[…] The time we spent in Sunday School was distressing and miserable. 

Each Sunday afternoon we would go through the unnaturally quiet streets to a large, barn-like hall with a platform at one end and rows of benches immediately below. The ‘Superintendent’ stood on the platform behind a wooden table. A decanter of water and a tiny, shiny bell were its sole furnishing.

The Superintendent towered on high. His thin figure, his pale face, his thin, drooping moustache, his small, narrow eyes surveyed his flock with severity and distaste.

The children would sit mute, their eyes glazed, their fat legs dangling listlessly and flabbily, expressing a paralyzing boredom. 

There was singing, praying, reading from THE BOOK, lessons, more singing, more praying and a sudden release from restraint into the street outside. 

 […]

The Superintendent had done his best […] and in my case succeeded in producing an agnostic. I was fourteen. 

I left the establishment, never to return […] To this day I cannot pass any non-conformist chapel without a sense of great unease and gloom.