‘one solitary life’ 

This is my story. It’s about me. It’s about one solitary life. It’s about my realisation that you cannot keep running away. Sometimes you have to face up to who you are. Sometimes you have to face up to what you have done. Sometimes you have to see things from a new perspective. It’s also intensely about how one solitary man could and did make a difference in this one solitary life.

In 1982 I was invited to go to a country house in the Lanarkshire hills owned by one of
Scotland’s foremost heart surgeons. Dr Jack Kelly. Jack was a man who was used to having people around him. He had taken early retirement from the medical profession and bought a large country house in the village of Auchenheath. Jack and his wife Eileen took in all kinds of people. Some with problems, some with none. I was one of a long line of people with problems that Jack encountered. He was a Christian and was an elder in the fellowship that met in his home.

I was introduced to Jack and Eileen in the winter of 1982. I was initially invited to stay as long as I liked. This was a good thing as the police for various offences had already put a warrant out for my arrest and for jumping bail. There were no other hiding places that could go I had nowhere to run to. This seemed a good place to lie low for a while. My past up to this point in time was filled with burglary and theft, drugs and alcohol, and of course rejection. I had tried to commit suicide a year earlier just after my 16^th birthday. The lying low did not last long as I took the opportunity of abusing Jack’s friendship one night by helping myself to the contents of his strong box that he kept in his office and hotwiring a car to get as far away as I could.

Having got as far as Northern France, I decided to live it up a bit and spent all that I had got from Jack’s house. Again I had nowhere to run. It was to the consulates office in Dunkirk that I went to and with a sob story managed to secure a room for the night and my travel back to
London.

Once in London in checked into one of London’s finest hostels in Dean Street right in the middle of
Soho. It took the police only 3 days to find me and after being taken to Bow Street nick I was flown back to Scotland accompanied by to Glasgow C.I.D. officers. 2 Warrants were now out for my arrest also was the charges of burglary and theft from Dr Jack Kelly’s house. I was not surprised at the sentence that was given to me ‘PRISON’ well with previous convictions for burglary and theft what could you expect. Again I had nowhere to run.

I did not take to prison and longed to be let out. Then the day came. I came back to Glasgow and decided to look up some people that I had been in contact with some time previously. The people who had introduced me initially to Jack and his wife Eileen. Within 24 hours, again I was face to face with Dr Jack Kelly. I again had nowhere to run to. Jack said to me ‘What you did to us was unforgivable’.  ‘We have been praying for you every day since you did what you did.’ Jack Said ‘Graeme we are not finished with you yet and neither is God’ what Jack said next was to revolutionise my whole life, ‘I would like you to come back and live with us in this family!’ I was blown away. ‘You must be mad’ I said.

3 Months later I was to a Gospel rally in Denniston Park in Glasgow. I heard for the first time in my life that Jesus loved me those words arrested me inside. I had nowhere to run. Here was I with bleached blonde hair kneeling on the grass opening my life up to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The prodigal son indeed. I stayed with Jack and his family for 4 years after that. Not long after the Tent crusade Dr Kelly paid for me to go on a Christian conference at Cliff College in Calver, Derbyshire. At the conference I was baptised with lots of other people in the river Derwent. At the time of my baptism I heard the lord speak clearly to me through his word. The bible version I had read ‘I will use you to free men in the prison houses’ Isaiah 42.  I said to the Lord ‘I don’t know what this means but I’m going to trust you’.

Some years from that time passed without event but I never forgot the promise God made to me.

In 1991 I moved to Devon to take up working with a Christian firm in Exeter. At that time I felt led to join a prison fellowship group in Torquay and before long I was to make one of hundreds of Journeys back into prison. I began to make regular trips to the Prison Fellowship prayer meeting and the prison just outside Torquay HMP Channingswood.

After a year of doing this, the senior chaplain asked if I would like to become a chaplain and join his team. I filled in all the Home office documentation and sent it off. As one could imagine they said no. We repeated the exercise again and with the prayer backing of the Prison Fellowship group and my local church we sent in another copy. The reply was still the same ‘NO’ the governor of Channingswood became interested in the situation and I was asked to go and to see him. I related my story to him as forthrightly as I could. His reply to me was ‘Graeme do you really expect me to believe that Almighty God speaks with you ?’ I said ‘I know it sounds dodgy but It happens to be the truth’. His reply was to blow me away ‘Well Graeme I find myself believing you, I’m going to take your case to the Prison service headquarters at Cleland House in London. Later I was to find out that the Chaplain General had got involved as well. Three months later I received a letter from the Prison Service, which read  ‘Dear Mr Dodds we are pleased to inform you that the nomination has been successful for you to be appointed as the Baptist Chaplain to HMP Channingswood. You are reminded that you are at all times subject to the official secrets act 1989’God had opened the door that no man could close. He had been faithful to his promise.

At the time of writing this article I’m now the Team Leader of Harehills Lane Baptist Church in Leeds I arrived here 8 Weeks ago before that I was Minister of Idle Baptist Church and Community Centre in
Bradford. Where I ministered for 3 Years. Before coming to Bradford we were in the East end of
London, where I was the Minister of Wood Lane Baptist Church and involved in the Chaplaincy team at HMP Chelmsford.

I Trained for the Ministry at Spurgeon’s Theological College in London. I’m Married to Rachel and have three children Abigail (6) and James (10) Thomas (1)

I have lived in 2 Christian communities and share a rhythm of life with the Celtic Saints.I owe all of this to One Solitary Life. The Man Dr Jack Kelly.

One solitary man can make such a difference in someone’s life. Jack was a wonderful man; He laid down his life for others and the consequences of that one action was mind blowing.