Under a watchful eye

"God is always watching you". My mother was an old-fashioned Catholic determined to put the fear of the Lord into each of her children. I mixed up the idea of an all-seeing God with the larger-than-life-size statue of the forgotten General who stared out of the small, green square at the front of our house.

I stopped believing in God when we moved away from the square and the General but the image I will always have of Him is a serious-looking man with a beard, his hand forever on his sword. Always ready to punish.