All about Alison
I was born in 1961 at Leigh; a town just north of Manchester and I lived in that area until 1963. My family then moved down to Billericay in Essex where I spent the rest of my childhood. At the age of 10 I was diagnosed as having mild Myasthenia Gravis, this went into remission in my teens but returned in my late 20s in an even milder form. I left the Billericay School with Maths, Physics and Chemistry A Levels in 1979. As by this time we had decided to get married I by-passed university. My first job was in the civil service where I mainly tested cigarettes to produce the government's tar and nicotine figures and went to college part time to get my HNC Chemistry. When we married in 1980 we moved to the Stanford Le Hope / Corringham area of Essex. In 1982 I started work with what was then Fina in their central labs which were local to where we lived. In 1991 the location of the lab was moved to Hemel Hempstead and we then moved to Chesham. In 1999 Fina merged with Total and in 2000 TotalFina merged with Elf but my job remained more or less unchanged.
I was brought up to believe in God and would often go to church with one or other of my parents. At the age of 12 I went for a week's holiday to a Christian run camp where for the first time I found out what a Christian really is. I decided then that if Jesus had died for my sins then I really wanted to do something in response. Slowly over the next few years through reading the Bible and joining church youth groups I began to understand more about following Jesus. In my twenties my faith really seemed to diminish, although on the surface nothing seemed to have changed. It is only with hindsight that I can now see that inwardly I decided to do things my way and not to really seek God's will for my life. A complete change of church and gentle encouragement from friends in my thirties made me really take a new look at the Christian faith and to once again take God's free gift on board for myself.
Just before the end of term at Crowther Hall I suffered from two seizures which have since been diagnosed as epilepsy. This delayed our departure to Tanzania and stopped me driving but, having had no further seizures, I am now no longer on treatment.
