Major Eva Butler

Auntie Eva "Believer's" Work

Eva Butler was born 1918 in Newark Nottinghamshire. The following is as a result of what she told me during a long conversation one afternoon when I visited her in her retirement flat in Scarborough..

My great grandmother and father were supporters of the Salvation Army. They are said to have contributed towards paying Army officers wages in the early days Great grandmother once had a parcel of horse manure wrapped in newspaper left on her door step by an enemy of the Army.

 Auntie Eva started her training to become a commissioned officer in the Salvation Army at the central training school in London in 1940 when she was 22. The length of training was two years. As part of their training the leader would take them out in a group in the streets of London and drop them off one by one and they were required to bear witness ie start preaching and declaring the good news of the gospel where they stood. She told me at that time there was still animosity against the Army from some quarters, not as bad as in the skeleton army days when publicans fearing the effect of the armies crusade against drink organised bands of ruffians to lay siege to meetings and harass the worshippers, some poor girl she said was pelted with a rotten cabbage. 

Because of the blitz the trainees and staff of the school had to sleep in the cellar of the building among where the trunks etc. were stored, sometimes on the floor and sometimes on shelves. She went on furlough the first time and told her mother that she feared she would be killed in the bombing before she had finished her training. Anyway that didn't happen and following being commissioned as a lieutenant she was posted to a town in Dorset called Mudeford near Christchurch. 

She worked at an approved school for girls with an Army office and accommodation block next door. In those days the government would fund the approved school and it would be under police control but the Salvation Army would staff and run it. Auntie Eva would call the inmates her naughty girls. Her first job she told me when she got there was darning socks for the male officers next door. A general feature of life in all the postings she had in her 25 years in social work was that all the Army staff in a particular posting would be unmarried females. Married officers were not allowed to work in social work. If you got married, bearing in mind an officer could only marry another officer, you had to move to a posting in a job for which married officers were thought appropriate. She gave me the impression that her social life was very limited. She only worked with other females, hours were long, certain places were out of bounds such as the theatre, cinema and, apart from selling the War Cry newspaper, pubs. She did once go into a brothel though at the request of two police officers. A man they wanted to talk to was inside this particular brothel and Aunt Eva's task was to get him to leave so that they could talk to him. She told me that apparently at that time policemen were not allowed to enter a brothel on official business. She told me that she enjoyed selling the War Cry around the pubs. She had the occasional unwanted attention from amorous drunks wanting kisses. She said that once they had given her a beery kiss on the cheek they would go on their weaving way happy. 

She had postings in a number of places, they were given two weeks notice of posting, against which there was no appeal, and an afternoon to pack and be ready to go. They were not allowed to return to their previous posting to visit either staff or inmates within twelve months of leaving. She told me an instance of the family of an old woman she had looked after in an old peoples (Eventide ) home inviting her to the old woman's 100th birthday. Because she had not been gone from there for the full twelve months she could not accept. Won't they make an exception in this case the family asked? No the rules are the rules and there are no exceptions. My aunt said that however good and kind they were to the inmates whether they be children in approved schools or children's homes, women in the home for unmarried mothers or old ladies in the Eventide homes they were discouraged from showing them physical affection. This I suppose to reduce the risk of emotional dependency in either direction. She told me one story of an old woman who she was bathing one day. She had undressed the old woman and got her in the bath and started out of the bathroom to take her clothes to be washed and to bring some more clean. Stop thief stop thief the old woman shrieked I'm being robbed, she’s' taking all my money. The old woman unknown to my aunt had safety pinned a few hundred pound inside a linen band onto her bodice like a sort of money belt. It had a narrow escape from becoming laundered money. 

She had postings in Plymouth, Brighton, Liverpool ( 5 years there), Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Buxton. In the homes for unmarried mothers the girls came in six weeks before the birth and stayed until 6 weeks afterwards. Most babies went for adoption The eldest unmarried woman she had in her care was 47, went to a dance and had too much to drink and bingo. One girl swore blind she had never been with a man and must have got pregnant by bathing in the same water her father had just got out of. It came out afterwards that her father was the father of the child by conventional means. She told me the story of two little girls who were sisters who for what ever reason ended up in the approved school. She undressed the older of the two girls and ran a bath for her, the girl was petrified and wouldn't get into the bath. Have I really got to get into there she asked Of course you have what's the matter with you. It appears it was the first time she had been required to take a bath Once she was in it she really enjoyed it. Her hair was absolutely filthy, dirty, matted and tangled. Her clothes were so dirty and smelly they had to be incinerated out doors because of the smell. One time some of her group of girls said they were hungry and Auntie Eva made the comment that the girls didn't know what hungry was. This girl piped up that she did, if all you were given to eat for your main meal was a small amount of bread in a bowl of hot water as a sort of soup you knew all about hunger. The younger girl was asked what she was going to do when she left the school. She said she was going home to teach her father the homemaking skills she had been taught while at the approved school. She subsequently left and made good, her elder sister however did not stay on the straight and narrow very long and ended up in trouble again. Auntie Eva told me about another two girls in an approved school who responded to trust - one an absconder and on a postal thief. When she came back from furlough once she found that one girl was in solitary confinement in the cellar for attempting to abscond. Sometime afterwards my aunt was taking a small group of girls out for a trip to town which was a common practice. She persuaded the matron to let this girl out of the cellar and allow her to join the trip out. The matron agreed provided my aunt would take full responsibility for her and would take the blame if the girl absconded again. My aunt took them to town and eventually took them to a restaurant for tea to a large room on the first floor to make it more difficult for any of the girls to give her the slip. All went well with the tea until my aunt said we are short of tea spoons would some one get some more. The absconder offered to go and get some. They were at the far end of the room by the stairs. my aunt said OK thank you and off the girl went. When she was half way across the room my aunt suddenly realised the chance she was taking and was relieved when the girl reached the spoons took some and returned to the table. Some months afterwards the girl, who had not put a foot wrong when previously she was always in trouble, thanked her for the trust that she had had in her and said it was the first time for a good while that anyone had put their trust in her. My aunt said to me that if she did but know it my lass it was a mistake and was panicking that the girl would make a run for it and her relief when she didn't. So the right result by mistake. In the second case my aunt made a conscious decision to trust a girl. She was in the approved school for taking money and postal orders out of letters she was supposed to be posting. My aunt regularly put a pound note in with her letter s home for her father to buy tobacco. One day she asked this girl to post her letter for her. I'd rather not said the girl. Why said my aunt Because if your father doesn't get the letter I will get the blame. I trust you to post it for me otherwise I wouldn't ask you said my aunt. The girl reluctantly agreed to post the letter but came to my aunt some days later to check if my grandfather had received it. The girl was immensely relieved when she heard that he had. That girl became confident and turned out good when she was released.