Chris Hyde was a hell-raising biker living a life of drugs and violence when, he says, God rescued him from death on an American mountainside. Now, he is going to India as a Christian volunteer to serve the poor. Mark Tallentire reports

AS Chris Hyde, then known as Reginald, hurtled down a US mountainside at breakneck speed in autumn 2003, he knew he was about to crash. He had shouted so to his girlfriend, riding on the 1300cc Gilroy Indian bike with him, and he was already bracing himself for the pain. Ahead lay a huge, unprotected drop.

The brakes had gone and Chris was ready to bail. But, he found, he just couldn’t let go.

“I remembered a face, a guy we had met in Tahoe. It was just a flash of him nothing more. He was a local doctor and his parting words to us had been ‘God go with you’.

“I was leaning the bike over attempting to corner but it was going too fast. It was out of control. Then the bike swung round, came up, slowed and ran impossibly straight into the waste ground and stopped upright and without any slide or attempt to dig into the loose gravel, or any input from me,” he says.

Chris describes this life-changing experience in his newly-published autobiography, A Long and Winding Road.

Sitting in his front room, in Evenwood, County Durham, he reflects: “For me, everything changed. What happened was utterly impossible. The bike went in a direction that physics says is impossible. I came to the conclusion that I’d been asking God for many years to prove himself and I’d believe. Well, he had done it.”

Three days later, tears in his eyes, Chris gave his life to Jesus. “I felt such forgiveness,” he recalls. “I felt something flood me that I’d been missing for a long, long time.”

Born in Llandaff, south Wales, to Reg and Lillian, Chris suffered an extremely traumatic childhood.

He was routinely beaten by his mother, leading to several hospital trips explained away with false excuses.

Moving every few years because of his father’s work, he learned to live without friends, he says, and – most importantly – how not to cry.

“I never really felt part of anything or that I really belonged or was even wanted,” he writes.

He later discovered his parents’ first child had died at a few days old, around 18 months before his birth. He believes his mother never got over the loss.

As a teenager, Chris was sexually assaulted by an employer. He left school with no qualifications and was sacked from a job at Currys for stealing.

At 17, he confronted his mother – threatening to kill her if she ever beat him again.

“And I meant it,” he reflects.

The same year, his only friend was murdered.

“I had been bulled at school, beaten and starved to the point of hospitalisation by my mother at home, sexually abused at work and left mentally scarred by what had been said and done to me over those years.

Now I had lost my only true friend,”he writes.

While in the RAF, Chris got married.

Perhaps things were starting to look up. But then he came home to find his wife had been arrested for prostitution. He beat her and, now reflects, it could have been worse. A complicated divorce followed.

AFTER the RAF, he got into hard drugs and bike clubs. He was addicted to amphetamine, or speed, for around three years.

Aged 30, he contracted meningitis and suffered permanent brain damage.

In the following few years, Chris’ father – whom he loved despite his childhood experiences – died, he lost his job, his girlfriend left and his house began to subside.

Desperate, he bought a Transit van and went on the road with only his cat, Doob, for company. In 14 months on the road, he ate cat food, raided skips and stole to survive.

“I felt freedom. I had no responsibilities other than myself, my cat and my van,” he says.

By then, in his mid-40s, Chris finally settled in the North-East, where he married again. But the relationship, like many others he had been involved in, was extremely violent. One night, he woke to find his wife holding a knife to his throat. One another occasion, he choked her into unconsciousness.

Another divorce followed.

At his lowest, Chris twice tried to take his own life.

Then came America. The plan: to ride 4,700 miles west to east across the continent with a friend and their respective girlfriends. His “Epiphany experience” came above Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Afterwards, change was slow.

Chris, by then living in Station Town, east Durham, was no longer violent and his belief in God was unshakeable.

BUT, for several years, he was a Christian without a church – and he was still taking drugs.

Then, in 2009, while on an internet discussion, he met “partygall”. A year later, they were married.

Kris, from Coxhoe, was disabled and depressed. Her premature generalised osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia and asthma had forced her to retire from nursing, aged 40. She could walk only five or six steps at a time, with great pain and using crutches.

After four cautious months, the couple agreed to meet in the car park of the Duke of Wellington pub, in Durham.

They first made vows to each other and before God in a church on Holy Island, later formalising their marriage at Emmanuel Church, Durham, where both now worship.

But Chris’ demons were still fighting.

After he was baptised by full immersion, in the River Wear, in September, 2010, he suffered what he believes was an attack from Satan.

He began shouting abuse at Kris, saying he had been conned into Christianity and vowing to return to his old mates at the bike clubs. After three days, he finally asked his wife for help and they prayed together for God to overcome the situation.

Both now testify to a miraculous healing of Kris’ disabilities: her spine has re-straightened leading to her regaining nearly two inches in height, she can bend over again, move her neck and has been discharged from physiotherapy early following two knee replacements.

Given the lives they’ve led, one might excuse the pair for planning a quiet retirement. But their Life Stories are far from over.

Aged 61 and 53 respectively, they are planning to move to India to work as volunteer teachers, believing that is where God wants them to be and depending, they say, on God to supply their needs. They hope to move later this month.

In preparation, they have gone about selling everything they own, to date raising more than £6,000 for Panawar boys’ hostel, in India.

All proceeds from Chris’ book will also go to the hostel.

“I wrote it because I wanted to say something to those who say a leopard can never change its spots. I don’t believe you can without Christ..

“Writing this book wasn’t easy.

Many times I wanted to stop because of the memories that were being brought up from my past, but I couldn’t.

“If recounting my mistakes before I was saved helps even one person turn to the Lord, then it has been worth it.”

A Long and Winding Road: The story of a sinner come to Christ, by CR Hyde (Fast Print Publishing, £6.50). In bookshops, on fast-print.net, from Emmanuel Church Durham, The Durham Centre, Belmont Industrial Estate, Durham, or from Chris by calling 01388-205683 or emailing: drwatsonsmate@yahoo.com

  •  To support Panawar hostel, send a cheque made payable to Panawar hostel to Emmanuel Church at the above address. Chris and Kris would like to say thank you from them and from the boys of Panawar