The remarkable true life story of Peter Newman (Part 7)

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Something New and Clean

The new digs I moved into weren't very grand. I had an upstairs room in a terraced house in Manchester. It had a bed, a small wardrobe, a dressing table and fading wallpaper, but it was my first real step into independence. I also had a job in an iron foundry. The men I worked with gave me a hard time because they couldn't understand me, and the more I tried to explain about my new life, the worse the misunderstanding. They thought I was a bit mad and, looking back, I suppose I can appreciate why.

My new digs weren't far from the Salvation Army hall and to get to the Sunday services I had to walk past two pubs that I had once frequented. If I wanted to avoid walking past them, I had to make a lengthy detour around the back streets, so on my first visit to the hall since moving, I decided to take the most direct route. My Bible presented me with quite a problem: it was big and black and wouldn't fit inside any of my pockets, but I was loth to carry it ostentatiously under my arm to advertise my conversion to all my old drinking mates. Wisdom, I said to myself, is the order of the day. I rammed it inside my raincoat and headed off to the service.

It was too early for the pubs to open so I got to the hall without meeting up with any of my old companions, but I knew the story would be different on the way home. After the service I again rammed my Bible inside my raincoat. "Peter," the Major said to me, watching my antics, "you're taking the easy way out."

"Oh, am I now?" I said, rising to the challenge. "Well, Peter Newman never takes the easy way out." And with that I marched out of the hall with my Bible clenched firmly in my hand.

I was walking past one of the pubs when the landlady came out, followed by a band of faithfuls. She saw me straight away and shouted:"Hey, Peter, come in and have a drink. We've missed you. You weren't really all that bad you know." Then all the lads around her started laughing and shouting "Hallelujah!" I hardly dared look in their direction. I kept my eyes straight ahead and continued walking.

The same thing happened week after week. The landlady and her mates knew what time I'd be coming back from church and they would line up on the pavement and wait for me. It only took a few minutes to run the gauntlet past them, but they were the longest moments of the week. My big black Bible seemed to weigh a ton as I scuttled along, deliberately keeping my eyes fixed in the direction I was going. Home was always a welcome sight, and many's the time I'd rush up the stairs, throw my Bible down and fall onto my bed absolutely breathless.

I knew that they could never persuade me to go back to my old ways: drinking and Peter Newman had parted company for good. My fear was that I might lash out and give them a belt round the jaws. The old Peter Newman was a violent man, and while I had learned to trust God for many things, I wasn't totally convinced that the old aggro had disappeared. I'm glad to say that I survived my Sunday ordeals without putting any of my old drinking pals in hospital. After a couple of months the novelty of goading me seemed to wear off and they eventually stopped waiting for me to walk past the pub.

I used every opportunity I could find to preach the gospel. I soon discovered the secret of preaching in open-air meetings: I would direct my voice towards a wall which acted as an amplifier so that the afternoon rest of even more people was disturbed. If I had to travel anywhere by bus, I would stand on my feet on the open top deck and start to give my testimony. Not everyone appreciated my zeal and I was told to sit down and shut up on more than one occasion.

Someone once made the dreadful mistake of giving me an old drum. I used to take it onto the streets and bang it as loudly as I could. I couldn't drum properly, but everyone knew I was there and they would come out to find out what all the racket was about. As soon as I had an attentive, curious audience, I would introduce myself and tell them what Jesus had done for me.

I've spent many a night selling War Cry magazines in the pubs of Manchester. When other people sold the magazine they would tap possible buyers on the shoulder, look at them pleadingly and rattle their collection tins, but I had a better selling technique. I used to stand on a table and sing "The Old Rugged Cross". I sold far more copies than anyone else. I still can't decide whether the men were genuinely moved or if they bought my wares to shut me up.

I once went back to my home town to preach outside a pub I had been drunk in many times. I was in the middle of telling the assembled crowd how the police had thrown me out of the town, telling me never to return, when that very sergeant rounded the corner. "And if you don't believe me," I shouted, pointing to the poor bobby, "then ask him." Well, he was off like a shot, much to the amusement of my little congregation.
The pub landlord had been sitting in his bedroom listening to me. As I was getting ready to return to Manchester, he came over, looking quite tearful. "Peter," he said, "I'm just amazed at what's happening to you. You're a different lad from the one I remember. If you ever need money for your work, just ask me and I'll give it to you." I felt humbled at this. Years before he used to loan me money for drink and now he wanted to give me money to help spread the gospel.

I was often puzzled and hurt at the way people rejected me. I was only a very young Christian and I just naturally assumed that churchgoers knew Jesus like I knew Him. I remember standing on the steps of one very posh church and saying "Praise the Lord" to the people as they walked in. They just glanced at me as if I was daft. "Poor soul," their looks seemed to say. But even those icy stares could not freeze the new life which was bubbling up inside me. I was full of the joy of the Lord. I may not have known much about social graces but I knew about God's grace. I knew that He loved and saved the outcast and that He could make something new and clean out of something dirty. I knew that He loved the unlovely, that His hand could reach down into the blackest cave of despair and pull the captive out of the darkness and into His most marvellous light. I knew all these things, not from reading a book, but because they had happened to me.