I became a Methodist because of bus-strike. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. The Presbyterian Church that my family belonged to was about three miles from where we lived. Now today, in these days of two-car families, people would think nothing of travelling three miles to church, in fact there are certain churches I know which draw their congregations from within a 40 mile radius, which, given the size of Northern Ireland is quite a parish. It really should make us re-think what we mean by the local church. But that’s now… I’m talking about then. The early 1970s in Belfast. Years of riots, bus-strikes, bombs, vigilantes, and no-car families. My Dad often had to work on a Sunday and my mum eventually got fed up dragging me and my brother down to the bus-stop to wait for bus which might or might not turn up, depending on whether the drivers were out on strike, the UDA had their barricades up or the IRA had burned down the bus depot. So she look us along to the nearest church which