The General, a Captain and Jesus

ON the walls in our house growing up were three bearded men: Jesus, a Captain and The General.

Each and every thing we owned belonged to The General. In my child’s mind I wondered who on earth this person was who owned my bed, the stove, the carpets and the curtains — “The General’s furniture”. Every knife and fork and plate and cup was owned by The General. The entire house, including the bricks and mortar, was owned by The General.

“Dear Lord Jesus, please thank The General for giving me a roof over my head”.

Some of the items looked like he’d owned them for a long time, and it was clear that other people in our situation had used them over and over again. But still, we were blessed to have them. We were fearful about damaging anything, and as a band of five children we caused a fair amount of chaos. But our remorse was a good match for our gratitude. That, and my mother shouting at every instance: “What will The General say?”

Take it from me, The General never visited to check on us or his things. But he was always “there” somehow, hovering around every corner to see that you didn’t carve your boyfriend’s name on the cupboard door or tie-dye your curtains. Phantom General, one of the most powerful people in the world, I thought. He owned every house we ever lived in. This meant The General owned a lot and we owned very little. The General was generous and we were grateful.

Hearing the call

We heard about the house my parents owned in Port Elizabeth when they were married in 1963; Taybank was a fantasy place far from The General’s house. This time must have been particularly fantastic for Mom because, like my siblings and I, she had spent her entire childhood living in The General’s houses, in and outside South Africa. Sleeping on The General’s beds in Nairobi, drawing The General’s curtains in Vendaland, using The General’s cutlery in England. It’s no wonder that at the slightest clang of a spoon hitting the floor she called on The General. By the time we were conceived, she must have been really grateful.

Before I moved to The General’s houses, I lived in Taybank with my parents and my eldest sister, Janet. This was short-lived for the four of us because Mom and Dad had a calling. They said they were called by God to serve Him better. Called to full-time service.

This means you can’t have jobs other than the main job you have been called by God to do, you have to be trained in that main job and you have to live in The General’s houses from that time onwards. By 1968, we were living in The General’s biggest house in South Africa at 20 Clarence Street, Troyeville, Johannesburg. First it was owned by Sir Julius Jeppe, and in the 1980s it was bought by the hedonist artist and chef, Braam Kruger.

“What would The General say?”

From my first breath, Mom and Dad wore uniforms on Sundays and other special occasions. Granny Golly wore a uniform too, Grampie wore a uniform on and off, while Grandma and Grandpa seemed to live in theirs. There were two kinds: a summer uniform and a winter uniform, although the summer uniform was released in South Africa only in about 1962.

I know this because when Mom and Dad got married (in uniform), Mom was the first person to show it off, to much excitement. They were a magnificent couple: Dad, tall, dark, handsome, skinny legs and an Elvis hairdo; and Mom, a beauty of the English Rose variety, curvaceous, her long blonde hair piled into an impressive beehive.

Saved to Serve

The uniform of the 60s was stylish with a high collar and epaulettes. Very prominent on the collar were two dark red, almost maroon, felt patches, and pinned to these, left and right, were big metal letters.  I learnt that the left “S” (for the onlooker) was for “Saved” and the right “S” for “Serve”. Mom and Dad were Saved to Serve. It was important that they stood out from the crowd. Just by looking at them, you knew they had been Saved to Serve.

Mom and Dad had to add a special stripe to their uniforms when we moved to 20 Clarence Street. They were already Saved to Serve but now they had to be trained to do this properly. They were called Cadets.

If it wasn’t clear to me then — you had to be special to be called by God, even more special to hear His call and very brave to take action — it became very apparent over the years that followed. As did the actual identity of Phantom General. He, or she, as The General turned out to be the first time I was bold enough to ask the question, was none other than the person at the top of the hierarchy of the Salvation Army, the church organisation where Mom and Dad chose to practise their calling.

They had been ordinary soldiers up to this point, like Granny and, sometimes, Grampie. Now they were cadets, training to be full-time officers in the Army of the Lord. Grandma and Grandpa were already officers when I met them. Their uniforms were very fancy and people called them Lieutenant-Colonel.

The training college of the Salvation Army was filled with cadets who had all obeyed God when He called them to join His Army. It turned out that even if you knew God had called you, you still had to decide whether or not you were going to listen. If you didn’t, you might be plagued your whole life by the nagging worry that you hadn’t taken up the fight to Save and Serve.

People are called to do different things. God didn’t need everyone to be an officer. He still needed soldiers of all ages to serve in other ways around the country and the world. You could be a plumber and a soldier at the same time but you couldn’t be a plumber and an officer at the same time (unless you were already a plumber when God called you). As a plumber, you could wear your overalls to work but you had to wear your soldier uniform when you did anything in the Army.

The most important thing was not to be ashamed, not to hide it from anyone. You can’t hide in an army. People can see your uniform a mile away.

I was born into an Army 101 years after it was started by William and Catherine Booth. William was the first General in 1865, together with Catherine. By the time Mom was born in 1943, Grandma and Grandpa were already officers. Mom was also born into an Army. Janet and I were born to soldiers practising as a nurse and a draughtsman and later, Carol, Gordon and Gregory were born to full-time officers.

Like us, Mom grew up as an “O.K." An Officer’s Kid. To have been one and then to breed more proves she was really sure about what God had called on her to do. And Dad must have known, too, because they got rid of the house and their other wordly possessions and obeyed the call from God.

Onward Christian soldiers.

This past Thursday, 27 May 2023, the Salvation Army elected Commissioner Lyndon Buckingham as its 22nd general and Mom,  now 80, was filled with the Blood and Fire as if it were William Booth himself. She WhatsApped us the link to watch the announcement live from the High Council at Sunbury Court in London.

It took me back to that General who was ever-present growing up: on walls, in songs and in my mother’s threats.

The Booths were the first parents of the Army and the image of William, in particular, was as familiar to us as Father Christmas was to others. In fact, they were nearly the same — each with a direct link to Jesus and each sporting long beards. But the Booths' mission didn’t come around only once a year. The stories about them were, and still are, way better than any others, even David and Goliath and maybe Daniel in the lion’s den.

The Booths were part of the Christian Mission for a long time before they started the Army, working in the poorest areas in the East End of London. Night and day, they went on missions to tell the worst sinners that they needed to repent before it was too late.

There’s a story told by a Miss Short, who lived with the Booth family for a few years from 1867. One Christmas, William was determined to have “a thoroughly happy old-fashioned Christmas" so there was great excitement in the household when the preparations started the week before. He preached in Whitechapel on Christmas morning but when he returned he was very unhappy.

“He did his best to enter into the children’s fun and frolic, but it was no use; he kept relapsing into silence and gloom. He looked dreadfully white and drawn, just as if he were ill or harassed by some grievous worry. All of a sudden he shouted out, ‘I’ll never have a Christmas Day like this again'," said Miss Short.

He paced up and down and started to tell the family about the poverty he had seen that morning. Sad and agonised, William shouted: “The poor have nothing but the public house — nothing but the public house!"

So, that was the last Christmas the Booth family spent at home together. From the following year, the Booths and workers of the Mission scattered themselves around the slums to give plum puddings to poor people. That first Christmas, they gave away 150.

“Other people only saw the drinking; he saw the poverty, the misery, the disease, and the godlessness behind it; the sins of London didn’t shock him, they seemed to tear at his heart with claws that drew blood," Miss Short said.

Blood and Fire!

Mom’s next WhatsApp came through on Friday as she was preparing what to say at the 140th anniversary of The Salvation Army in South Africa the next morning. She said there was going to be a march through Gqeberha to carry the Celebration Torch. The torch, she said, would continue to travel across South Africa until September. when the new General is due to visit Africa.

The Salvation Army does nothing in small measures, and being out and about as public witnesses stems from the early mission work of William and Catherine Booth. When Mom and Dad went out on the street, they had to wear their headgear. Dad had a cap like a policeman’s. It was navy with a maroon ribbon wrapped around the front, and finished off with navy braid. It had a little peak at the front and attached to the centre of the ribbon was the badge of the Salvation Army made out of the same metal as the two Saved to Serve “S"s on his collar.

It wasn’t nearly as fabulous as Mom’s bonnet, which was like a sculpted shell with a flat end that rested at the back of her head. It wound and wound into this creation that had soft, furling navy ribbons at the side and a strap that went under her chin. Dad also had a strap under his cap but his was thinner and harder than Mom’s. She looked like an angel with her blonde hair wound into a French roll neatly tucked into the high shell and her softer strands framing her face around the satin-lined edges of the bonnet. A beautiful soldier officer.

The Army believed in making a joyful and often banging noise unto the Lord with a brass band and tambourines. Dad was born with a remarkable musical gift and he would sometimes have to make enough noise for a whole band because the Corps where he and Mom were stationed was too poor to afford instruments.

He was such a sight: his heavy piano accordion strapped to his back, his skinny legs having to hold the weight as he blew his cornet (smaller than a trumpet) with one hand and played the accordion with the other. He would bend his legs so that his back was arched and the accordion was like a pregnant stomach in front of him. He would purse his lips tightly to get the perfect cornet pitch with his eyes closed. Somehow, with his hands full, he’d have to pull the accordion in and out to give off the required volume. Dad, the walking band.

General Booth must get full credit (and take full responsibility) for the walking band idea. Once, after inviting workers to an outdoor gathering, he said: “I often wish I was a soldier dressed in a red coat, so that it would attract the crowd and bring them to the feet of Jesus."

All armies parade to show off their might, and our Army was no exception. Janet and I always followed any mention of the word “army" with the question: “The bang-bang Army or the Jesus Army?" And Carol, Gordon and Greg later asked the same. The bang-bang Army was known to us, we saw them parade their guns and band and uniforms.

An Army without guns

The Jesus Army did the same but without the guns. The flagbearer would be right at the front of the troop. He or she would have a harness, usually of white leather, strapped to themselves. The pole of the tall flag would rest in a pouch just big enough to keep it upright. Boom, boom, boom went the big bass drum right at the back of the band to establish the rhythm. A-a-and, march! It was captivating.

With long, bold, rhythmical strides, the flagbearer would lead the march, holding the flagpole with a hand at breast height while the other arm swept back and forth in time to the beat. The tall flag flapped its yellow, red and blue towards the sky. On and off you could see the Salvation Army crest with the words “Blood and Fire" written in a curved banner across the bottom. Boom, boom-boom.

And directly behind the swirling flag was the group of timbrelists, each brandishing a tambourine decorated with equal lengths of yellow, red and blue ribbons. The sight and sound were mesmerising. Dawn or dusk, the silver metal circles sparkled as these women threw their tambourines in the air and caught them all at the same time. They moved left and right and up and down in time to the beat, the silver bits tingling, the rhythmn echoing in and out of the inner city (or dorpie).

Next came the bandmaster leading the straight row of first and second cornets and sometimes a bugle or trumpet player. Then the first and second horns, perhaps a French horn, the baritones, the euphoniums and the trombones, with the basses towards the back. The drummer had a row of his or her own for fear that an over-exuberant sweep would connect with the head of one of Jesus’ soldiers.

The big bass drum was attached to the front of the drummer from neck to knees, by a thick harness. This was the easiest instrument to play, but should the drummer get distracted for one tenth of a second, the entire band could be seen with feet array and eyes darting fearfully backwards. The bandmaster would surely have something to say about that.

“Uncle” Will got his wish of attracting crowds. Aside from the soldiers who tagged on at the back because they very much wanted to march but couldn’t play a brass instrument or a tambourine, there were those who joined the march along the way.

You could only get a good look when the march came to a halt and everyone gathered in a circle at the “open-air meeting”. Mostly, the drunks would clap loudly and sing along, dramatically patting a chosen band player on the back. Women in tight, short skirts would lean against lampposts listening to the Blood and Fire message. Some smartly dressed people would try to talk louder than the preacher or mockingly shout “Amens" throughout the prayer, or a person on wobbly legs would dance around a timbrelist.

And then, in the silence, one of these followers would step forward slowly and kneel at the drum placed in the centre of the circle. They would hold their head in their hands and sob so loudly that you couldn’t help having one eye open during the prayer.

Their body would give in to the emotion as a Salvationist knelt beside them, a comforting arm around their shoulders. They would talk and pray as long as it took for the sinner to repent and be saved. It didn’t always work the first time. In the background, the soldiers and officers would sing softly into that reverent space until the soldier and the new convert raised themselves from the drum.

As O.K.s, my siblings and I knew no other life than the Jesus Army, this colourful, mostly joyful, loud, strict — yet forgiving — extended family that marches in 133 countries from New York to Calcutta.

Mom and Dad dedicated their entire lives as officers in The Salvation Army, fighting a war against poverty, as a practice of their faith.

And while Dad has gone to “his eternal reward”, Mother Teresa is not yet done.

♦ VWB ♦

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