Spirit of Things

From Gangland to Promised Land
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John Pridmore was a serious 'face' in the gangland of London's East End, but although he still looks formidable with his dark glasses, bald head, and two metre frame, his line of work has changed. John now brings the saving message of Christ to people who grew up like him, abused, alone, and very angry. Recently in Australia for World Youth Day where he was a leading speaker, John is candid and convincing.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Rachael Kohn: Heard the one about the gangster who became a Christian? He was attracted to Jesus because he broke the law.

Hello, I'm Rachael Kohn and on The Spirit of Things, a serious story from a man who broke just about every Commandment and quite a few laws, living the life of a gangster in London's East End.

Stay tuned to ABC Radio National and you'll hear the whole story.

John Pridmore likes to tell his story because it's pretty powerful. It relates to other young people whose lives are on the skids, and offers them more than a glimmer of hope. He was one of the headliners at the World Youth Day celebrations which are now just a memory. But for a lot of young people from overseas, the memories won't be fading fast. I met some of them last week after they'd just arrived in Sydney in some unexpected places.

I see you're from Kuwait. Amazing. Well, what's it like to be a pilgrim?

Man: It's been great so far. We had spent some days in the diocese in Melbourne.

Rachael Kohn: These are amazing headdresses; is this what you normally - you don't normally wear this in Kuwait?

Man: During holidays.

Rachael Kohn: What does this signify?

Man: The flags, the colour of the flags. The black, the white, the green and the red.

Rachael Kohn: And how many Catholics are there in Kuwait?

Man: Usually I don't know, it's a Muslim country but the expats who are working there are many so...

Man: Yes, 30% are Catholic and the rest are all Muslim because foreign nationals are more than the local Kuwaitis.

Rachael Kohn: Well, have a wonderful time.

All: Thank you. Bye.

Rachael Kohn: Where are you from?

Man: From Malaysia.

Rachael Kohn: Malaysia, right. How many of you are there? 47; how many Catholics in Malaysia? Maybe you're all here. Do you have a song that you're going to sing?

SINGING

Rachael Kohn: Young Catholic pilgrims full of cheer and anticipation. One of the people they've been hearing about is John Pridmore, a former gangster or 'face' as he was known in London's East End. He's now in his mid-40s. A life-changing decision put him on the road to salvation not only of himself, but of others as he relates his message to young people all over the world which is why he was especially brought out to Australia for World Youth Day.

John Pridmore welcome to Australia and welcome to The Spirit of Things.

John Pridmore: Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to be.

Rachael Kohn: Well you're one of the most successful evangelisers to youth for the Roman Catholic church. You were very involved in the Toward 2000 events, you've helped countless retreats. How many kids have you actually addressed do you reckon?

John Pridmore: I reckon it must be close to a million young people worldwide ??????? in America, England, Ireland, Holland, all over the world, and that is an incredible grace. But that's in 15 years.

Rachael Kohn: In 15 years. Wow. Well it's a long way from where you started, the kid with no real Catholic education or formal education in the Catholic church. A policeman's son who became a gangster. You were a pretty accomplished crim. What was your kind of job description?

John Pridmore: Well I expect in my younger days, as you quite rightly said, I wasn't brought up in any faith. At the age of about 10 I came home a normal night and my parents told me that I will need to choose who I wanted to live with because they were getting divorced. And I think that inside my heart that changed something, because up to then I thought my parents would always be there and suddenly, here I was, faced with the fact that the people you love can really hurt you. And I figure I made an unconscious decision that I wasn't going to love any more because I thought if you don't love, you don't get hurt. And I think that lack of love in my heart really led me. You know, if you haven't let in any one love, if you've not let in your self love anyone else if you're not trusting anyone else you do seem to end up in a very dark world.

I started stealing when I was about 13 because I wanted someone to take notice of the pain that I was in. At 15 I was put in detention centre which is like a youth prison. And I actually thought it was better in there than being at home because I didn't get so many beatings. Like my Dad remarried and my stepmum was very violent.

Rachael Kohn: I was going to ask you about that because a lot of people have divorced parents but they don't necessarily go into a violent way, so violence must have been part of your family scene.

John Pridmore: Very much. And also my Mum had a nervous breakdown and went to a psychiatric hospital so at the age of 10 I had no mother who was loving and hugging me, I had a father who was quite violent, I had a stepmother who was very violent and so coming from a world of almost cotton wool, into this world of viciousness, I just you know, rebelled against it and I think that's where I started stealing.

Rachael Kohn: And then you became a pretty big-time crim. I mean is it really true that you carried a machete inside your coat pocket? Did you ever use it?

John Pridmore: Very much. Like I was in prison again when I was 19 and I think the reason why I was so angry is I spent a lot of time in 23-hour solitary confinement and so it was almost like a game where I was crying out to be loved. I was being in my eyes, caged you know.

So I came out of there more vicious and angry than ever and I thought what you want out of this world you have to take. And I started bouncing around the East End and West End clubs of London, and I met some guys who seemed to have everything. They had the money, the power, the best drugs, the best girls, and in my naiveté I thought if I could get what they've got, then I'd be happy, then I'll be fulfilled. So I started off working for these people, and you know, they might give you a little test to bring a Land Rover back from Dover to London, and you'd just be given the keys, and you don't know what's in the Land Rover but you're being paid 5,000 pounds just to bring it back so you have a good idea that it isn't something legal, it's very illegal, drugs or - and then the more they trust you, the more that you become part of their firm, part of their family, rather than being working for them.

So it's very true. I used to have a designer leather jacket with a sewn-in inside pocket with a machete in one pocket and CS gas in the other, and I was a paid enforcer for this family and it would have been, you know, viciousness was part of everyday life. Like I just want to break the illusion that some people might have about that lifestyle, because I remember one young lad who I was helping, he kept on idolising the idea of being a gangster and I just said to him, I said, 'Do you know what to be a successful gangster is?' And he said, 'No'. I said, 'To go around someone's house and to torture their 7-year-old son until they pay their debt'. And he said, 'Oh, that's terrible, that's horrible.' And I said, 'Well that's where you wouldn't be a good gangster then. The more vicious you are the more you're respected.'

Rachael Kohn: Well ironically the guy you worked for, Bulldog as he's named in your autobiography, actually warned you about becoming too violent, becoming the sort of person that you wouldn't really like.

John Pridmore: Very much. Because obviously Bulldog was one of the people I worked for, but there was other families who I was involved in and with Bulldog, he was more from an old school where he wouldn't really get involved with drugs, his would have been much more stolen goods, and he wouldn't really be racketeering you know, where you're threatening people. Whereas the other families, the other firms that I was involved in was much more vicious and much more frightening. And the only way you stayed up on the ladder was by being the most vicious, and so Bulldog was quite shocked when he saw me becoming that person that these other firms wanted you to be and almost expected you to be.

Rachael Kohn: Well one day the inevitable happened, you nearly killed a guy and you walked away from that and went back to your flat and something happened to you.

John Pridmore: Yes, very much. But I truly thought I'd killed this man, and I think the thing that scared me the most is I didn't care, and when you've got everything that the world says makes you happy, I had the penthouse flat, the sports cars, more money than I could spend, but I just had to take drugs every day to just go through another day. I was so promiscuous I was waking up with girls who I didn't even know who they were. And I think that I started examining why I was so empty, and this really scared me. And I came in this normal night and I became aware of a voice speaking through my heart and it's a voice all the listeners know, our conscience, God within us. And I thought God was a nice little story made up to keep us from being bad, but here I was faced with the fact that God was real, and I cried out for the first time. I said the first prayer I'd ever said in my life, I said Up to now all I've done is take from you, God, now I want to give. And as I said that prayer, that emptiness which had always filled my heart, was suddenly filled with the love of God.

Like I'd taken every drug there was, I'd had all the sexual immorality, but this moment of the holy spirit coming into my heart, was the greatest buzz I'd ever felt and it only lasted a moment, but in that moment I wanted more because I had searched everywhere for this love and this love was so fulfilling you know.

Rachael Kohn: Well I guess that conscience hadn't had much of a presence in your life because drugs has a way of kind of erasing conscience.

John Pridmore: So true. Like I think that when you're in that lifestyle one of the reasons why you do use drugs is completely to eradicate your conscience. You know, when you haven't got that sort of feeling that what you're doing is wrong, what you're doing is bad, it's very easy to get through another day, and it was almost like in the flat, that that was stripped away, those drugs, everything was stripped away and I was left with God. And I was left with what I was, and that scared me because it was really God's real, and this is who you are.

Rachael Kohn: Well how did you know that that voice really was something sacred, and was the holy spirit? I mean did you have any kind of influence at any time, a father in a prison who showed you sunlight.

John Pridmore: Yes, well what it was is when I was 16, I had a motor bike accident and I think that when I was in hospital and I was in hospital for quite a period of time, you had to put down what religion you was. And someone had put down that I was Roman Catholic, and so this priest started visiting me and even though he didn't talk to me about God, even though he didn't try and evangelise me, he showed me unconditional love, and I think Father Brian O'Higgins - sorry, he's very ill at the moment with cancer - but I found him after what had happened in the flat and I actually went to thank him. And he told me he had been praying for me every day since I was 16, and I'm sure that his love and also his prayers had a lot to do with it.

But also my Mum was someone who had been praying for me every day of my life. She had a strong faith, and on that very night I went round and told her what had happened. And she said to me, well she had tears rolling down her face and she said she'd been praying for me and she had prayed two weeks before this that Jesus take me. If it meant me dying, then let me die, but don't let me hurt myself or anyone else any more. Well I know how much my Mum loves me and for her to pray that prayer it must have broke her heart, but she saw the monster I was becoming and I expect those tears were washing away all the pain that I had caused her in my life.

Rachael Kohn: But the Roman Catholic church wasn't really No.1 on your hit parade.

John Pridmore: Absolutely not.

Rachael Kohn: You had a few grievances. For example that the Pope seemed like a King, the Vatican was very wealthy, you didn't understand why the church didn't allow divorced women to re-marry like your mother, and other things.

John Pridmore: Many things. I had a real, if I'm honest, I had the normal stereotype sort of arguments of why I shouldn't submit to an authority, and I ended up finding a priest who told me about a retreat that was happening. Well to be honest, I thought a retreat was lying on a beach, Bacardi Breezer, joint, nice bird, just chilling for a couple of weeks, and I thought I could do with a holiday so I'll go on this retreat. So I went there, and at this retreat there was a talk and the talk was 'Give me your wounded heart' and as this priest spoke about every sin we commit, every bad thing we do, it's like a wound on our heart. I was looking at a crucifix and for the first time in my life I realised why Jesus had died on that cross, and I was just crying and crying because I realised that Jesus, this man, had died for me personally and I came out of that talk and I said a prayer and I said a prayer to our Lady, because in this talk he also spoke about the Virgin Mary and her role being to lead us to Jesus.

So I just said this prayer and I just said, 'Mary, what is it that your son wants me to do?' And I felt a whisper in my heart go to confession. Well obviously I'd never been to confession in my life. I think I had broken practically every commandment there was, but I went to confession. And I told this priest everything, I left nothing out, and at the end of this confession this priest puts his hand on my head but it wasn't his hand, I truly believed it was Christ's hand and it was like I wanted to dance, I wanted to sing, because I felt so free. And a lot of people think, Well what was the priest thinking of you? Well he was actually crying, he had tears rolling down his face, because he was Jesus to me, he was like completely humbled by me being set free through God's mercy and me and him became great friends actually.

It's quite funny, but many years later about 12 years later, I just said to him, 'Do you remember Father, I was the first person who went to confession to you?' And he said, 'John I never remember a confession but yours I'll never forget.'

Rachael Kohn: Well indeed. How does one continue though along that road? Because it can be a great release for that moment but it's hard to go back and hard to submit to a discipline.

John Pridmore: Very much. Like then there was a mass and to be honest, I had no understanding that this white thing was meant to be Jesus, like the Catholics think that this Eucharist is Jesus and it just made no sense to me, but maybe my heart had been opened because I'd been to confession, but I just said a simple prayer, and I just said, 'If this is truly you Jesus, then show me', and as I received Jesus on that day, the only way I can describe it is every good feeling I ever felt in my life, including how I felt when I walked out of that flat and felt God's love for the first time, including how I felt when I walked away from confession and wanted to dance and sing, was magnified a billion times and I knew two things.

One was, that that was Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity and the other was that the Catholic church was the one true church, and it was like an infused knowledge, it's the only way I can explain it, though I had no problems with any of the teachings of the church and up to then if you'd asked me ten minutes before, I would have gave you a litany of what was wrong with the church, and after this miracle that took place, this infused knowledge, I had no problems, I knew that everything that was taught through the Catholic church was true.

Rachael Kohn: But what about those grievances? I mean there really are serious issues with the Catholic church. We've just been reeling from a number of child sexual abuse cases for example, and this program has focused on it recently. So I mean those are real issues.

John Pridmore: Absolutely. But see the difference is that they're brought about by men's weakness, you know like a priest yes, he is given an incredible gift of the holy spirit on his ordination but he's also weak like me and you and he has the same temptations, he has the same problems, and unfortunately thank God it's only one in many, many thousands, but there's that one who causes great pain and great hurt and great misery. And you know I was the victim of abuse when I was a child and I've worked with a lot of kids who've suffered from abuse and it's terrible, but the one thing I find is, in the same way that God gave me the chance to come back in his mercy and his love, he gives everyone a chance to come back in their mercy and their love, and he can turn everything to something which is so terrible and so painful into something so beautiful and so wonderful, and it amazes me the kids I've worked with, their incredible resilience in wanting to love still, and in wanting to give.

Now these children weren't abused by priests, but they were abused by people outside their family. But I just find that it doesn't matter how weak we are or how broken we are, God's church is there, and that's the structure, that's the grace. It isn't that the individuals in the church are perfect, of course they're not, and they're broken and they're weak like me and you but there is that grace of an authority which keeps us on that path which stops me from falling away from God and falling away from his commandments and his love.

Rachael Kohn: John Pridmore, a remarkable fellow who's the living proof that you can change from a life of crime to a life of goodness and service. But it's hard work.

My guest now lives in a community in Ireland which he co-founded and one of its members is Breda Coman who has a lovely voice.

Before we return to my conversation with John, let's hear 'Broken Things' the song that means a great deal to him, sung by Breda and from the CD Amazing Love.

SONG

Rachael Kohn: Do you think your special calling is to young people and that when you do offer them the love of Christ and a change in their lives, you're really in a sense talking to the young John?

John Pridmore: Very much. Like you couldn't put it better, that to me like you know I remember one boy I went to a school because like I say, one of the things I felt God calling me to was to speak in schools and to speak in some of maybe the deprived schools and the broken schools, and there was a 12-year-old boy called Stuart there, and Stuart had been in foster care since he was 8, rejected and abandoned by the very people who were meant to love him. And you know, I got special permission for Stuart to come to a retreat, much like the retreat I had been to. And at this retreat Stuart went to confession for the first time in his life, even though he hadn't been brought up in any religion and he wanted to say Sorry, and then straight after that there was a healing service and at this healing service, I'll never forget it, I was kneeling next to him, and he just threw himself in my arms this 12 year old boy, been shown no love in his life, and he was crying and crying and he said, I know God's real and he loves me. Six months later, Stuart was baptised a Catholic and I had the honour to be his godfather.

Well now Stuart is such a beautiful young man, he's now 21 and when I'm in England he comes in to prisons with me doing talks, and I remember recently he was in a prison and he gave his story to the so-called hard prisoners and they were crying these so-called hard prisoners, and as we walked out I noticed that Stuart was crying, and I just put my arm around him and I said, 'Are you OK?' and he said, 'I thank God every day that you came into my school, or else I know instead of being in there helping those people, I would have been one of them.' And I just think it amazes me how God could use someone as broken as me to bring someone to life you know, and he's now using someone as broken as Stuart to bring people to life.

Rachael Kohn: A great story, and I'm sure you have many of them. But you were really wanting to go to work with the Franciscan Friars for Renewal in the Bronx and that's the place where the famous Stan the Rapper, Father Stan the Rapper hangs out when he's not on the road, in fact he's been on this program. What was it that you especially wanted to learn from the Franciscan friars?

John Pridmore: I think that I'd met Father Stan, I'd met about four of these priests and they were so in my eyes, so holy, so close to God, and I wanted to be holy, I wanted to be close to God. So I assumed by going there, that would make me holy, that would make me close to God, and of course when you've come from my lifestyle with the best hotels, money was no object and then suddenly you're sleeping on the floor in a very drafty cold monastery, it is a big change. And I think God didn't ask me to be put through the mincer as someone put it, he just asked me to be finely polished and I got a great grace out of it and me and Father Stan are great friends, and I met many, many great people, and I think I changed a lot.

I met Mother Teresa while I was there and what a blessing that was you know, she just oozed so much love. But I think God brought me there for a reason, it wasn't to spend the rest of my life there, but it was to have some of that healing that I needed. You know, you said earlier that when I hold one of those children in my love, is it that you're holding yourself in your love, and I think God took me there to take me as that little child who was so broken and so hurt and be held for a little while by these priests and brothers, who really knew how to love.

Rachael Kohn: Well you were actually told that you weren't really quite appropriate for the place.

John Pridmore: Exactly, yes.

Rachael Kohn: Was there a kind of problem with obedience and being part of a rigid community or a disciplined community?

John Pridmore: Very much. Like I had done everything really on my own from the age of 15. No-one had really told me what to do, you know I was in a prayer house for about a year in Scotland which was a great help but coming to that sort of environment I found it very difficult. And I remember the actual founder of the order, Father Benedict Groeschel, when I decided to leave through their guidance and mine, I remember him saying to me, 'You're like a budgie in a budgie cage', he said, 'be free for God, that's how he'll use you.' And he couldn't have said more truer words because since then OK I'm obedient to the church, and we've got a bishop who gave us a beautiful house in Ireland and I'm obedient to him, but it's incredible how free I can be. And I just know that it would never have been God's plan for me to be in that sort of strict environment.

But for some people it's perfect for them. But like Father Stan, even though he's such a great personality he finds that you know he's so humble when he's in the house and when people see him on stage and he's rapping and everything, but when he's in the house he couldn't have been more loving. I remember one time my father was quite ill and he just came over and put his arm around me and just said, 'You know, how are you brother I love you', and for someone who's as well known as Father Stan to just give you that time, it really does touch your heart, that's why we're such good friends.

Rachael Kohn: Well I got the impression, reading your autobiography that you really are the big man, you've always wanted to be the big man, whether it's in the gangland or in the promised land you're on your own, you like to be in control.

John Pridmore: Yes I think that that's another healing that God's trying to bring me. Like you know, I used to be petrified of flying and I think it was my control, I was petrified of someone else driving me and it was my control, I remember when I first started this community in Ireland which I'm now a part of, that it was my community and I had to control it, and it was a complete mess. But as soon as I started giving these things over to God and allowing him to be in control and saying I trust you, the more freedom I get and the less headaches. And the more beautiful everything seems to work out. But it's a hard lesson and I'm still learning that lesson to let go. But the more I'm learning to let go, and I think because that control in my brokenness is the thing that stopped me being hurt. You know, when I was a kid and I was being hurt, that control where I controlled my destiny, I controlled that I wouldn't love, it stopped me being hurt and so I see why it's there but I also see God saying You don't need it, all you need is to trust me.

Rachael Kohn: Well you've had some big tests in your life and one of them was actually officiating or speaking at your former crime boss' funeral and that took a lot of courage because out there in the crowd were some 'faces', some pretty well-known crims. You must have encountered a lot of scepticism, people who thought you'd retreated into the church.

John Pridmore: Yes, to be honest, it was very, very strange, because even on the way to the funeral my friend, who was his son, who was like a brother to me, had asked me to speak, and he had just come out from prison doing 7-1/2 years, and I just was very, very frightened. And it was strange, it wasn't frighted of what they thought of me, it was much more of my pride, that I didn't want to break this illusion that I was the big man. And yet I knew God was asking me to do exactly that, and when I stood up and I started telling them the story, really what I've told you today, you know, some of them were laughing, but some were crying. And some of them said they had a lump in my throat and you know, I wanted to shoot away from there as quickly as possible but I felt Jesus saying 'But that's where I'd be at the wake with Mary Magdalene with the broken people.' And I knew he was asking me to go to this wake. And I went there and it was amazing how many conversations I had with these so-called very, very big villains, 'faces', in the East End and the West End of London, about God, and how some of them were sharing when they were in prison, that they had found an experience of God, and you know, it was very beautiful, and there was very little mocking that took place which was amazing.

Rachael Kohn: Have you ever been scared that you might slip back, was that part of your fear?

John Pridmore: No. When you've lived hell, and that's what it was like to me living that lifestyle, was hell. You know, someone said to me in one prison I was talking at, What's the longest prison sentence you ever did? And I said 27 years without God, it's a death sentence, because I was 27 when I really found God and before that I never knew his love, I never knew his tenderness, I never knew his patience, his forgiveness, you know when you're wrapped in his un conditional love, there's nothing you want more and there's nothing I want more than to continue that journey of growing in his love, of letting go of my control of letting go of my brokenness and allowing him to heal me.

Rachael Kohn: One of your mentors actually pointed out to you that you've got to stop saying 'God's going to show me what to do', because he was detecting that maybe you were depending too much on God and not enough on yourself.

John Pridmore: Yes, I think there is a thing you said before about hiding, and I think we can hide but you know, people can sit still and not do anything because God hasn't said what to do. Whereas God says Well use your commonsense and get up and start walking and then I'll show you what to do. And I know in my own life that you know, there's a freedom in God and we walk with him and there's a joy.

I remember one day we was in the Holy Land and we'd been to all the so-called religious sites and they were very beautiful but we spent one day on the beach and we spent this whole day on the beach just swimming and just - and it was beautiful and as we was coming coming my friend Neil, he just said to me he said, 'You know how much joy that was'. And I said, 'Yes'. He said, 'Well I felt God the Father say if you think this is good, wait till you get to heaven.' And I think sometimes we can find there's that headmaster typeness in God, and there is until my God is someone who loves me who understand me, who suffers with me, you know. I used to get very angry, people used to say this loving God, because I thought Well where was this loving God when I was a child getting abused and hurt, you know, where was he? And then I went to confession to one priest and he just said to me, he said, 'You're angry at God'. I said, 'No, no, no, I love God'. He said, 'No, no, you're angry at God'. I said, 'No, I love God', he said 'You're angry'. I said, 'I'm getting angry at you'. But then I found myself saying I am angry at God, where was he when I was being hurt? And he said he was you, he was being crucified because you was being crucified, he was being scourged because you was being scourged, he never left you, he was in every part of your suffering. And I tell you, the amount of young people who I've worked with who have had terrible childhoods and now they realise from saying I've shared, that God was with them in that pain and that suffering, that it really does change people's lives, that he is the victim, he's never the perpetrator our God.

Rachael Kohn: But faith in God isn't always a panacea for everything is it? I mean -

John Pridmore: It's not the bowl of cherries.

Rachael Kohn: Yes, and one of the things that comes through in your life is that anger has still remained an issue for you, that even when you were at the height of being great at retreats and having people come to you and share with you, you still had problems being angry.

John Pridmore: Very much. I think that you know, like I think that was a big part of my anger, that whole thing with God, where was he in that suffering? Because at that point, I really felt there was something that was removed from my heart, and do you know, the anger that can still be in me.

I find it's something that God has so much relinquished and made so insignificant. You know like I remember very shortly after I was converted, I had the machete out the back of my boot just before Christmas wanting to cut someone up as a Christian. So thank God that was 15 years ago and now I wouldn't even dream of any you know, I haven't had a fight in 15 years thank God. But you know, that anger is so replenished and I still get annoyed, I still get impatient, I still get frustrated, and here I think the beautiful thing with God is you don't have to be good, you don't have to be perfect. All you have to do is try and every time I fall down, which is every day, many times every day, you only have to ask the people I live with, but God is there saying It's OK I love you, let's carry on. And that's the freedom that God offers that I don't have to be perfect, all I have to be is John who he created me to be, with my brokenness.

Rachael Kohn: That's John Pridmore who's written about his life in a book called From Gangland to Promised Land.

There have been people along the way, and you've mentioned Neil, he was one of the people you did a year-long series of retreats with, is that right?

John Pridmore: That's right, yes. And he's with me now because he's in community with me. And these incredible miracles setting up the retreats and everything else, like it was just going on the road completely, all we had was two bags and a car, and driving around not knowing where we was to stay, not knowing where we was to eat, and God provided everything, you know, and spoiling us really. But it was beautiful because seeing people like Stuart come to him in that year, seeing many other young people come to him in that year was just such a grace for us you know.

Rachael Kohn: Well one certainly gets the impression there's quite a large network of places that you can hold retreats, lots of schools, lots of churches, it's an amazing kind of world in which you live. A lot of people wouldn't actually realise you could make a living or live a life actually just offering retreats to schools.

John Pridmore: Yes, like we also do parish missions now as well which is a big part of our work, but to me the beautiful thing about what I do is I live off God's provenance, and where he says in the Bible, you know, 'Do not worry what you are to wear, do not worry what you are to eat', a lot of people think Well that's great 2,000 years ago, but I'm doing it now, I haven't signed on, I haven't been paid in the last 10 years by anyone. And I haven't gone without a meal, and as you can probably see, even though your listeners can't, I'm fed very well.

Rachael Kohn: Yes, and you're nattily dressed.

John Pridmore: Exactly. And he just provides everything we need. And you know, like we don't charge anywhere or for anything. So if the school wants to give us a donation, they can, but if they're a school that hasn't got a lot of money, we can still go in there and we can still address and really offer something to the young people and they don't have to pay us. And that's the beauty because I don't think Jesus ever got paid for anything he did, so why should we. But if they want to give us a donation they can, and do, some of them are very generous.

Rachael Kohn: You must strike quite a figure when you come into a school I mean you're 6-foot-4, you've got a kind of smooth hair, you look a bit like you could have been a gangster very easily.

John Pridmore: Yes, one young man said to me he said, 'The last person I ever thought would speak about Jesus is someone who looks like you', because I do. I had a dream once and in the dream I just woke up with his words that you are a sheep in wolf's clothing, because I look a bit like a wolf. So, but you know, God uses that and the young people listen to my past. I don't pretend. I'm very honest and very real and they listen to my past but they also listen to the fact that God loves them and God's there for them. And it's the greatest gift in my life.

You know I was in a school in London just two weeks ago and just before I came to Australia, and there was - this is a hard school, a lot of brokenness, a lot of pain - and some of the boys there were openly crying in the middle of my talk. And it just makes me want to cry that God can use someone so broken as me, because I know myself, to touch people's hearts so deeply, and I just felt that maybe if someone had done that when I was at school, I wouldn't have lived the hell that I lived, and so if I can stop a kid doing that, then that's what I live for.

Rachael Kohn: You've been close to love, personal love with a woman quite a few times, but no-one's ever been more important to you than your mission.

John Pridmore: Very much. I think that again, yes, there has been one girl in particular that I really did love, but when you know that everything in you wants to do this work, and I'm also very aware that if you are getting married it's a serious responsibility and it's a serious vocation, and I didn't want to be someone who was around evangelising young people while my own children were being neglected and I really felt that I couldn't marry this person because I couldn't stop doing what I absolutely love to do. And even though I love her and even though I would have loved to have been a husband and a father, I just really felt I wouldn't have been a good husband or a good father because I couldn't stop evangelising, I couldn't stop sharing my story with others.

Rachael Kohn: Well you've established a community of, you co-founded a community the St Patrick's community in Ireland, but you're not an ordained priest or brother, so what sort of a community is it?

John Pridmore: Well at the moment there's five of us and we've made five-year commitments. Sometimes there's more, you know there's been up to nine in the community. It's been going for about seven years now, and now we're under the bishop. And it's a community where we make three promises, they're not binding vows, because as you say, we're not religiously recognised, but the vows, the promises are no boyfriends or girlfriends, because it's a mixed community, there's also a promise of obedience that we're obedient to our bishop and to the church, and the third one is that we have promised to poverty that we don't earn any money and we don't receive any money except for donations.

And in that life we pray together, we work together and we evangelise together and it's very beautiful because you really know each other intimately, you know, inside out, you know all our brokenness, and yet God uses us to bring that grace to each other. You know, they know what you said about my controlling problems so they help me in that way. You know, I know about one of them's problems with worrying what people think, so I help them in that way. But God seems to bring us together to help and create and maybe a perfect person in all five of us whereas individually we're just the broken part of it.

Rachael Kohn: What about issues like celibacy, I mean that's a very contested issue at the moment in the priesthood and some people obviously are not very good at keeping that vow. Do you think it's a worthwhile thing?

John Pridmore: Very much. Like for me personally, you know, I wear a wedding ring and the reason why I wear it is because I feel I'm married to God. And you know, I made a promise to God quite a few years ago that I would be celibate, I'd live a celibate life with a celibate heart. Now obviously if someone comes along when I'm not in this promise and I fall in love, and I feel that I am called to get married, then I can, but if I made that promise to God as a binding vow, it would mean everything to me. Like I've made that promise to God for five years, and to me, I don't make it as a punishment, I make it as a gift because it stops me being I expect trapped by something which maybe is a lure or maybe is a distraction from what I'm doing. And all I know is I can honestly say with my hand on my heart, I've never been so happy in my life, and that's in my celibacy.

And so yes, some people fall out of their celibacy and some people fall. And you know, it's a temptation that's always there and you know, I can't say that I don't understand that temptation because I do. But it's something whereas I think if you're praying, I think if you're really trying to strive and live for God, then he gives us the grace and the strength to live that celibate life which is a gift, it's not a punishment, it's a gift for me to live that celibate life.

Rachael Kohn: What are the events you're involved in for World Youth Day?

John Pridmore: There's quite a few actually that tomorrow I'm with the Bronx Brothers from my old Franciscan friends, I'm doing something in Darling Harbour along there. And then on Thursday I'm doing another thing in Darling Harbour which will be another talk and then on Friday there's a big event which is called Receive the Power Live and it's at Darling Harbour and it's after the Stations of the Cross at Barangaroo and I'm there, and it's 7 o'clock that starts, it's going to be an incredible night. So I'll be there speaking.

Rachael Kohn: What happens at Receive the Power? I mean that sounds like a Pentecostal event.

John Pridmore: Well actually there's quite a few Pentecostal churches there. There's Hillside - is that right?

Rachael Kohn: Hillsong.

John Pridmore: Hillsong. Yes you're much better these things than me, I'm terrible, but Hillsong, they'll be there, and obviously they're not Catholic but they're will be part of this grace. Because I think when the holy spirit comes you don't have to be a Catholic to receive the holy spirit and I think it's going to be an incredible night of really receiving the holy spirit. So there's going to be some great musicians and great praise and worship. But there's also there'll be some prayer teams who they'll be praying over people, there's going to be some great tests for me, it's just going to be a great night, I think it's going to be one of the most powerful nights at the World Youth Day.

Rachael Kohn: How many World Youth Days have you been involved in?

John Pridmore: I've been involved in four, but this is the first one where I'm actually being given the privilege to speak at the vigil as well and I'll be speaking at the vigil about quarter to four on Saturday afternoon, you know, just before the vigil really begins.

Rachael Kohn: So you're let off easy.

John Pridmore: Yes really, yes hopefully I can escape before I lose my bed for the night, because those days of sleeping in the fields I think are over for a 44-year-old man now.

Rachael Kohn: Well John, you've also recently penned a book called A Gangster's Guide to God, now why would an ordinary person read that?

John Pridmore: Well it's like my first book which was From Gangland to Promised Land, it's very much about my life and very much about me finding God and the struggles after finding God, and I think it's very honest and very right. I didn't want it to be one of these books where you find God and everything's perfect, and yes, that's available at amazon.com and any decent bookshops. And then I wrote my second book which is a bit of a different book, A Gangster's Guide to God a lot of young people were asking me to help them in their everyday struggles with God, and I think this book is very much about our need for God in even a materialistic world, and our real need for God. And it's not just for young people, it's for anyone, but it really speaks about how God's there in every part of our day if we let him be, how he's got an incredible plan for our life, how he's there in the struggles, how he's there in the good times, and it's just really I expect it is my guide in how I found God to be to me. And it breaks that illusion of this headmaster who's angry, because he's a loving friend who's there in every part of our need you know.

Rachael Kohn: Well do you feel hopeful? I mean do you think that the Catholic church really is going to turn the tide of decline, that it's currently experiencing?

John Pridmore: Yes well to me, you know, I'm involved in the church in Ireland, in England all over the world, and in many of the countries where it is said that the church is declining, what I found is wherever the truth is delivered, wherever people speak about God's love, wherever people are willing to stand up and say 'Look, you know, it is wrong when we've got a society that's turning away from everything that's moral, it is wrong, and we should turn back to morality', you find that young people flock to it. And I find the opposite is true, that I see an incredible revival in the church, I see incredible miracles taking place, and World Youth Day you know, half a million young people from all over the world coming together, to meet their Holy Father, that's what World Youth Day is about.

Well it says something about the church that half a million people, the greatest gathering of young people in Sydney's history, come together to meet our Holy Father, and I just say that's a revival in itself. But I think these young people are the lights to go back into our world that as we can see, can be full of darkness and they can be that light, that light of morality, that light of helping other young people to be something special in their community and to reach out and help someone, I always remember Mother Teresa's words you know, she never told people that Jesus loves them, she showed people Jesus loved them by giving them a sandwich or the first leper she met, she held him in her arms, and he said, 'I've lived like an animal but I die like an angel' because he felt loved, and I think that's what World Youth Day's about, really commissioning and filling the young people's hearts with this joy of being able to love the world they live in.

Rachael Kohn: Well you've transformed people by your story, by your words, an unusual story of a person who actually was a gangster. Are you ever going to be able to lose that story?

John Pridmore: I don't think so because I think if is me, it's like the one thing I love about our God is that he turns everything bad into something beautiful, and how I can live such a repugnant entity of my life you know, destroying and causing so much harm, and actually you can turn that into something beautiful and positive in bringing young people away from that lifestyle, is just such a joy to me, so no, I think that is part of my identity. I regret it every day that I wasn't with God there, because when you live in that love and in that light there's nothing worse than seeing that darkness and that deep emptiness, but to share that and to use that to help others to live that light, then no, I don't think I'll ever lose the story because I think it's the very me.

Rachael Kohn: Well it obviously brings a lot of other people great joy. John Pridmore, it's been wonderful talking to you, thank you so much for being on The Spirit of Things.

John Pridmore: Thank you very much for inviting me and God bless you and all your listeners.

Rachael Kohn: John Pridmore a man who's life really demonstrates that old hymn, 'Amazing Grace'. His most recent book is A Gangster's Guide to God. He was one of the headliners for World Youth Day, attracting young people from near and far, but of course the No.1 attraction was the Pope.

Where are you from?

Answer: Korea.

Rachael Kohn: How many are you?

Answer: 31.

Rachael Kohn: 31 and I see you've got your flag waving as well. How long have you been on the road.

Man: We just got here yesterday in Sydney.

Rachael Kohn: That's terrific. So what event are you most looking forward to?

Man: The Final Mass.

Rachael Kohn: The Mass, and will you be at the Vigil?

Man: Yes, yes.

Rachael Kohn: Are you looking forward to some of the events like Receive the Power?

Man: Yes, I think we will receive the power. Maybe. It'll be very hard.

Rachael Kohn: Do you have any songs that you will be singing?

SINGING

Rachael Kohn: No doubt about it, the young people felt most at home when they burst into song. Presumably they all got a chance to sing to each other, but with so much on the schedule, I wonder if they had time.

One of the big events was the Stations of the Cross which took about three hours. It started with the Last Supper at St Mary's Cathedral and an appearance by the Pope, Benedict XVI.

THE LORD'S PRAYER AND HAIL MARY

Rachael Kohn: Well on that note, we bid adieu to World Youth Day and get ready for next week's resumption of our Festival series, which appropriately enough is all about Mary, the Feast of the Assumption, controversial and not celebrated by Protestants. Why not?

That's next week on The Spirit of Things.

Today's program was produced by me and Geoff Wood with sound engineering by Judy Rapley. So, join me, Rachael Kohn next week at the same time for Mary's Assumption.

Guests

John Pridmore
was born in the east end of London. He started bouncing round the east end and west end of London as a young man and soon started working with the gangs who ran most of the organised crime in London, involved in massive drug deals, protection rackets and vicious crime of all sorts. After accepting Christ, John now works full time for God, telling his story all over the world.

Further Information

John Pridmore's Homepage

John Pridmore Testimony on YouTube
See John in speaking mode telling the story of his life.

Publications

Title: Gangster's Guide to God
Author: John Pridmore with Greg Watts
Publisher: XT3, 2007

Title: From Gangland to Promised Land
Author: John Pridmore with Greg Watts
Publisher: XT3, 2008 Rev. Edition

Music

CD title: St Elsewhere
Track title: Crazy
Artist: Gnarls Barkley
Composer: Burton/ Reverberi/ Reverberi/Callaway
CD details: Downtown Music/ Atlantic

CD title: Amazing Love
Track title: Broken Things
Artist: Breda Coman
Composer: Julie Miller
CD details: Custom Pressing/ Reunion Records

Presenter

Rachael Kohn

Producer

Geoff Wood and Rachael Kohn