God in the life of Clare Catford

Clare Catford is a successful and experienced broadcast journalist who has worked for national TV and radio. Born in Shiplake, she has returned to the Diocese to present the Sunday morning programme on Radio Berkshire. She converted to Christianity as a teenager through the work of the Christian Youth Fellowship Association. Now 42, her life has been at times very painful but she has held onto her faith despite the trials of divorce and an eating disorder.  Christianity, she says has brought ‘both great pain and great happiness to my life’.

I had a very real sense of God from the age of about seven. I don’t know where that came from because my family were not Christians or churchgoers, but I was always really interested in God. In RE at school I was the one asking all the questions about God, how the earth was created and where we came from. I guess it was partly the curiosity that made me into a journalist but also a gut feeling, an interest I had in God, from a very early age. I also went and sat in the back at Christian Union meetings at school, and was usually the rowdy one! But I was definitely a seeker from an early age.

When I was a teenager, aged about 16, I became involved in a group called CYFA the Christian Youth Fellowship Association. I went away on holiday with them and there were talks there that I really listened to and learned from. I came home and thought about it a lot, and remember very clearly getting down on my knees in the bathroom and saying a muddled first prayer.

I’ve never had a sort of dramatic electric shock effect from my prayers, or a dramatic conversion moment as I know some people have. But I do have a great sense of peace.

I went to Manchester University and studied drama.

I was known there as the token Christian in my year, which was a burden as well as a freedom. I have never found that being a Christian solves all your problems. One of my favourite books in the Bible is Ecclesiastes, which is very truthful about the human condition.

I believe that the truth will set you free, at least in a way that leads you on a path to ask more questions. Life has been very painful in many ways.

‘I had to relearn that God loved me unconditionally, despite my eating disorder, despite my failed marriage.’

My eating disorder, bulimia, started when I was at university, and continued for 15 years.

It came out of many things, including insecurity.

Underneath was a sense of rage, and then depression - it was like peeling an onion, dealing with it. I had to go down and down to the very bottom. I got married very young, at 22, and though it lasted 12 years my eating disorder contributed to the end of my marriage.

I kept my faith throughout but found it very difficult. I had to relearn that God loved me unconditionally, despite my eating disorder, despite my failed marriage. After my divorce I could not go anywhere near a church for a while without getting a panic attack.

But I’m now studying theology part-time and considering the possibility of ordination. I am very tentative about it, I don’t want to be a priest who wants to solve other people’s problems because she hasn’t solved her own. I’m also worried about being swamped by the Church and losing my identity. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for it yet.

Christianity has made my life more truthful but it certainly hasn’t solved my problems.

It has brought great happiness but also great pain.

Clare Catford presents Radio Berkshire’s Sunday programme from 7 - 10 am on 104.1 FM.