Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International in Spain

Ireland was engulfed in poverty around the time when I was born, one of 7 brothers and 4 sisters. If you were the last up you got nothing to eat and nothing to wear. I've seen us go to school with no shoes on, or cardboard in the bottom of our shoes. I can even remember the time - I must have been about four or five - when I wore wellies to school in the summer, with great big holes in the soles.

My dad was a drunkard and a violent man, an alcoholic. We used to get beaten up quite a lot. He would line us up against the wall, pull us out one by one and give us a good hiding. I used to hide under the bed, under the cover, behind a chair or anything. Knowing you're going to get a hiding, and not knowing when you're going to get it, was worse than actually getting it. I grew very bitter and I hated him. I used to pray that the Lord would take him away.

He was a terrible, terrible man to live with. God did take him away, but only to work in England and I thought - well, I can't actually tell you my thoughts - but I was glad that he was gone and sorry when he came back and it started all over again. Every time my father used to hit me I used to swear that one day, when I was a big man I was going to kill him stone dead. There were no ifs, no buts, I was going to kill him. When I was about eight years of age, in 1952, my family came to England, and I stayed with an old farmer who lived on his own.

To read all of Tony`s testimony click here.