It takes place at the Psalter Lane Citadel on December 21 but the Sheffield Citadel's new commanding officers, Majors Paul and Liliane Westlake, are preparing for more than just the festive season after arriving three months ago.

"We lived in York before we came here, and compared to York Sheffield is a big city," says Paul. "I like to walk whenever I can. But I'm finding the hills tough."

But the Majors Westlake are used to challenges. Liliane worked for more than three years in the Ukraine and Russia shortly after the fall of Communism and Paul is a member of the Salvation Army's International Emergency Response Team. He has been sent to Iraq, Sri Lanka and Rwanda over the last five years.

Liliane has to look after the church when Paul is called away, some times at short notice. (Liliane has got into the habit of whistling the Thunderbirds tune whenever a call comes in from the International Emergency Response Team HQ, she admits).

But her time in the former Soviet Union made a strong impression on her. Her job was to help local people build up a church, which went from almost nothing to a congregation of 150 by the time she left, which she says was very exciting.

The lack of anything but very basic food and other goods was very noticeable, she says. "You'd have bread, cheese, sugar and pasta and basically that was it, along with pickles of everything.

"When I came home, the first time I went into a supermarket I had to turn round and come out again. All that food! I can still feel the emotion of that and I don't want to forget it."

Especially at Christmas time, when Liliane feels that a desire to spend and buy can easily overtake a concentration on family and the real story of Christmas.

Paul takes a similar view of his experiences abroad. "It makes you realise just how lucky we are in this country, how much we take for granted and how much people moan about things that people in Sri Lanka or Rwanda had never heard of."

Paul's first posting was to Iraq, just after the war. The call came on the day of the couple's first wedding anniversary in 2003.

"We were about to go on holiday in Derbyshire, so it was an awful time," says Liliane. "But it all happened so quickly that it took our thoughts away from the danger of it."

"When we got to Iraq we were welcomed with open arms," says Paul. "But by the end of my three months there the atmosphere was changing. So much so that our driver was starting to say to people that we were Swedish." Paul's team were helping to manage supplies and improve conditions.

One job was improving sanitation.

"We were at one place where there was one toilet for 400 people and you went in and the sewage was up to here (he indicates a point above his knee)".

So Paul spoke to the local army unit, who soon opened a set of new toilets.

He got used to the habit of most Iraqis to have firearms in the home and their tendency to open fire into the air as a form of celebration, as when sanctions were lifted.

"We were on a rooftop at the time,and all these shells were landing on the roof around us. And in Basrah, when we heard the shooting at night we never knew if it was one family who didn't like another family, or someone teaching someone how to use a gun or whether it was just someone having a party."

A week after his return to the UK, a report came in that six military police officers had been shot in the village where he'd been working, which he says brought home the danger he'd been in.

His trips to Sri Lanka just after the tsunami, and to Rwanda earlier this year, were to help people build houses.

He says he'll never forget the passenger train he saw on its side after being turned over by the tidal wave and the man he talked to who was marooned in a tree with his toddler and baby daughters after losing his wife in the tidal wave.

"The water was swirling about below, and he was holding his daughters for so long and he was so tired that he couldn't hold the baby any more. When someone tells you that, there's not a lot you can say. You just have to be there for them."

The situation in Sheffield is very different but the Army's focus on 'social work' as Paul puts it, means that Paul and Liliane will be helping the poor and needy of Sheffield too.

Paul says there's a lot more to the Salvation Army these days than brass bands and carols, and the community and 'social' work of the Citadel is clearly going to be the focus for the Westlakes.

There is real poverty in Sheffield, they say, but it's often associated with debt or with lack of money management skills.

"My vision is rather than put an Elastoplast on by giving people the things they need at any given moment, I'd much rather see us tackling poverty at the grass roots by helping people manage their money. They say if you give a man a fish you'll feed him for a day but if you teach him to use a fishing rod you'll feed him for a lifetime."

But that's for the future. At present, the Citadel is still working with Superdrug to collect toys for children and teenagers who may not otherwise get any Christmas presents, and clothes, such as scarves, hats and socks for the homeless (drop new unwrapped gifts at branches of Superdrug or at the Psalter Lane citadel).

Paul is still liable to receive a call at any time. "My mum once said to me: 'You just want an exciting life.'"

He smiles. "And I think it's true."



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