What is The Salvation Army?
2 COMMENT AND CONTENTS • WAR CRY • 14 September 2019
The Salvation Army is a Christian church and registered charity providing services in the community, particularly to those who are vulnerable and marginalised. Motivated by our Christian faith, we offer practical support and services in more than 700 centres throughout the UK to all who need them, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation. To find your nearest centre visit salvationarmy.org.uk/find-a-church
From the editor’s desk THE Prince of Wales and punk fashion designers Vin and Omi may seem an unlikely match, but visitors to London Fashion Week are due to see the results of their collaboration on Tuesday (17 September). At a time when the prickly issue of sustainability in the clothing industry is at the forefront of many campaigners’ agendas, the designers, who class their style as 1980s Camden punk, have used nettles from Prince Charles’s Highgrove estate to produce a new range of clothing. ‘Nettles are perceived to have no value,’ says designer Omi, adding that he aims to challenge thinking within the fashion industry. ‘We want to start people thinking about how fashion can work with what the environment has on offer, rather than forcing itself on the environment in harmful ways,’ he explains. That concept is echoed by Christina Dean, the founder of fashion charity Redress and clothes brand the R Collective. In this week’s War Cry she tells how she was inspired to start the upcycling charity and label after seeing the amount of waste and pollution within the industry. ‘The beauty of upcycling,’ Christina says, ‘is that creativity can change something that’s deemed to be worthless into something beautiful.’ It is hard not to be inspired by stories of positive transformation – whether the change is to weeds, inanimate objects or people. This week we also hear from Mary, whose life was transformed with help from The Salvation Army. For more than 20 years, Mary experienced homelessness and lived with heroin addiction. That changed after she received support from The Salvation Army’s William Booth Centre in Birmingham, which helps people leave the streets and move into more sustained accommodation. Mary no longer sleeps rough and is not taking heroin. In the article she speaks of the positive attitude that her transformation has brought about. Reading her story should give us all hope that it is possible to experience positive life changes, whatever challenging situations we may face.
What is the War Cry? The Salvation Army first published a newspaper called the War Cry in London in December 1879, and we have continued to appear every week since then. Our name refers to our battle for people’s hearts and souls as we promote the positive impact of the Christian faith and The Salvation Army’s fight for greater social justice.
SINCE 1879
140 YEARS
OF THE WAR CRY Issue No 7440
Editor: Andrew Stone, Major Deputy Editor: Philip Halcrow Production Editor: Ivan Radford Assistant Editor: Claire Brine Assistant Editor: Sarah Olowofoyeku Staff Writer: Emily Bright Editorial Assistant: Linda McTurk Graphic Designer: Rodney Kingston Graphic Designer: Mark Knight War Cry office: 020 7367 4900 Email: warcry@salvationarmy.org.uk The Salvation Army UK Territory with the Republic of Ireland 101 Newington Causeway London SE1 6BN Tel: 0845 634 0101 Helpline: 020 7367 4888
Contents
Subscriptions: 01933 445445 (option 1, option 1) or email: subscriptions@satcol.org Founder: William Booth General: Brian Peddle Territorial Commander: Commissioner Anthony Cotterill Secretary for Communications: Lieut-Colonel Dean Pallant
Published weekly by The Salvation Army ©The Salvation Army United Kingdom Territory with the Republic of Ireland ISSN 0043-0226 The Salvation Army Trust is a registered charity. The charity number in England and Wales is 214779, in Scotland SC009359 and in the Republic of Ireland CHY6399. Printed by Walstead Roche Ltd, St Austell, on sustainably sourced paper
Your local Salvation Army centre
FEATURES 3
Words and music Poet behind a Proms anthem
5 Abbeyness Julian Fellowes on the joys of writing Downton 8
Transforming lives How The Salvation Army helps people with addiction
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Care with style Charity works to make the fashion industry more environmentally friendly
REGULARS 4
News and media
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Browsing the Bible
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Now, There’s a Thought!
14 Puzzles 15
What’s cooking? Front-page picture: © 2019 Focus Features LLC
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