Dear Eileen Johnson

Thank you so much for you letter of the other day: "Dead or alive? An Opus Dei survivor speaks"

I was a Male Numerary in London at approximately the same time, but my experiences couldn’t have been more different. When I whistled, it was London in the swinging sixties, and everyone in the Work seemed incredibly laid back and cool.

I arrived at Netherhall in Hampstead at the age of nineteen, but no one seemed particularly interested in recruiting me, and I had to fight hard to be allowed to ask to join the Work, and I was given  the option of joining as a Numerary or Supernumerary, and frankly there seemed at that time, not much proselytism going on.

Anyway after a bit of persuasion they agreed that I could whistle, and three years later at the age of Twenty Three they asked me to be the Director of a house in South London. So it was in at the deep end. The strange thing was the virtual lack of any supervision, from the Regional Council, it seemed that one just had more or less ‘Carte Blanche’ to do what one wanted.

The Spanish on the Regional Council only seemed to have one ambition and that was to remain in London as long as possible and not to be sent back to Spain. Especially as they had a smart residence on the edge of Kensington Gardens, which was all very up market.

We did get the odd note from the Commission, and as Director, I probably should have read them, but they seemed tiresome, so I never bothered. So long as one didn’t make any waves and went with the flow, there was very little supervision, it was all incredibly lax.

I got the impression that things were probably much tougher in Spain and Rome.

And of course it was brilliant, a total breeze,  living in a smart five star hotel in one of the poshest areas of London, everything was done; cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, mending, shopping, etc. I was still a student and could never have afforded to live in that luxury in the normal course of events. And then in the Summer to Wickenden Manor, a luxurious pile in Sussex set in wondrous gardens, with Croquet and a tennis court that had once been owned by Nancy Astor. Total bliss

Obviously the sex was non existent, well except for my confessor, who it seems, was far more interested in my body, than my soul.

After about ten years I was getting bored with prayer and penance and building the new Jerusalem. What I really longed for was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and downtown Babylon.

It seemed pointless to mention these feelings to anyone in Opus Dei in England, as I had learnt how to play the system. Although I did talk the matter through with a friend who was a member of the General Council in Rome and he gave me discreet good advice, and not the usual platitudes. The upshot was that nobody in the region had any idea of my intentions,  I simply borrowed a car and climbed out of a rear window of the residence, with my bags, and went off into the sunset.

What a privileged existence I had lived in Opus Dei, everything was so comfortable being waited  on hand and foot. Now it was a case of the real world.  A cramped smoky flat above a betting shop in a dodgy part of London sharing with an actor friend, no central heating and more importantly no SF. However, what an exciting new beginning!

Strangely the same confessor kept writing to me most days after I had left, or as Alexander Pope would say, ‘Hope springs eternal’.

I had a wonderful time in Opus Dei, and it taught me a lot, and I was always treated with great courtesy and respect. However the last forty three years with a brilliant wife, family and career, have even surpassed that.

 I have never ever felt a victim.

Regards

Horatio