Army snippets

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...shared by General John Larsson (Retired)

THE NEARLY-GENERAL RECEIVES A NEW GIFT

A HAPPY FATHER

AT the 1986 High Council, only two candidates remained for the final ballot: Commissioners Eva Burrows and Harry Read. When the result was announced, Commissioner Eva Burrows had been elected General by the narrowest margin in Army history. Had just two votes gone the other way, the Army would have had a General Harry Read.

On the flight back to Sydney, Australia, where he was the territorial commander, Harry Read opened the Scriptures for his devotions and, as he did so, became aware that something very significant was happening to him. To his surprise, it was as though an almost compensatory and wonderful prayer life had been bestowed on him.

‘There was not the faintest of faint thoughts,’ he writes, ‘that the prayer poems would be seen by eyes other than my own. But the Lord, I dare think, had other ideas.’

In his retirement, his daughter Margaret set up a Facebook page for him. At first he felt out of his element and wanted to close the page down. But he persevered. And so began a weekly miracle of creativity whereby an ever-expanding spiritual family was enriched online through his prayer poems and their subsequent publication in book form.

The song ‘I’ll Not Turn Back’ has it so right: ‘If doors should close then other doors will open…’

A UNIQUE ARMY FLAG A U

DURING the Second World War, British Salvationist servicemen who were prisoners of war at Changi, Singapore, worshipped in the camp’s roughly built Church of England building. After some time, they were permitted to build their own citadel for meetings.

Salvationist Stanley Leeder noticed that a fellow prisoner was using a disused battalion flag as a night cover, which

DU had the colours necessary for a Salvation Army flag. Early Se in April 1942 he traded half of his blanket for it. W With his jack-knife he took the original flag to pieces. S Then, with a darning needle, some cotton and an old s woollen sock – and using the knife to cut out the star and w letters – he created the Army flag pictured. It was first used p on 12 April 1942 and became a centrepiece at the citadel. When the war was drawing to a close, the flag was smuggled out of the camp in a valise with a false bottom. The flag reached England and became much travelled. It worshipped in the camp’s was used by many corps in Britain and Australia as a tribute to the faithfulness and courage of the Salvationist prisoners. For six years it was on display at Sunbury Court and also featured in a commissioning pageant at London’s Royal Albert Hall. lag. Earl ly

JANE Short lodged with the Booths in the early days of The Christian Mission, when their eight children were still young. We are indebted to her for a description of life in the Booth household. ‘William Booth loved singing,’ she wrote. ‘He seldom ran upstairs without singing.’

‘He made it a rule,’ she continued, ‘to give his children a part of his evenings at home, and the children would come charging into the room for a romp with their father. “Fox and geese” was a favourite – with William Booth always in the role of fox. But the most uproarious game of all started with their father prone on the floor and all the children pulling and pushing to get him to sit up. Excitement reached its height when on the verge of success, the “giant” would sway from side to side and fall back suddenly with most of the children on top of him.

‘One evening, his six-year-old daughter, Emma, amused herself by putting his long hair into curl papers. She worked away until his whole head was covered with twists of paper – such a sight you never saw in your life.

‘When she had finished her work a visitor was announced. Up sprang William Booth and was all but in the hall when the children flung themselves upon his coat-tails and dragged him back screaming with laughter. You can fancy that, when he looked in a glass, he laughed too.’