While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight;
While little children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight;
While men go to prison, . . . as they do now, I’ll fight!
— William Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army
and its first General, 1829–1912
If we are to better the future, we must disturb the present.
— Catherine Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army, 1829–1890
The Salvation Army’s roots are in the east end of nineteenth-century London, England. Its founders, William and Catherine Booth, were moved by the need to minister to the unchurched and to mitigate poverty, alcohol abuse, and loneliness. The Booths’ fiery brand of evangelism, with its humanitarian message and promise of redemption, found a ready following in Newfoundland and Labrador. A century and a half after the Army’s 1865 founding, forty per cent of Canada’s Salvationists live in the province.
Dyed in the wool
My mother was a Sally Ann on steroids, a religious zealot. Decked out in the requisite navy blue serge uniform and the trademark Army bonnet of the day, weapons at the ready (a tambourine and a King James Bible rivalling in size a Canadian Tire auto parts catalogue) and a face-exploding smile showcasing her pearly whites, she conjured up a latter-day Ulysses Grant about to make his sixth and successful assault on the Mississippi.
The Skipper had a decidedly dim view of organized religion. Born into Methodism, Dad married Mom and the Army at the same time. His reasons for both, certainly the latter, seem to have been practical, rather than spiritual.
I was born in the Army. I am a son of the regiment. At eight years of age, I played in the junior brass band. At ten, I joined the senior band as second trombonist.
Promotion to Glory
The corps (church) brass band is sometimes pressed into service at Army funerals. As a boy wrestling with a man-sized trombone, I was intrigued by a song (hymn) often used on such occasions: “Rejoice for a comrade deceased!” For me, a preteen bandsman, the incongruity of a widow and her now-orphaned offspring standing before the husband’s coffin singing about rejoicing while sobbing their hearts out seemed far-fetched. My fertile mind conjured up a deliciously mischievous paraphrase: “Thank God, the old fool is dead!”
The Salvation Army theology implicit in that sentiment—Rejoice for a comrade deceased—was lost on my young mind. Promotion to Glory, a blissful eternity in the afterlife, was not a concept I had internalized. Many years later, I sat near the saintly Janet Wiseman at the funeral of her husband, General Clarence Wiseman47. The beatific serenity which lit up her face as she gazed into the open coffin bespoke the absolute certainty of her faith that his passing was but a temporary parting until, in the words of another Army staple, “we meet at Jesus’s feet.”
My irreverent rewrite of the funeral hymn sounds like a copycat adaptation of “Ding-dong, the witch is dead.” Not so. Though Dorothy and the Munchkins hit the big screen the year I was born, I was blissfully unaware of The Wizard of Oz or any other film since moviegoing ranked among the Army’s comprehensive list of deadly sins. The first movie I saw was Singin’ in the Rain. Well, I saw part of it. Within minutes of falling madly in love with Debbie Reynolds, my fantasy was rudely interrupted by the theatre manager with a summons from my dad, but really from my mother, who had dispatched him to order me home, rescued yet again from Satan’s persistent clutches!
By the age of twelve, I knew precisely what my future would be. The Army’s Canadian weekly fired my imagination with stirring accounts of its overseas onslaught on poverty, disease, and godlessness, and I pictured myself at the centre of the action. I would be a medical missionary in Africa! In pursuit of that dream, I would later enrol as an officer cadet at the College for Officer Training in St. John’s. By then, two years in close quarters and cut off from the larger world at St. Anthony had prepared me well for the monastic routine at the training college. Importantly, the year in officer training gave me a solid grounding in theology, sharpened my moral focus, and schooled me in the imperatives of social service.
Hospital visitation was an integral part of our training college routine. One such occasion I still vividly recall. As my fellow cadet Wilbur Seabright and I made our way along a corridor of the old St. John’s General Hospital, we were startled by piercing shrieks. I froze in my tracks. “I know that voice. I’ve heard it before. That has to be Skiffington!” It was. Years earlier, I had watched from the shadows as my father and his crew extricated a badly scalded man from a train wreck. Now, five years after the derailment, he was enduring yet the latest of excruciating skin-grafting procedures which, coupled with a low pain threshold, would have accounted for his screaming.
At twenty-one, I was ordained as a clergyman. Medicine and overseas service continued to be my game plan. In what must have been one of my first press interviews, I told a reporter, “I’ve had my eyes set on Africa since grade six.”48 Subsequent career choices, as you will see, took me well away from a missionary trajectory.
Meanwhile, I was dispatched to Springdale as principal of the Army’s all-grade school. In addition to my education responsibilities, I wore a second hat as assistant corps officer (pastor). It was my job to pinch-hit for the senior clergy when they were indisposed or out of town. Such an occasion was a cemetery committal for an infant. As I approached the grieving family’s home, the father, tiny coffin under one arm, a shovel in hand, emerged and got into my car.
My preparation for the committal rite had presumed an audience of more than one. Yet here I was at the open grave with just a distraught father, a miniature casket, and a shovel. For his sake, I felt I had to go through at least an abbreviated version of my carefully planned order of service, in the process racking up a dubious achievement, just one of many to follow. It marked the first and, I promise, the only time I got to render a tenor solo, heartfelt, though not especially melodic.
“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child . . .
In the kingdom of Thy grace, give a little child a place.”
My audience didn’t join in, being consumed with his loss. At the appropriate moment in the ritual, he put the shovel to use. The sight of a parent burying his own child was too much for me. I grabbed the shovel. “Alf, go, sit in the car!” I finished the job. Reflecting later, I realized it had been a learning moment. Basing your plans/actions on incomplete information or false premises can result in unexpected, unpleasant, even bizarre outcomes.
Biting the bullet
I’ve always balked at rules, especially those which seem to serve no logical purpose. Even when they do, the one-size-fits-all template can create more havoc than solutions. That’s one of the reasons I turned in my commission as a Salvation Army officer fewer than three years after ordination. That was one tough decision. I love the Army. Its ingenious formula for outreach has stood the test of time for over a century and a half. A book published in 2001 declared the Army to be “the most effective organization in the United States.” Its track record in 127 other countries is equally impressive. According to the late Peter Drucker, American management consultant and author, “No one even comes close to [the Salvation Army] in respect to clarity of mission, ability to innovate, measurable results, dedication, and putting money to maximum use.”
Since many of the Army’s services are volunteer-delivered and its full-time personnel receive rock-bottom salaries, the organization invests in its programs more than ninety cents of every dollar raised. This is in sharp contrast to other charitable organizations. For example, out of every dollar the United Way receives, about fifty-one cents goes to related charity causes. In the case of the American Red Cross, it’s thirty-nine cents.49
The genesis of my departure from officer ranks can be traced to the family situation referenced earlier. Suddenly confronted with a severe financial dilemma not of my making, my plan to return to university was no longer possible. The one person I needed to turn to was back home in England on holiday. Army protocol required that any change in my plans needed the okay of the vacationing Provincial Commander. Only he could assign me to an alternate posting. In his absence, I bit the bullet and took a teaching position in Labrador for the express purpose of mitigating my severe financial conundrum.
On his return, the Colonel was not amused, as I had fully expected. What surprised me, though, was the hard line he adopted which, from my perspective, rode roughshod over my predicament. His inflexible, oft-repeated mantra was “Rules are rules.” Society and institutions have rules for good reason. But a robotic application of them, irrespective of circumstances, is cockamamie and, more to the point, counterproductive.
I was determined to hang in, to put our disagreement behind us, but in several meetings with my superior officer, the Colonel didn’t budge, leaving me with few options. After six months of this stalemate, I threw in the towel. I reluctantly resigned my officership and went to ground, ignoring repeated attempts by the Colonel, my officer girlfriend, and other friends to contact me. The die was cast. It was my Rubicon.
The whole experience cemented my abhorrence of rules for rules’ sake. Happily, it did not sour my passion for or my commitment to the Army. The organization’s value set and goals continue to be my standard, a litmus test of principle in my decisions. I was a proud member of its advisory board on Vancouver Island for thirteen years and was involved in a similar capacity in Seattle. During my Ottawa days, I served on the Army’s national Commission on Moral and Social Issues.
“With heart to God and hand to man”50
In 1990, I was in Nairobi, Kenya, for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association AGM. As is my habit when travelling abroad, I phoned the Salvation Army’s headquarters: “Is there anybody here from Canada?”
The receptionist, a Brit, picked up on my accent: “I can do better than that. There’s two Newfies here, Majors Wil and Val England!” I couldn’t believe my luck. Dr. Wil and Dr. Val were old friends from my Boston days. Wil asked what I’d like to do. “I’d love to go to Thika,” I said, trading on my boyhood fascination with the Army’s work among the disadvantaged. Thika, thirty miles from Nairobi, is an amazing operation. Close to 1,000 visually impaired children and adults are in residence, attending either school or job-training programs. It’s a labour of love that the Army has been carrying on for nearly a century.
Major Wil and I spent an unforgettable, exhilarating day at Thika. An indelible memory are the happy faces of several hundred children singing a succession of inspirational songs. Though the lyrics were in Swahili, the familiar tunes were the same ones I had so often played as an Army bandsman in Bishop’s Falls and St. John’s, Springdale and St. Anthony, Cambridge, MA, Oshawa, and Ottawa.
Two-pronged Army
The Army’s dual role as a social agency and an evangelical religious organization and its long-standing outreach in 175 languages around the world are a reality that many people in urban North America do not comprehend. I recall a conversation in the fall of 1981 with the minister responsible for Canada Post, André Ouellet, an erudite Montrealer. The Salvation Army’s request for a postage stamp to mark the organization’s centenary in Canada the following year had been denied. As the lone Salvationist in Parliament, I had agreed to see if the decision could be reversed. After André and I got past the pleasantries, it soon became clear that he knew zilch about the Army, including any cognizance of its humanitarian focus. Once up to speed, Ouellet kindly recommended to the Stamp Advisory Committee that a stamp be issued. It was my pleasure, on behalf of the Government of Canada, to launch the new stamp in the presence of the Army’s leader, General Jarl Wahlstrom, Manitoba Premier Howard Pawley, my good friend Lloyd Axworthy51, and 3,000 appreciative Sally Anns attending the organization’s national congress in Winnipeg.
A former federal caucus colleague and House of Commons Speaker displayed his ignorance of the Salvation Army at a most awkward time for me. General Bramwell Tillsley, the Army’s fourteenth international leader and the third Canadian52 to hold that office, had come to Ottawa for a meet-and-greet with parliamentarians. I approached the Speaker with a request, that the General’s presence in the House gallery be acknowledged from the Chair, standard practice for international office-holders, but also for provincial ministers and celebrities. The Speaker turned thumbs down on the request. I was not amused.
“What if he was the Pope?”
“Absolutely! It would be an honour to welcome His Holiness.”
“I agree. What about the moderator of the United Church of Canada?”
“Yes, it would be my pleasure to do so.”
“Tell me, what’s different about my guy?”
“Your guy is not the head of a significant organization.”
The Speaker did agree to receive the General and his entourage in private, but it was clear that gesture had more to do with extending a courtesy to a fellow MP than showing respect for an international church leader and humanitarian.
Not “a significant organization”? Tell that to the legions of homeless persons who get to sleep in the Army’s 25,000 hostel beds worldwide. Tell that to the 16,000,000 destitute people in more than 100 countries who were served by Army caregivers in 2017. Every fifteen seconds, someone in Canada is served a meal by the Salvation Army. Significance, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Speaker Peter Milliken handled a similar request from me with aplomb and class. The Army’s leaders for Canada and Bermuda, Commissioners Bill and Marilyn Francis, and its provincial leaders in Ontario and Quebec were hosted at lunch by Speaker Milliken and later welcomed to the House as guests in the Speaker’s gallery.
I played in Salvation Army bands for more than fifty years. During my Ottawa days, I welcomed the regular respite from the machinations and prima donnas of Parliament Hill by participating in the weekly band rehearsal at Ottawa Citadel. In 1992, the band toured the Netherlands. We were humbled, again and again, by the Dutch response to the Salvation Army and to Canada, both of which had figured so helpfully during their World War II ordeal and their 1945 liberation.
Glenwood, NL, 1954. On a weekend road trip with the Bishop’s Falls Salvation Army Band. L-R back row: Bandmaster Allen Deering, Billy Kennedy, Steve Deering, Billy Vokey, Don Thorne, Jack Stanley, Harold Pelley, Ray Reid, Jack Deering, Ray Wight, Captain Frank Jennings. Middle row: Bill Randell, Carl Budgell, Herb Mitchell, Roger Simmons, Jack Pretty. Front row: Howard Thorne, Lloyd Earle. (Author photo)
The Canadian war grave at Groesbeck is close to the bridge in the 1977 movie A Bridge Too Far. On behalf of the Parliament of Canada, I laid a wreath at the cemetery, the final resting place of more than 2,000 Canadian soldiers. As band members paused before individual markers, noting the ages of the fallen, our flugel horn player put into words what others around her were thinking: “They were younger than I am!” Nineteen-year-old Debbie van der Horden had internalized war’s mad butchery.
St. John’s, 1959. Cadet Roger Simmons, the Salvation Army. (Author photo)
Groesbeek, Netherlands, 1992. While on tour with the Ottawa Citadel Salvation Army Band, I laid a wreath at the Canadian War Cemetery on behalf of the Government of Canada. (Author photo)
Vancouver, 2003. General John Larsson and Commissioner Freda Larsson were my guests of honour at a reception I hosted during the Salvation Army’s congress. (Major John Murray photo)
Victoria, BC, circa 2015. Majors (later Lt-Cols) John and Brenda Murray, me, Marcella and (later Bandmaster) Dave Osmond. (Author photo)
47 The Salvation Army’s tenth international leader (1974–1977)
48 Evening Telegram, St. John’s, July 28, 1960 (“Teacher-Preacher Has Busy School Days”)
49 www.snopes.com/politics/business/charities.asp
50 An early Salvation Army slogan popularized by the Army’s founder, William Booth. Of late, political correctness discourages its use.
51 Manitoba MLA, MP, minister, university president
52 The Army’s first Canadian to head the organization was a Newfoundlander, Clarence Wiseman; the second was Arnold Brown. A fourth Canadian and the third woman, Linda Bond, led the Army from 2011 to 2013. Brian Peddle’s 2018 election as General made him the second Newfoundlander and fifth Canadian chosen by the Army’s High Council. One American, Paul Rader, has held the position (1994–99).