Bury Me In My Boots by Sally Trench

What was your first impression? I first read this book as an impressionable young Christian, aged 13, and at the time, it radically changed my approach to Christianity. It was the first time I really came across the reality of faith and love in action. Re-reading it 30 years later, it has not lost its power to stir my spirit, and to question ‘what am I really doing to make my faith real, radical and relevant?’ What's it about? “Bury Me In My Boots” is an autobiographical account of two years in the life of Sally Trench, a middle class teenager who lived in the suburbs of London during the 1960s. After an encounter with a couple of rough sleepers on Waterloo Station, Sally, then aged 16, began a series of nightly forays via her bedroom window, into the somewhat murky world of destitutes and drunks in Central and East London. What began as sharing tea, cigarettes and listening developed into a full-time ministry, and a radical change in Sally’s lifestyle. Initially, Sally worked alongside others in the Simon Community, a Christian organisation which provided a number of drop-ins and hostels for the homeless. When the Simon Community closed due to a financial crisis, she took to the streets full-time, sleeping in ‘derries’ (derelict houses) and on the ‘ramps’ (undeveloped bomb-sites) in order to integrate herself fully into the lives and concerns of the people she ministered to. Sally’s approach was unorthodox and radical. A Christian, she never-the-less shunned established religion and held in disdain the clean-cut evangelists who would preach against the evils of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, and then go home to their nice, clean houses, leaving the drunks and addicts to wander the streets looking for a derry to shelter in. Sally believed the only way she could be an authentic example of Christ to these people was by living alongside them, sharing their poverty and sense of alienation and isolation. But it is in Sally’s ministry to the ‘hopeless’ meths drinkers and chronic alcoholics that the true beauty of the book shines through, beauty set against a back-drop of extreme ugliness and deprivation that still has the power to shock. Her descriptions of tending the ulcerous leg of one meths drinker, or washing the encrusted dirt off another’s wasted body exemplify Sally’s ability, at the tender age of 18, to by-pass the feelings of revulsion stirred in the majority of people around her, and to see these men and women through the eyes of love and compassion. The time she spent on the ramp holding the hand of a dying tramp, bile dribbling down his chin, stir powerful emotions, and leave the reader feeling both angry and inspired…hopeful and hopeless…and ultimately aware of God’s love and mercy for all His creatures, whatever their circumstances. What did you like about it? ‘Like’ is perhaps the wrong word, as this book is, in so many ways a difficult read, not least in the light of the fact that, in many ways, so little has changed. Never-the-less, what shines through brightly is Sally’s commitment to ‘love in action’, and her unswerving belief in the value of all human beings, and the transforming, redeeming power of Christ. What didn't you like? There wasn’t anything about this book that I didn’t like, but it is worth mentioning the fact that Sally was criticised on a number of levels – for being naïve and idealistic, even foolish, and for disobeying, and bringing no small amount of heartache to hr parents, who couldn’t understand the obsession which led her to sleep rough for a year of her life. In answer to that, I believe that Sally’s faith was so real and so passionate, she was not afraid to be a fool for God, and to answer the call to do His will, whatever the cost…even if that meant estrangement from her family...after all, didn’t Jesus say: “Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, I came to bring a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household! If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it.” (Matthew 10:34-39) Who among us are as ready and willing to answer His call as she did? What will you still remember a year from now? I have never forgotten this book in 30 years, even during my ‘wilderness’ period away from God – so I think in another years time, it will still be fresh in my mind! Who would you recommend this book to? Anyone and everyone – but particularly those who want to respond to God’s call, and go further, deeper, higher and wider in their service of Him, and of other human beings. Can you give us a couple of good quotes from the book? The following extract describes the death of Paddy, a meths drinker, on the ramp: “Meanwhile Paddy was whimpering by the almost dead fire…I looked at the writhing body, the haggard face looking mauve in the spark-light of the embers. The eyes were sunken and black and the open mouth gasping for breath. Bile dribbled down his chin. I had seen it all before. I closed my eyes and prayed. I forced myself to my feet and went and knelt beside him. I took his ice-cold languid hand and rubbed it. For a second he opened his puffed eyes and gave me a glassy stare. I smiled caringly at him…I smiled and grasped his hand. As long as he knows he’s not alone, that was all I wanted to transmit to him in my smile. It was so little and cost me nothing, and yet could mean the whole world to a dying man.” Later she reflects: “A few hours later, everyone had drifted back to sleep. The fire and Paddy had died together…I felt so small, so inadequate. I blamed myself, I blamed society, I blamed the world. Whose fault was it that these men were forsaken? Fellow mankind. Let moralists and philosophers say what they like, but it is questionable that a guilty person suffered such misery as I did that night, being innocent. I wept tears, not for Paddy, for he had been released from his torture, not for his pathetic animal-like buddies, but for me and my family and friends; that we regarded ourselves as Christians and yet allowed a man, a young man at that, to pass away unnoticed. Here today and gone tomorrow, who cared? No one?” Click here to read more about Sally Trench Review written by Autumn Buy this book now