Eva Burrows

Eva Burrows0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

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My Castaway this week is an evangelist. Throughout her life she has put God first, other people second, and herself last.

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Born in Australia, both her parents were Salvation Army officers, and after a youthful crisis of faith, she herself rejoined in nineteen forty eight.

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Her early career was spent as a missionary in Africa. She went on to posts of command in Scotland, Sri Lanka, and the southern territories of Australia and then seven years ago she was elected general of the Salvation Army throughout the world.

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People had seen the quality of my leadership over a number of years, she says, and felt I had gifts of inspiration and encouragement. She is General Eva

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And inspiration and encouragement I should think the world needs today more than ever, doesn't it, General? Yes, I think it does, because so many people looking at the world.

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Really feel very depressed. War, poverty, famine, hopelessness, homelessness.

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But I think the world needs encouragement because you can't be defeated in this situation, or else where would the world be? But doesn't the enormity of the task ever depress you too, in the sense that here we are approaching the end of the twentieth century, and as you say

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Deprivation is as great as ever. Violence is perhaps even greater. People starving in East Africa. Ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. I mean, do you ever feel that the world has lost its way?

Eva Burrows1:46

The

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Well, I think, yes, the world is in a difficult position. But if I lose hope

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How can I inspire and encourage people to try and do something about it? I mean, I've stood in Calcutta and seen

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They're starving, lined up for food at the Salvation Army, or talked to Mother Teresa, or here in London had been on the soup run and seen women bashed up with their husbands. And I say to myself, unless I do something and encourage other people to do something, nothing is done. So every every little bit that's done is a contribution to the good and the goodwill in the world. But what do you think that that your founder, the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, might have expected over 130 years ago when he founded the army?

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Don't you think he would have thought that perhaps by now we would have been coping better with poverty? No doubt about it, he would have.

Eva Burrows2:40

No doubt about it.

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He would be surprised, but he would still say to me, Come on, girl, get going and do something about it today. You can't talk about what they haven't done over the years, but keep on trying to make some impression. Certainly, but you can also attempt to analyse the problem and see why we haven't improved over those hundred and thirty years. And I wonder if you have any sympathy with those who say that the world lacks good leadership at the moment, people who have that inspiration and encouragement that we're talking about. I think.

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What we need and politicians who don't just look after their own skin.

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And not only look for party popularity.

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Or

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Next election we'll win. I'd like to see far more.

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Parliaments of the world, who work together on a consensus of what is needed.

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But often it's people.

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In the church, people like Mother Teresa who inspire others to say,

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The situation is not hopeless where I am. I can do something.

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We're talking about inspiration. Does music inspire you? Oh, yes, yes. Uh music's very important in my life, and of course being a salvationist, that's so too. So what's going to inspire you on your desert island?

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Well, first of all, I'm going to have one of the great and popular hymns of the Christian Church.

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Dear Lord and Father of mankind And I think I'd like it on the Desert Island because it's got a verse there that says, you know Breathe through the heat of our desires Thy coolness and thy balm, And let Thy quiet still voice come. And when I'm getting really anxious about not being rescued

Eva Burrows4:16

But not being ready

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I think I might uh quieten down with this one.

Speaker 44:37

Uh

Speaker 44:39

Let sense be gone, let pleasure be turned.

Speaker 44:48

This bears this of

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Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, sung by the International Staff Songsters of the Salvation Army.

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Now, Eva Burrows, you're the second woman, in fact, to lead the Salvation Army. The first was the daughter of the founder, Evangeline Booth. Same name as you, and that's no coincidence, I gather. No, no, because my parents are Salvation Army officers and

Eva Burrows5:36

Same name as you and that

Presenter5:43

I think every family when at the time when I was born would have looked to the Booth family as the great exemplars to us. So my brother was called Bramwell after one of the Booths, and I was called Eva after General Eva. But there'd been other girls before you. I mean, you come from quite a big family, don't you? I was the uh eighth child in the family. So they'd kept the name Eva for you. I I mean Yeah,

Eva Burrows6:05

Don't know why.

Eva Burrows6:07

It was a bit

Presenter6:09

Well, yes, it is strange, isn't it? My father, of course, uh was so uh interested in me in later life, but I don't think there was that much excitement when I was born, because after all, being the eighth isn't exactly guaranteed to thrill a farm. And he was doing a service next door at the time, I think. Yes, actually my parents were at a place in Australia called Newcastle, and the house in which we lived was next door to the Salvation Army place of worship.

Eva Burrows6:27

Yeah, exactly.

Presenter6:36

And I was actually born on Sunday morning at home, which was fairly common in those days. And the the midwife got excited and and went in and opened the door to the church and said, The baby's arrived, you see and my father said, Go away, I'm I'm too busy, because he was leading some kind of prayer meeting.

Eva Burrows6:47

Babies

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Then he came in to see the baby and uh

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He prayed over me. He's often told me that.

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Would he have done that for all of his children? Yes, he would. That would be very common.

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He lifted me up and he prayed and dedicated my life to God.

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And in Salvation Army terminology he said, you know, I dedicate this child to the glory of God and the salvation of the world, would you imagine it? Would you go as far as to say that perhaps you were destined, if you like, to be a leading member of the army, if not the general?

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Not the general, but certainly I would feel that the hand of God was upon my life.

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Record number two.

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Well, you might be surprised at this one because it's a rather a worldly one, but uh it's Rex Harrison singing the famous Hymn to Hymn, which is.

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Why can't a woman be more like a man?

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You know, when I was home in Leven, Australia, once, uh uh I was given this long playing record of My Fair Lady, and taking it back to Africa, we lived far out in amongst the tribal trust areas. So it was quite a lively thing to play My Fair Lady. And this one, of course, really

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tickled us women missionaries because uh it was so arrogant of a man to say, you know.

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Why can't women be more like men? And there were so many of us who had responsible jobs on the mission station. So we used to sing it for great fun, Rhin.

Speaker 28:22

Pickering.

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Why can't a woman be more like a man?

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Hmm?

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Yes, why can't a woman?

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Bit more like a man.

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Men are so honest, so thoroughly square, eternally noble, historically fair.

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Who when you win will always give your back a pat?

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Well, why can't a woman?

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Be like that.

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Why does everyone do what the others do?

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Can't a woman learn to use her head?

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Rex Harrison and Robert Cook and a hymn to him or Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man? Life's changing, of course. Are we more like them these days, do you think?

Speaker 28:59

Are we more

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No, no. I I uh still think that uh there is a little arrogance about men. You know, I not so many years ago I was uh here in London.

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On Christmas Day we were providing meals for some of those who sleep rough in the parks and in the doorways, and as I was passing round the mince pies,

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One of these gentlemen who didn't exactly smell like Chanel No. Five, he bent over and kissed me.

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And whether you saw I didn't have a wedding ring on

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and realized I was a single lady, he looked at me and he said, That's made your day, ain't it?

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But now women are getting much more opportunity these days. But you didn't, by all accounts, going back to your early years, you didn't, by all accounts, come easily to your vocation, did you? You you had a kind of crisis in your teens. Was it a crisis of faith?

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I had been a junior member of the Salvation Army, we called it junior soldier, and uh

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I I believe quite implicitly and simply in the faith, but when I was a teenager and I felt

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What do I really believe? And therefore I questioned everything that my parents had believed and said

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I didn't want to come to the Salvation Army any more, and so I didn't attend.

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and I must say my mother was wonderfully understanding.

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Of course it was a little easier, because my father was no longer at home.

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He'd been drafted into the Salvation Army services with the troops during the Second World War. So he was away with the forces. But do you think he'd been to blame a bit? He'd been perhaps too dogmatic with you.

Eva Burrows10:34

But do you think he

Presenter10:38

I think father had followed what he believed was the best in that kind of tradition in those days. I mean, there was no family discussion as to what we thought we should all do. I mean, we did what we were told to do. Was there a specific moment then?

Eva Burrows10:50

Was there

Presenter10:53

when you knew what you had to do, that you had to give your your life to Christ, there was a kind of, if you like, divine compulsion. Hm. Yes. Well, I was at university and I'd uh tried quite a number of uh societies and clubs and I'd gone to the Christian Union.

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And there I met other young people of my own age, range, and interests, and I saw them studying the Bible, and I thought, well, you know, I'll have a try at this too. And then there sort of came an incandescence, if you like, an awareness.

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That Jesus Christ had the answer to what I was seeking.

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It was at um vacation Bible camp and study time.

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That I saw the whole thing crystallize in a moment of decision. I have to.

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make something of my life, I'm going to give it to Christ. And

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He can use it all. And so, as you say, you you decided to give your life to God. Did that mean that you also decided that you would never get married, which you haven't?

Eva Burrows11:46

And so

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No, I didn't. That didn't mean that at that time, but it did mean that later. In other words, as my

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And life progressed after I was ordained and went on service in Africa.

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I became aware that marriage was not going to be part of my life. Why, you just didn't have time for it? Uh, partly that. Also, I think when the opportunities did come, I then knew I had to remain single, because that to me seemed to be God's

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direction for my life. But are you saying you wouldn't have risen to the highest level in the army that you have had you married?

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At this stage in our history, no, I I would not. But are you also saying that you have in your life fallen in love? Yes, I have.

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I've enjoyed it too.

Eva Burrows12:38

I mean

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And was it therefore a a a very selfless decision um to turn away from that love? It was a decision that I thought was right, even if it meant sacrifice of

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Something which any normal girl would enjoy, that is.

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A loving relationship in marriage and children.

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I mean, in my teaching in Africa and in my contacts with children around the world.

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I just feel I have hundreds of children who really belong to me.

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in a way that is a deep and spiritual way.

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Record number three.

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Well, my third record is uh a Salvation Army band, and I couldn't have uh

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An island where I wasn't listening to the march played by the band because from a child.

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We marched the streets with the Salvation Army music and stood in the streets and proclaimed the gospel message of Jesus Christ. So I'll remember those times in Vancouver, or Sydney, Australia, or Korea, or Tokyo, Japan. They'll all come to me while I listen to this really stirring music.

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The International Staff Band of the Salvation Army playing Under Two Flags, music which evokes the classic image o of the Salvation Army. That music is an important part of your approach, isn't it? It's it's it's rousing, it's military, it's evangelistic.

Eva Burrows14:55

It's

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That's right, because the Salvation Army's supreme purpose.

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Is evangelism, making known the message of Jesus Christ. So we go out in the street and we

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Play the music, which is attractive. In fact, William Booth said a band is like a portable organ. You can't take the organ out of the church, it's such a big

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pipe organ, but you can march the band out. But why do you still need the uniform? Isn't that a bit of a Victorian appendage? I need sort of old hat, so to speak. No, I don't I don't think so, because I think you can hardly have an army.

Eva Burrows15:26

Oh.

Eva Burrows15:27

No, I

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without some kind of way in which you designate that army. It's symbolic of the fact that we are God's army, God's fighting force, if you like. That you're militant in that sense. Yes, and that's right, because also the uniform

Eva Burrows15:42

Electricity?

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you could say makes us visible, and people come up to us and know that they can come and ask for our help.

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We're a sort of an army without guns, if you like. I go to the Salvation Army when I'm not somewhere else in the world at Oxford Street, and on Sunday evening near Oxford Circus tube station, there are hundreds of people listening, and uh I often leave the circle and go and talk to some of the people standing round. And I mean one evening I said to this modern young

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Chap with long hair and denims and all the rest. And I I was talking to him and you know, he looked me straight in the eye and he said, You know,

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Churchianity repels me. I mean, I never heard of Churchianity before. Churchianity repels me, he said, but Jesus Christ attracts me, if you know what I mean.

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So that led to a conversation about why Jesus Christ attracted him and what was the Christian faith and

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That was a very important encounter, and those are the kind of encounters we're looking for. Not

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You know, not telling people you must go to church. That's not the point.

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Some more music.

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My next piece of music is a classical piece of music. It's uh one of the sections of Handel's uh water music.

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And I think when I'm on the desert island I'd like to be reminded by this.

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Of a time when I shared a house with a girl in Africa and I had no money, and she just had enough money to buy a record player and one record, and this was the one record, and we played that jolly record until it was nearly worn out. But I knew it so well that I could, day after day, sing the whole of the water music right through.

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The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alfredo Bernard playing part of Handel's water music and memories of being a missionary in what was then of course Rhodesia.

Speaker 418:36

Mm-hmm.

Presenter18:37

You spent about eighteen years in Africa altogether, didn't you? And and then when you were forty

Speaker 418:38

Yeah.

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The authorities called you to London to the International College for Officers. How great a shock was that to your system? It was a very big shock because.

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I'd lived in Africa and become an African almost. I'd always lived amongst the African people because I was a teacher.

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An educator.

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And two of the great principles of my life are

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Identification and communication. And I really sought to identify with the African.

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their hopes, their aspirations.

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And I always count as a great compliment something that was said to me by an African he was an elderly African salvationist.

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And he said, You know, if I thought my prayer could be answered,

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I'd pray for you to be black.

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I counted a compliment because he knew I could never be black, but that I had sought to

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understand them and share their life. So to to leave Africa was uh was like a grieving experience really for me. Bereavement. Yes.

Presenter19:48

Yeah, but you did because you felt you well, because duty called. That's right. Salvation Army.

Speaker 419:52

Uh

Eva Burrows19:52

No.

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was uh calling me to London, uh to an international college.

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where I would be constantly seeing Africans, but I would be seeing Asians, Americans, Australians. Did you spot or do you think that you were being groomed for high office even then? Well, I think that the work that I had done in Africa

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Had been acknowledged, and that my leaders had seen qualities in me that.

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We're worth developing next piece of music.

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Well the next piece is uh from Africa actually. You know their famous or infamous place called Soweto in Johannesburg has a very thriving salvation army and a marvellous choir. In fact they've accompanied me on a tour in America and also in Scotland. And they are going to sing for us in real African style a wonderful song.

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Which just sets my heart beating in the African way.

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The Soweto Salvation Army songsters singing Ueza um guebe um culu, which is Our God is the God of Love. Is that right? You did very well there. That's right.

Eva Burrows21:58

You did very well there.

Presenter22:01

So, General Bowers, you experienced social deprivation at close quarters in the second half of the seventies here in Britain, didn't you? Because you worked with uh women and children, victims of broken homes and of violence. How shocked were you by what you found? I really went through a a very cathartic experience, really, because I had not thought seriously about the deprivation in the affluent West.

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And when I went to some of our women's hostels and saw these lonely,

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Destitute women.

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I suddenly realized the need here in countries like Britain for the care of those who are so lonely and dispossessed. I once remember going to a hostel that we had in Scotland, and I walked in with the matron to this very big

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dormitory as it used to be. We've got much more modern ones now with single rooms. But in those days there'd be, say, thirty, forty beds in one room.

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and it was shelter and it was place to sleep and

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and there were sort of anonymous lockers beside the beds and

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I looked and saw there was a Christmas card on one of the lockers, and I said to the matron, Well, at least this lady has someone who loves her, because

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When I looked at the card it said From Loved Ones Across the Sea

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And she said, Oh, no, no, that's Maggie who sleeps there, and she hasn't got a soul in the world.

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She would have sent that Christmas card to herself.

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And I think it was a significant moment as I realized how lonely.

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These women are hopeless and needing love.

Eva Burrows23:36

Little swimmers.

Presenter23:39

What about your experiences amongst the the inhabitants of Cardboard City, these people who sleep rough um around our towns and cities? I know you've done the midnight soup runs and that sort of thing. It's often said by politicians that many of those people who sleep rough do so because they want to. Is that your experience?

Presenter23:58

No, I think they would like to have a home, but there are not enough apartments and flats for them. I mean, look at all the people sleeping in bed and breakfast. Why haven't they got houses? I the Salvation Army has been challenging the Government on this matter of homelessness, and we are trying to provide also the kind of hostel

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where the men wouldn't feel that their liberty had been infringed, but they had their own room and and and we've got training flats to help prepare them for going into the community. But there needs to be many more places like that. Record number six.

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Well, this is another classical piece because I'm very fond of classical music.

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I uh happen to live in a part of London where there's um

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a concert hall nearby, and on Friday evenings especially, if I'm a bit exhausted from the week, I'll go to a concert, and I remember hearing Mozart's clarinet concerto there for the very first time.

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And even though I'd had an extremely demanding week,

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I could watch

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the musicians, and listen to the music, and absolutely find myself totally relaxed.

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Part of the slow movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto in A major, played by Alfred Prince, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Karl Munshuger.

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It was in nineteen eighty six that you were elected, Eva Burrows, general of the Salvation Army as a whole across the world.

Eva Burrows26:26

Well

Presenter26:27

They say it's a bit like the cardinal's election of the pope without the white smoke. How's it done? Yes, well.

Eva Burrows26:31

Uh

Speaker 426:31

Yeah.

Presenter26:34

Yes, perhaps that's not a bad example. In other words, that uh just as the cardinals meet in the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Presenter26:41

and are sort of locked in and through prayer come to their awareness through the election. This is God's leader. So they do in the Salvation Army. The leaders of the world come to a center that we have at Sunbury on Thames and

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through a time of uh

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Spiritual exercises, prayer.

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Sharing of um

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The purposes of the Salvation Army. Then, through secret ballot, the leader emerges. The job means that you're the chief administrator of the army, of course, but also its spiritual leader. Does that mean, you know, can one extend the papal analogy there? Does it mean that you're you're held in awe by all the members of the church, that that they can be overwhelmed in a sense by your arrival? Well, the office of the general is highly respected, regardless of who's in it.

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But I think as a a woman in general I've had one great advantage, and that is that

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I feel a great affection from the salvationist, not just esteem.

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I had a very interesting experience when I was going uh to a country and I had a a letter from one of the members of the Salvation Army. It was Ghana, I think, and he said, Dear General, we hear you're coming here and I'll be at the airport to meet you. But I'm getting very old and I may have died before you come, but my spirit will be there just the same. So when I arrived, of course, I had to ask, has he died or not? But you know, I mean, I thought, in a way, that's very simple, but it's it's a beautiful thing.

Presenter28:16

The job, as you've indicated, involves an enormous amount of of travel. I think sixty two countries you've visited in the last few years, and you're just back from China and you're soon off to Australia.

Eva Burrows28:22

Yeah.

Presenter28:26

But but not an enormous salary. The average officer, I understand, receives three thousand three hundred and fifty pounds a year when he joins, rising, after forty five years' service, to three thousand nine hundred and ninety.

Presenter28:39

Well, that would be for a single person and in addition to that there is accommodation as well. But that's deemed to be a living wage, is it?

Speaker 428:44

But that's the thing.

Eva Burrows28:45

Uh

Presenter28:48

Well, for Salvation Army officers, part of our commitment

Presenter28:52

is the element of sacrifice.

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And that is the way in which we also express our love to God.

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And that's the way in which Salva the Salvation Army can do a great deal of its work as well. We don't pay high salaries. We don't have executives at the top creaming off

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great uh sections of our finances. That's another thing that uh w we can uh say when we look at people, that we do not build up treasures on earth.

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Record number seven.

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My seventh record is this time a change from Africa to Asia. And this is a group of uh women salvationists from Korea, and they have a beautiful singing group.

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And when I was in Seoul, Korea.

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I saw quite a lot of the Salvation Army's work with

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teenage prostitutes. In fact, I walked through the Red Light District in Seoul, where we've been trying to help some of these girls to go home and so forth. And then to go to the Salvation Army and see these young women

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beautifully groomed in their Salvation Army uniform, singing with a quality of sound that would have

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Done justice on

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The Royal Albert Hall Pratform. Here they are.

Speaker 430:07

I feel like singing all the time. I taste a wine away. That is your seat, a friend of mine. I stood in every day. Singing glory, glory, glory.

Eva Burrows30:22

Glory, glory!

Speaker 430:26

Glory be to God the high, glory glory so praise.

Speaker 430:33

Hold it to God.

Eva Burrows30:55

No, it's not.

Speaker 431:00

We meet with God apart, glory, glow these over praise.

Presenter31:10

The Korean Salvation Army Mission Singers and Singing Glory. Your um your lifelong lack of material needs must bode well for the desert island. Will you find it?

Eva Burrows31:19

I found it.

Presenter31:20

Easy to cope, do you think?

Presenter31:22

I uh think I'll really be quite practical there because um I was uh a guide leader, a girl guide leader in Africa and we used to camp out in the wilds with the hyenas laughing during the night in little grass shelters. So

Presenter31:36

I'd say to myself now, Can I repeat that after all these years? What about food, catching it, trapping it, cooking it? Gutting it. I'm a fairly practical sort of a person, so

Eva Burrows31:43

Gotcha.

Presenter31:48

I'll do a bit of activity to find these things, but I really will enjoy some quiet and the opportunity to think.

Presenter31:55

But you'll miss people in the end. Oh yes. I mean, I'll be waiting for the boat to come and rescue me because What about when you retire this summer? W will you miss travelling the world and taking tea with its leaders? I shall live in Australia, but already my diary is getting full with invitations to many parts of the world, so I'll be able to punctuate my quieter, paced lifestyle with these visits. Do you feel that you've done your duty, that you've done what your parents intended and what God wanted?

Presenter32:26

I feel a very deep sense of gratitude to God for the opportunities that have been given to me.

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And after all, I've been will have been the general for seven years and

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I will be ready to lay down that responsibility.

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But to feel that the qualities that

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helped me to be a general who's achieved certain things of great value to the kingdom of God and the salvation army, that I can still use those gifts in retirement in a multitude of ways. But does that make you one of those really rather rare beings, which is a a fulfilled woman?

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Yes, I have a very deep sense of fulfilment in the task that's been given to me and

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Therefore I can contemplate the years ahead with much pleasurable anticipation.

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Last record.

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The last record is really from the very long Bach Saint Matthew's Passion.

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When I was in London at the college for a number of years, five or so years,

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I used to go every

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Palm Sunday.

Presenter33:33

To Royal Festival Hall when the full St. Matthew's Passion was sung, and it was a wonderful experience of entering into the

Presenter33:42

experience of Good Friday in Eastern by being there on Palm Sunday.

Presenter33:47

And I heard the great singer.

Presenter33:50

Janet Baker.

Presenter33:52

And this is my record, just one piece.

Presenter33:55

from that marvellously, deeply stirring music.

Speaker 434:08

Is it all

Speaker 434:20

Who was our name by heading on?

Speaker 434:34

Fancy door.

Presenter34:58

Janet Baker singing the aria Koenen Treinen Meine Wangen from Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Bach Orchestra of Munich conducted by Karl Richter. It still moves me very deeply when I hear it. It's beautiful, isn't it?

Speaker 435:07

Yeah.

Presenter35:11

Would that be the one if you could only take one of your eight records, do you think? Well, every time I've had to strike a deal for the Salvation Army or for God, I've always tried to get the best, and this time it's going to be for myself.

Presenter35:22

And I'd like the bark.

Presenter35:24

Because there are, I'm afraid, about four records. Is that allowed? Well.

Eva Burrows35:28

Settle.

Presenter35:30

We'll pretend we don't know that. You you want to take the St. Matthew St. Matthew passion. That's right. Right.

Speaker 435:33

That's right. Right.

Presenter35:34

And your book, what about that? You've got the Bible, obviously, as you know, and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Speaker 435:38

Yeah.

Presenter35:39

Well, I would like to take the Faber book of religious verse because I'd like to absorb again that wonderful poetry, especially the metaphysical poets of the Elizabethan time.

Presenter35:51

And I I've always felt I'd like to write poetry.

Presenter35:55

And now, at last, on that island, I'll have time. Got the time. What about your luxury?

Presenter36:01

Well actually my luxury is a game of Scrabble. I'm very keen on uh crosswords and Scrabble. I love words. And so I would like to have a kind of challenge, and that is that after I've done the Scrabble game, playing left against right and not cheating, I would then use that like a crossword and then find the cryptic clues to go with that game. So that would take me a little bit of time. And keep you very busy. Hm, waiting for that boat.

Presenter36:28

General Eva Burrows, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. It's been a pleasure to be here with you.

Eva Burrows36:41

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.