I wasn't quite five when we moved into a brand new house just after the Easter holidays. Our next door neighbours were Roman Catholic.....nominally we're Presbyterian C of Scotland, so there's a whole culture shock going on both sides of that equation.
The new neighbours hung a huge great painting on their living room wall. Mrs Sanders called it The Sacred Heart, and I admit I was upset/horrified and went home to my Mum and said that Mrs Sanders had a huge picture of a man being hurt hanging on her wall.
Ever try explaining the crucifixion to a child ? especially a literal minded one like me......anyhow, I came away with the thing resolved that really there ought not be a man being hurt on that cross, because the miracle was that he was 'Risen', and not for eternity suffering in agony of blood and tears.
Needless to say Mrs Sanders didn't agree with me on this though, and Mrs McKane said I was an evil little girl and I was going to burn in hell......so that opened up a whole other conversation.....
Mrs Mulrain just said that she didn't think her children should play with me, not if I was going to ask questions !
1960's Scotland was a fun place to grow up
rife with sectarianism and religiously divided schools, etc.,
I still hate seeing a filled cross, and I know now from an education in history that the fish was the symbol of his time, not the cross, and that it was the medieval love of macabre and pain filled religious iconography that stuck folks with this visceral torture scene. I wish I'd known that back then because I'd really have annoyed Mrs Sanders and Mrs McKane
and probably the parish priest too.
Mrs Mulrain's eldest son was the first boy I kissed