An ex-gangster saved my life

John Pridmore (Photos by Saxon Bashford)   From enforcer to evangelist As an enforcer in the London underworld, John Pridmore, now 42, went out armed with a machete, ammonia, and, sometimes, a gun. Today, he arrives in schools, parishes, and prisons armed with nothing more than a rosary. Following his dramatic return to the Catholic faith, he turned his back on crime and took up prayer, penance, and Mass. Although baptized a Catholic, he had never practiced his faith. Once Pridmore returned to Catholicism, he became a youth worker in a tough East London neighborhood, then joined the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in the South Bronx. After six months, he felt God calling him back to Britain. He joined the Youth 2000 mission team, leading retreats in parishes and schools.

Some of the drinkers looked up when John Pridmore strode into the bar. Topping 6 feet, burly, with a shaved head, and wearing a leather jacket, he still looked like a gangster. Pridmore had agreed to meet with me that evening in a smoky bar in the East End of London.

John told me how his life was turned upside down one night in 1991, not long after he had left a man for dead outside a London bar. Soon after, while sitting in his apartment one evening, he heard a voice tell him about all the bad things he had ever done.

“I fell to my knees and pleaded for another chance,” he said. “I then felt as if someone’s hands were on my shoulders and I was being lifted up. This incredible warmth overpowered me and the fear vanished. At that moment, for the first time in my life, I knew that God really existed.”

John and I seemed to click for some reason, and when I suggested a few weeks later that I write his life story, he tentatively agreed, saying that he felt God wanted him to use his experiences to help others. We found a publisher and started meeting for several hours each week in my apartment near London Bridge.

We sat opposite each other in the lounge, my battered tape recorder between us, and I probed John with questions, drawing out of him his memories, experiences, and reflections, but not until he had begun the session with a prayer. After having mapped out a framework and identified key turning points, I started to assemble the fragments of his life and shape a story.

When you sit down with someone to write a life story, you often assume the role of therapist, priest, and even TV talk show host. You delve into dark and forgotten corners,
listen to confessions of things regretted or things not done, and tacitly applaud the way a person overcame obstacles and failures. When I agreed to write the life story of a former London gangster, I could not have anticipated how the relationship was to bring about change in my life.

At this point, my own life was in a mess. I was separated from my wife and daughter and found myself in an emotional battlefield. Aware of the hurt I had caused, I felt like an all-around bad guy who was unworthy of God’s love.

I was spending more and more time in local bars at night, wallowing in a cocktail of self-pity, nostalgia, anger, and guilt. The drink blocked out the pain.

Like many people I knew, I had drifted away from the practice of my faith. There was no particular reason; it just happened, almost without me realizing it. Since my late teens faith had ebbed and flowed in my life. At one time, I began attending Charismatic prayer meetings, but gave up after realizing that I seemed to be the only person who hadn’t been “slain in the Spirit.”

However, when as a journalist I interviewed people about their faith, I would experience pangs of wanting the certainty they seemed to have. I remember feeling this when I spent a week at a Maronite monastery in Lebanon, where I reported on the aftermath of the civil war among the Christian community.

It wasn’t long before John had turned the tables on me when we met in my apartment. “What’s your relationship with God like?” he casually asked one day.

I began by giving him a heavily-edited version of my life, playing down my lack of faith, excessive drinking, and flagging up my time in seminary and credentials as a Catholic journalist. If he knew what was really going on in my life, I figured, he might back out of the project.

“God doesn’t reject you because of what you might be doing, or what you might have done,” he said to me one day. “Look at me. I’m the most broken person you could ever meet. Yet I know that God can use us in our weaknesses. All we have to do is ask for his grace.”

That night, I mulled over these words. They sounded too good to be true on one level. But on another level they had the ring of truth. Why did I think I had to be perfect before God would love me? But how could God love me after the hurt I had caused by leaving my wife and daughter?

The next time we met, John wanted to know if I had been praying. I nodded, mumbling that I found it hard.

“Well, you’ve got to be honest with God,” he encouraged. “Tell God what’s going on in your life. We don’t

Stuart Harris, 17, from Somerset, England, is one of many young people who have been moved by Pridmore’s testimony. “John came into my school one day to give a talk. At the time, I was living in a children’s home and getting into a lot of trouble. He invited me to go on a retreat. Up until then I had never thought much about God. I went to the retreat and six months later I became a Catholic. If I had not met John, I would not have met Jesus Christ.”

change overnight. Although I had that powerful experience, change has occurred gradually in my life.” He paused and then asked bluntly, “When was the last time you went to confession?”

I shifted uncomfortably. Eventually, I muttered, “I guess about three or four years ago. Maybe five.”

“You need to go,” he said gently, reminding me of the story of the prodigal son. “You’ll receive a wonderful grace. The priest isn’t going to judge you. There’s confession every day at Westminster Cathedral.”

Feeling boxed in, I said I’d go, but secretly dismissed the idea. I couldn’t face laying my life bare before a priest. I felt too ashamed. What’s more, I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t run wild again.

By the time the book — From Gangland to Promised Land — was published in 2002, I was praying sporadically but still drinking heavily, and I hadn’t been to confession. But the regular nudges from John and the way he saw the grace of God at work in his life were making me think.

During the soccer World Cup that summer, many bars in London opened early in the morning, so customers could watch the games live on TV before going to work. One day I drank solidly from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m., visiting half a dozen bars in between. The next day, I boasted to my drinking companions, who shook their heads in awe at my achievement.

I think this was a key moment in my struggle to overcome alcohol. How twisted my life had become began to dawn on me. What was I doing? Around this time, a stranger at a local bar where I was drinking asked, “Are you a professional drinker?” “No,” I replied, laughing, but the question struck deep.

One afternoon some months later, I found myself standing outside Westminster Cathedral, with its soaring striped tower. With dread, I went inside and made my way to the confessionals, the air pungent with a mixture of incense and polish.

When my turn came, I inched toward the door, went inside, and knelt in the half-light. Slowly, I began to unpack my sins, worrying that I might shock the young priest on the other side of the grill, or forget to mention something significant.

It was all over in a few minutes and, after hearing those familiar words of absolution, I knelt in the main body of the darkened cathedral, staring up at the cross of St. Francis hanging above the vast sanctuary. I didn’t have the kind of Spirit-filled experience John had undergone. Rather, when I walked from the cathedral into the sunshine, I was a prodigal son, taking the first step on my journey back to my Father. CD