Just a few hundred members remain of an organisation that once had an outpost fighting poverty in every corner of Liverpool.
After opening its first Liverpool branch in Toxteth in 1879, the Salvation Army's message of saving the poorest in society spread through the damp, overcrowded slums of Victorian Liverpool. Within two decades, the London-born church had 15 branches in the city, including a traditional hall like "a big rectangle with big wooden beams", which opened on Walton Road in 1881.
By its peak in the 1920s, roughly 5,000 members were attending mass in Salvation Army halls in Liverpool. Others made use of soup kitchens, rescue homes for women fleeing domestic violence, or advice session on cooking, childcare and budgeting. David Taylor, the church's North West Divisional Commander stationed at Strawberry Fields, told the ECHO: "It was dramatic, it really captured something in the culture of the day. It was just such a popular thing."
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A century later, only three Liverpool branches remain, attendance at each church has fallen from 500 to 140 on a busy day, and the site of the original Walton branch is now home to a McDonald's restaurant. Members like James Griffiths, 24, are reluctant to use the word "decline", preferring to see it as adapting and expanding the church's charity work in a society with generally dwindling church attendance.
Second generation Salvationist, Major Chris Herbert, is co-leader of the Walton church with his wife, Lin. The dad and grandad in his late 50s said: "It's always been about helping people who are in need, it's always really boiled down to food and family."
Walton Salvation Army's current home is a yellow-brick building on Cavendish Drive, built in 1989 after the demolition of terraced houses around the old site, and their replacement with lower density homes with lawns and driveways.
The area's transformation left "hardly any sense of community", according to James. But the new building doubled in size when it was extended in 2005, mainly to facilitate its role as a community centre, where it runs a foodbank along with legal, debt and employment advice sessions.
The Salvation Army's numbers have fallen, but scenes of black-clad members hitting streets with red collection kettles at Christmas are burned into popular imagination, thanks in part to cameos in decades' worth of festive films. The season is an important time in the self-perception of Salvation Army members as well.
James attended the Rock Ferry branch of the church while growing up in Prenton on the Wirral. His earliest memories of the Salvation Army are of the roast turkey and trimmings they served as Christmas dinner for the wider community.
He told the ECHO: "When I was a little kid, I remember the big Christmas tree and all the kids, because back then, they used to have hundreds of kids who would come in off the estates. We used to do dinners for them, things like that. We used to get them all Christmas presents if their parents couldn't afford to. I remember as a kid seeing all these presents and getting excited thinking they were for me. Obviously they weren't."
Even during university, when many young people break with family traditions, James stuck with the church. Some of those friendships from his student days at Liverpool John Moores University have faded while the "lifelong friends" made in the church remain.
James said: "It's a wider family for me. It's a nice, safe place for me to come. I'm always comfortable here. It's almost like a home from home, and obviously it has a religious aspect, being a Christian, in that it's my spiritual home as well."
The same is true for others who grew up in the church, like divisional commander David, who's filling the boots of his grandad, an "early pioneer" of the Salvation Army and its first regional leader in Merseyside and Manchester in 1880.
All Chris' friends "were part of this church family" too. He said: "My whole social life growing up was with this group of friends who were my church friends at the Salvation Army. We'd play together, we learnt to play instruments together, we learnt to sing together, all of those sorts of things that you do."
Music has played a central role in the Salvation Army since its early days when a band started accompanying its founder, William Booth, on campaigns across the country in 1878. That was the year its name changed from Christian Mission to the Salvation Army, it adopted a military-style structure, and members started donning a black and white uniform. David said: "They very enthusiastically took on the idea of being an army. It was the height of empire, the UK was expanding across the world, colonising. The military metaphor was very current."
Writing in the church's magazine in 1877, William said: "We want a body of red-hot people to sing the songs of salvation. The world has not yet seen what might be done by the singing of a people whose hearts were full of the spirit of God."
He also called for singing to be "spirited", and that livelier gospel music common in evangelical Christian churches is what first drew James' family to the Salvation Army more than 100 years ago. He said: "It was a livelier type of church, a bit louder than your normal, sit down with an organ and be respectful or whatever. It was, especially back then, a bit more hyped up."
There's "a buzz about the place", according to James, when the sound of a 30-member brass band and 50-member choir fill the worship hall of Walton Salvation Army every Sunday. It actively encourages noise, featuring a kids' section to engage youngsters during Sunday service, and writing on its website: "You don't have to whisper in our church."
Such a welcoming approach may be what's kept some families in the Salvation Army for generations. Despite the military garb and hierarchical structure, the Salvation Army is less strict and prescriptive than you might imagine. Chris enjoys worshipping in churches of other denominations, and the practice of faith is seen more as "belief in action", led by members' own passions, than an adherence to rigid rules.
Chris has fallen in and out of love with different aspects of the church, like the recognition and expectations that come with wearing the uniform in public. But "a call to ministry" brought Chris and his future wife, Lin, to where they are today, somewhere they "believe God wants us to be".
As ordained ministers, their role in the church involves overseeing the religious side of their branch as well as its charitable initiatives. They hand out food parcels with North Liverpool Foodbank every Monday, serve a community lunch on Tuesdays, and welcome people into the "warm space" for tea, coffee, puzzles and boardgames any day of the week.
Elsewhere in Liverpool, the Salvation Army has 'lifehouses' offering accommodation and support to people experiencing addiction or homelessness, or who're fleeing abuse or human trafficking. Each night, they sleep 100 people who may otherwise have nowhere to go.
In summer, Walton Salvation Army runs a four-week summer camp aimed at kids receiving free school meals, which 120 kids attended this year. Every Christmas they run a gift appeal, which saw roughly 1,500 presents given to kids in the local area in 2021.
Chris said: "When people first come in, there can be a nervousness and embarrassment. There's a sense of, 'I never thought it would come to this', but I'd like to think we're actually nice people, so on a Monday morning, when people come in there, they'll be greeted, we'll get the details we need to for paperwork, but then coffee is available. They get coffee and biscuits and we have people who will talk and who will just be in here to try and make this a nice place."
Not everyone feels welcome after their interactions with the Salvation Army. As well as criticism of its role in colonialism with missions in Africa, it's faced accusations of homophobia and transphobia over the years. People accused the church, often in the USA, of denying them spots in homeless hostels because of their sexuality or gender identity. At one point, the American church's website encouraged celibacy among LGBT people. In the UK, at least, the church now says it "stands against homophobia and transphobia".
As an organisation with more than a million members in more than 100 countries, Chris thinks some messages "don't translate very well" to other cultures. Leaning forward in his seat with his hands on his knees, he said: "We believe within this fellowship, everyone has value, everyone is loved, and Jesus died for everyone. So therefore, everyone is welcomed, and for my role as a church leader is to help everyone in their walk with Jesus, irrespective of class, sexuality and culture".
He added: "If you're asking if we go down the route of the the old billboard, you know, 'Repent because you're going to hell' terminology, then you'll be quite disappointed because we don't do that. We would rather show love and grace and acceptance, and then allow people to help people to enter their own spiritual journey wherever that is."
Instead they focus on "belief in action", an approach that sees many walk in and out the doors of Walton Salvation Army's foodbank unaware of the religious link. David said: "It's our interpretation of what it means to be a Christian organisation and people of Christian faith. That's really the motivation, that is the inspiration. We are absolutely clear that we serve people without any discrimination.
"We're not here to proselytise and impose our faith. We are just here to simply love and serve, and if people are interested to know more about the motivation for our work, then of course we're very happy to share where that motivation comes from."
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