Abbo’s Archive
Each week we feature the writings of the late, great Sentinel journalist John Abberley. This piece was triggered by the renaming of Stoke’s Salvation Army hostel as the Lighthouse...
WHEN I get an appeal for cash from the Salvation Army, I think of a noble couple who looked after a colony of men whose lives had gone wrong.
Peter and Sylvia Watchorn ran the Army’s old hostel housed in a Victorian pottery at 6a Lovatt Street, Stoke – notorious as a resting place for criminals, alcoholics and men who drifted in and out of town like villains in a cowboy picture.
In the 1970s I talked to some of these characters, each with his own tale of misfortune; and found it hard going.
I got nothing at all out of one old chap with a white beard. He’d simply cut himself off.
A long-term resident I met named George was more forthcoming. He said he’d lost his wife, his home and his job – a classic string of disasters leading to downfall.
Yet Captain Watchorn and his wife clearly saw these fellows as a challenge. As Christian soldiers, they were dedicated to saving souls and radiated enthusiasm for what seemed an impossible task.
They believed they could work miracles and bring some kind of salvation to men who had no home, no family, no friends, or anything else which most of us take for granted.
The first thing, Peter said, was to encourage new arrivals to have a scrub and a change of clothes. It could work wonders for a man’s self-respect.
We stood in the middle of one of the large dormitories which were something like my old RAF billets, though the beds were much closer to each other than ours were. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of sights and smells greeted Captain Watchorn on his early-morning rounds. And the captain confessed that even he was left in despair when someone left the hostel with an item stolen from a fellow resident as he slept.
To strike a more positive note, I was much impressed by a well-built man from the Black Country known to everybody as Big John, who was the hostel’s assistant manager.
He met newcomers when they rang the bell, making it clear they’d have to abide by the rules or there’d be trouble. With his missing front tooth, John was the right man for the job.
What’s more, I think it’s highly likely that the captain’s wife, Sylvia, had a part to play in his conversion from hardened drinker to devoted servant of the Army’s cause.
Sylvia made her mark right from the start. Almost her first words to me were: “Don’t think it can never happen to you” and looked me straight in the eye.
That’s stuck with me all these years and it’s one reason why I never fail to answer those regular requests for a donation.