Doing stand up again, back in the clubs" At this stage I decided that if God didn't have any plans for me working for the Church I would go back to what I loved any way which was stand up. So I went back to working the clubs and started to build up a name for myself locally. Then last year, back at Celebrate, I met David Alton again. For years he has wanted to have some kind of northern conference like Celebrate. There had been a couple of false starts, but this time we managed to get together a little team including Myles Dempsey and Fr Jimmy Collins and seriously looked at venues. We initially thought of having it at Pontins, but were shocked when we found out they wanted £50,000 up front regardless of how many people came. We didn't feel able to take such a risk. My brother then suggested that we try the Britannia group of hotels, as he knew you could get good deals from them for big events. We ended up talking to the Adelphi hotel in Liverpool and with a bit of haggling they offered us a great deal, charging people who stayed the night only £25 bed and breakfast. We had prayed about it and discussed it, but when the Adelphi called for the final decision, Fr Jimmy was in Lourdes and Myles was pre-occupied at New Dawn in Ireland. I had another word with David but realised I had to make the decision on my own. I asked God for a sign, which he gave me, and stepped out in faith and signed the contract. Afterwards the others were a little shocked that I had done it as they felt we hadn't prayed enough. I felt terrible. But Fr Jimmy took it to prayer and asked God for a sign himself. He got a passage from the scripture about Solomon's temple with its pillars and the river running through it. He was delighted but I couldn't see how this was a confirmation until he told me that the Adelphi hotel has pillars in the basement and stands over the Mersey river. He is so excited about it now that he gives me heart, every time I start worrying about things and get bogged down in all the practical details. "Waiting for God's whistle rather than relying on my own plans" We have got a really good line up of speakers. John Pridmore, the ex-gangster, is coming and Frances Hogan, the scripture teacher from Ireland and Steve Murray the mime artist. Fr Dermot Donnelly from YMT will be running the youth stream with Fr Stephen Prichard from Liverpool diocese. I even persuaded my dad to come and do a turn. He's cutting short an engagement he has in Dubai to come. Another family friend, Radio 2 personality Don MacLean, is also coming to do 20 minutes for us on the Saturday night. I still can't quite believe how God has been leading me over these last few years, and looking back I can see his hand in everything. The knocks I had were terrible at the time but they have helped me grow strong in my faith and in Him. Now I just want to live my life, waiting for God's whistle rather than relying on my own plans. Apart from bed and breakfast accommodation paid to the Adelphi Hotel, there is no formal charge for the conference, which will be donation only. For details of the Northern Catholic Conference, 20th-22nd May 2005 at Adelphi, Liverpool visit www.northerncatholic.co.uk
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I
am one of four children. Both my parents come from Northern Ireland
and met at Pontins where my dad was working as a bluecoat. He is a comic
and under his professional name of "Jimmy Cricket", has become
quite well known over the last 30 years. When we were kids we travelled
all over the country with him because he liked having his family around.
As time went on though my parents realised it wasn't good for our education
to travel so much so we settled in Rochdale. We always joined my dad
when we were off school, however, and spent our holidays wherever he
was doing the summer season. I always loved it - meeting all the different
people and going backstage and just the magic of it all. Dad would even
get us to join him at the end of his act. When we were 8 and 9, my brother
and I had a double act, called Frank and Ernest, when we would do patter
and tell jokes. I thought school was rubbish though and hated it. It
wasn't just the lessons. I got badly bullied for the first three years
of secondary school. I don't know why but a group just picked on me
for no reason. Things got a bit better in my 4th and 5th year when I
got into more of an "in" crowd, but by then the damage had
been done.
After
New Dawn I was invited to go to Youth2000 to share my testimony and
to do a bit of comedy. I was on top of the world and I realised all
I wanted to do was to serve God. So after the summer I went to see the
vocations director of the diocese to discuss priesthood. I was really
na?ve, as I thought it was just a matter of showing up. I didn't realise
there were all kinds of hoops to go through. The worst part was the
psychologist assessment. I was totally unprepared for it. The first
thing the psychologist said when I walked in was "I don't like
your smile, it's fake!" The interview went down hill from there.
It was the worst two hours of my life and I came away feeling totally
wrecked and worthless. My spiritual director was brilliant though and
he helped me through it. He told me I should take the psychologist's
report to prayer and thank God for this blessing, whether I appreciated
it or not, then I should write again to the vocations director and say
I would be looking forward to going through the process again the following
year!
