April 2009

April's meeting was blessed by the humorous personility of Major Jean Bradbury from the Salvation Army. Major Bradbury started by telling us all about her life, and how she became involved with the Salvation Army. She was born at the "Sun Inn" near Dorchester to Publican parents, whose family had run the pub for the past three hundred years. Her sister attended Sunday School at the local Salvation Army, and eventually persuaded her to come as well. She really enjoyed it and her interest in the Salvation Army was established.  She worked very hard during her school holidays and sold coupons to raise money  to pay for her Salvation Army uniform. She met her husband at the Salvation Army Training COllege, as in those days you could only marry a fellow minister within the organisation.  They hav ebeen happily married for over forty years and have a daughter, a son and a grandson. Her son is married and runs a mission in Zambia, and her daughter is at the Salvation Army Training collegt. The Salvation Army is the second largest Christion Teetotal organisation in the world. It was founded in 1890 by William Booth, who was a very popular Methodist Preacher, who mainly frequented the East End of London, especially at the "Blind BEggar" pub and preached to the poor people.  He tried to persuade the people in the pubs to abandon alcohol and he set up soup kitchens to feed the poor.  The movement became very popular and soon the Salvation Army was born. So as not to distinguish between the classes at the meetings, a uniform was designed for all members. The ladies wore a hard bonnet which proved very useful as they would aften suffer abuse when trying to get people to stop drinking! The Salvation Army also helps the emergency services, providing comfort and a hot drink to victims of fires and floods, etc. The members also patrol our city and town streets helping prostitutes and the homeless by comforting them and in many cases this leads to them being rehabilitated back into the community. They also run two old peoples homes in Weston-super-Mare and Bath.  As well as their work in this country they work in one hundred and seventeen different countries, and they also operate a familly tracing service.  In Zambia, Charlie Chikankuta gave a lot of his land to the Salvation Army in 1974 to build a Christiam Mission village that included a hospital, a school, a church and a health clinic.