Background
Thomas was born into the Exclusive Brethren.
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Ngaire Thomas
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lieutenant details the abuse she suffered within the church and her eventual excommunication. At the age of 15 Thomas was approached by elders:
And I could tell by their very concerned faces that this just wasn’t a good answer. And of course I was put in my room on my own for several days and just sort federal through the door until it was my turn to go up in front of the Church of about probably 500 or 600 people.
And nobody bothered to come and ask me if I knew what they were talking about."
"I was given the microphone and told to say I was sorry for not crying out.
I stood up in front of about five or six hundred people. The sea of stern and solemn faces was just a blur in front of me as I apologised for something I didn"t do.
This led directly to another event:
"Although it was a very traumatic experience, something good came out of lieutenant if he did not stop his inappropriate behaviour. The abuse ended there and then
He was careful never to touch me again."
She had four children but having had a stroke at the age of 28, she started to take the combined oral contraceptive pill on the advice of her doctor.
After 5 years her inability to produce a further child was questioned by the church elders. When her use of contraceptives was discovered the family were "shut up" — shunned. When asked after a week if they had broken this rule — after first lying — Dennis admitted that they had.
They were then "withdrawn" — a further stage of shunning.
Thomas has termed this "psychological abuse". By 1974, Ngaire was deemed not "sufficiently repentant" and "contentious and rebellious".
The family was excommunicated. Thomas became a Quaker and remained so until her death in 2012.
lieutenant was self-published and sold 1000 copies without advertising.
Subsequently, Random House discovered the book and now publishes lieutenant
