More Than You Know. Matt Goss
that he had a gift and subsequently became a faith healer. Obviously, many people are sceptical of this whole subject, but I have seen what he is capable of with my own eyes. I could choose from scores of incidents to illustrate this. For example, many years ago, a man who’d heard about Grandad’s gift came to Crawford Road, explained that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer and given only three months to live. He asked only that Grandad help him to prepare for what was coming. Along with a friend, Grandad gave this man intense healing. One month passed, then two, then three and still there were no signs of this man’s physical or mental deterioration. Then the cancer started to regress. Eventually, the disease was just a single, small tumour which surgeons were able to remove successfully. That man is still alive to this day.
You can call that the power of the mind enhanced by positive energy if you like, but in essence that is what healing is. The fact is, this actually happened. It is also true that my toothache would miraculously dissipate when Grandad placed his hand on my cheek. But I don’t know how he brought my goldfish back to life one day! This fish was as dead as can be, completely still and I was crying my eyes out. Grandad went upstairs and gave it a little rub and next thing I knew, it was alive again. My cynical side might think he replaced it with a new one, the sleight-of-hand approach to faith healing! But it meant the world to me regardless.
Grandad can also do psychometry, whereby you give him an item – a necklace, ring, or a coin for example – and he will give you a reading from it. I believe that both my twin brother Luke and I have inherited some of these abilities. We can both do healing to a degree, and I definitely have psychic tendencies. Yet, if I had foreseen the life I was about to lead, I would not have believed it.
My father’s family situation was altogether different to my mother’s. His own father left the family home when Dad was just a little boy and his mum later remarried. His family lived in a council house in Dulwich but he never knew his father growing up (although he eventually went looking for him, more of which later). Unfortunately, once I reached the age of five, there were certain parallels in my own childhood with what my father went through.
Luke and I arrived on 29 September 1968 at Lewisham Hospital. It hadn’t been an easy pregnancy for my mum – at twelve weeks there was a concern about a possible miscarriage which required her to be hospitalized. We were born eight weeks prematurely and even after Luke was delivered from my mother’s womb, no one knew that she was carrying twins. In fact, they cut the umbilical cord after Luke was born, thinking that was that, but that meant I was inside my mum being starved of oxygen. Doctors later said that Luke and I had been curled up back-to-back and thus our heartbeats had been exactly synchronized. As my lungs did not inflate properly, I was a ‘blue baby’ so along with my brother I was rushed straight into an incubator and fed intravenously. The early arrival meant that we had no eyelashes or nails and were both worryingly underweight, coming in at just over four pounds each I was slightly heavier than Luke even though I was born eleven minutes later. Mum spent only ten days in hospital, despite it being a distressing birth, but she and Dad had to visit us in our little plastic hospital cocoons for some time – Luke for a month, myself for six weeks – before they could take us home.
Mum and Dad were living at 94 Tressillian Road, a one-bedroom flat in Brockley at the time, with Mum working as a hairdresser and telephonist and Dad working long hours within the souvenir supply trade. They had very little money and with Dad away working so much, Mum was faced with most of the day-to-day demands of looking after twins. Perhaps inevitably, the stresses and strains on this young couple gradually began to take their toll and erode that idealistic and exhilarating love they had felt when they first met. Dad left briefly when we were less than three years old, but he and Mum soon reconciled.
I’m not going to pretend that I have vivid memories of every house we lived in and every street on which I wandered as a child: I don’t. My mind is a scramble of different addresses, friends made then lost, countless new school gates and the repeated realization that we were moving once more and it was going to start all over again. What I do recall are certain events, particular moments of extreme clarity in that transient haze, like stark rays of sun piercing a mist. When I think of these moments, they are absolutely crystal-clear, as if I had lived them only yesterday.
One of my earliest memories is of a house in Bramdean Crescent in Lee, before I was even of school age. It was a three-bedroom terraced house with an extra feature – it was haunted. Mum hated it there because of this presence – a very dark spiritual energy – and eventually we left. We weren’t going to be one of those families in the horror movies where they check out the cellar and make friends with ghosts. It was very unsettling indeed.
In 1973, when Luke and I were heading towards our fifth birthday, we all went on holiday to Majorca. Put simply, this was the last time in my childhood that I remember feeling part of a family. My mum and dad just looked so good together. I thought my dad was incredibly handsome (and still do), with his dark hair and piercing blue eyes; Mum was beautiful, so fair-haired and with beautiful green eyes. Of course, during the holiday they acquired lovely sun-tans – the weather was amazing – so I have this overriding memory of them being very brown, healthy and just so good-looking. They were wearing Seventies gear that was the height of fashion and they looked extremely cool. I was bursting with pride.
I cherish so many good memories of that holiday. My parents would go out for dinner looking fantastic and come back full of chatter, having had a great night. I can still see myself running through the streets of Majorca with Luke, both of us holding Dad’s hands as he said, ‘You’ve got to see the bull in this shop! You’ve got to see this!’ When we got there, breathless and laughing, there was a huge stuffed bull from a local bullfight. It was quite scary, but it was so exciting as well for Dad to run with us all that way to make sure we saw it. That’s what dads do.
We stayed in a lovely villa. One night when Mum and Dad were out having a meal, there was a violent thunderstorm. I was upstairs, walking around in the dark looking out of the windows at the black clouds and torrential rain. Next thing I knew, I was lying winded on a bed downstairs. Luke was shouting out, ‘Matt! Where are you?’
‘I’m downstairs!’ I replied, totally confused. I hadn’t noticed the edge of a balcony and walked straight off, falling down a floor and on to a bed. We laughed so much.
I also squashed a cockroach with my bare feet, a big black cockroach, which was fairly unpleasant. Luke and I would play in the pool for hours – I had a Dumbo inflatable and Luke had a Mickey Mouse; I can still smell those rubber rings to this day. Silly memories, important memories. Family memories.
Reminiscing about that holiday, I can still sense the sun-tan oil in my nose, I can still picture Mum and Dad looking so bronzed and stunning, I can still feel the excitement and emotion of being a proper family welling up inside me. In my adult life, I have been fortunate enough to travel the world many times and enjoy some wonderful holidays, but that time in Majorca was easily one of the best holidays of my life.
Unfortunately, it was also to be my last happy memory of childhood for a while. Three weeks after we came back, my dad left home – for good.
Who knows what undercurrents had been bubbling between Mum and Dad in Majorca. They certainly did not allow any problems between them to spoil that fabulous holiday. In retrospect, that must have been very difficult for both of them and I am grateful that we were shielded in that way, even though it made what was about to happen back at home a very sharp shock.
I have a vivid memory of the night when my dad actually left. Mum sat Luke and me on the windowsill, and said, ‘Dad won’t be coming home, me and your dad aren’t going to be living together any more, he loves you deeply but . . .’ That was the beginning of a feeling of strangeness in my life.
From then on, my childhood felt somewhat transient, emotionally and physically. It was very disjointed and hard to feel connected to one place. To feel safe. That’s never changed, particularly with what I do for a living. I have such a need to feel safe in my life – but I don’t feel safe. I think this undercurrent started that night on the windowsill.
While we were in Majorca, I thought, This is so fantastic, I hope we can do this all again next year. That’s how you view