IT may not have been everyone’s cup of tea – and you’ll understand that’s a very apt metaphor as you read on – but I had a marvellous Saturday night last weekend.

I was at the Salvation Army Citadel in central Middlesbrough where the principal guests were the organisation’s leader, Commissioner John Mataer, and his wife, Elizabeth, who were visiting the area.

Both they and I were made to feel very welcome and the music provided by local Salvation Army bands, songster groups and soloists was of the highest quality. It was, also for me, especially evocative.

The evening brought back memories of early Sunday mornings when I was a boy.

They were mornings when you didn’t need an alarm clock because at 9.30am sharp, a Salvation Army band would strike up in the street outside our house.

That was the signal for me to rush downstairs and run outside where I joined the assembled faithful. There, I would position myself next to their leader and act as an impromptu conductor. The tune over, the band would move on to the next street with their latest adherent still in tow.

I never found out what my Sunday companions thought of this. In retrospect, I suppose it was an arrangement that was more enjoyable for me than them. Still, they accepted it with good grace, which says a lot for their tolerance and good humour.

I also recall my father – who, as a funeral director, had a lot to do with people of all denominations – say that he admired the Salvation Army. They embodied his view that it was what you did on the other six days of the week, and never mind Sunday, that was important in religion. Perhaps that was also why my mother made a donation to them every month for more than 40 years.

It is also maybe why people from the Salvation Army could walk into the roughest and wildest pubs in town and receive a respectful welcome. They probably still do.

What also struck me on Saturday was how little appeared to have changed in the organisation since those days – in terms of the value sets and objectives of the people in it.

Now, I knew that times have moved on and the organisation has moved with them. Look at the Salvation Army website and you will see a thoroughly modern organisation. It will tell you, for example, that it supports the “Robin Hood” tax on bankers’ profits being promoted by the actor Bill Nighy. It is unwavering in its commitment to social justice at home and abroad.

There’s even a reference to that dreaded word “rebranding” there, though I have to say that the decision to rename its homeless hostels “Lifehouses” – reflecting the fact they offer much more than a bed for the night – is a sensible one. Like many other “third sector”

organisations, it is an essential partner in the delivery of modern public services.

But the ethos of the organisation, its beating heart remains the same, because one thing the Salvation Army does not do is compromise.

It is an organisation with enormous integrity and self-belief, which I imagine asks a great deal of its members and is rewarded in the same measure. A body with the motto “Blood and Fire” is unlikely to attract backsliders.

The Salvation Army is an organisation built to last and unlike so many others has stood the test of time and remains relevant to the society and times we find ourselves in.

We would be a lot poorer without its work and example. I’m extremely grateful to it – and not just for the music and memories.