He's spent his 78 years saving souls – whether pulling people from house fires on the busiest fire truck in the country, or rescuing them from the flames of hell – alcohol and drug addiction.

'Booze and drugs – the damage that stuff causes…!”

He tut-tuts in disgust. At the substance abuse, not the people. Because he believes there's hope for everyone.

Laurence Stanley Bell, or ‘Laurie' – professional firefighter cum Salvation Army officer. Life for him has been swapping one uniform for another. And either way, he's been a life saver.

'When I get up in the morning and pull on a uniform, I am enthusiastic, I am fanatical; I have been called by God.”

That's Laurie the Sallie, and a bit of the fireman.

Silhouettes and sounds: Laurie Bell alone with his music. Photo John Borren.

And that's where there might be an employment issue of sorts. Because God, his maker, his boss, seems to have decided Laurie's employment with Salvation Army is done, this senior soldier is due for an honorable military discharge.

That was the catalyst for this story – eight decades of selfless service and a laying down of arms, but the soldier's not so sure.

'The Army would love to see me just sitting in the pews every Sunday morning. Fair enough. But I have more of God's work to do.”

A backdrop of street art for the senior soldier. Tauranga's Laurie Bell beneath the arches of the Harbour Bridge. Photo: John Borren

The soldier isn't ready to quit.

So when he de-mobs, he's ‘deserting' – his word – off to join the Wesleyans, the Methodists, at St Stephens in Brookfield.

Not as silly as it sounds.

'Because William Booth, was a Methodist preacher before he established the Salvation Army in 1883,” explains Laurie.

Booth apparently wanted to make the church more accessible to the poor and the excluded. Laurie Bell's just doing it the other way round.

'The Methodists have a good lay preacher system,” says Laurie. 'Hands on stuff.”

Stuff that still fuels his fire – evangelism, missions, teaching, preaching, fundraising. And after all, he knows the drill – as a lieutenant in the Army, he ran churches for 10 years.

Silhouettes and sounds: Laurie Bell alone with his music. Photo John Borren.

Only one person warned him off the move. His wife Susan.

'Hair-brained she reckoned – but I've had lots of hair-brained ideas.”

A good mate, another Sallie, said to him: ‘God bless you in your new ministry Laurie'.

'I appreciated that.”

I always liked the Sallies. As a kid they'd arrive on the back of a truck at Christmas and belt out a few rousing tunes – tambourines, trumpets, the works. They'd bring a live concert to our house.

Later in Auckland, a Sallie got to know me by name and would bust our Friday night drinks for a $10. It wasn't a donation he insisted. It was an investment should things go belly up for me.

A backdrop of street art for the senior soldier. Tauranga's Laurie Bell beneath the arches of the Harbour Bridge. Photo: John Borren.

Then a cynical old colleague fell for a Sallie and suddenly Saturday night became a shift at a soup kitchen. Add Laurie Bell to that mix of good Sallie people doing good, good work.

An effusive, irrepressible character, with a delightful earthiness, who has been shamelessly and successfully pitching stories to me for a few years.

This time he is the story. It was ask me anything, warts and all, so we did.

He was born a Sallie, and never so much as whiffed alcohol, even though he's been surrounded by what he calls the 'sponsor's product” all his working and sporting life.

No drink but there are demons.

'People tell me I have an addictive personality. So who knows?”

And there was the sister, who he says, embarrassed him over the years.

'She was a drunk, she was addicted. She went on a methylated spirits binge and in the end it killed her.” Perhaps he fears the same weak gene lurks close. 'If you are susceptible…?”

In the same breath he talks proudly of the 'celebrating and sharing” he's conducted every Friday for 13 years.

'The Recovery Services for those temporarily clean and sober – off the drugs and booze. We don't cure, we give hope and encouragement when relapse is the biggest danger.”

A backdrop of street art for the senior soldier. Tauranga's Laurie Bell up the stairs and beneath the arches of the Harbour Bridge. Photo: John Borren.

He has banned the word hopeless.

'No-one's hopeless.”

But he has seen despair. And he tut-tuts again.

This is a soldier not without sin. He has been married three times. He explains he was just unlucky in love until he met Susan. He talks proudly about her.

'We were both Army Lieutenants during 10 wonderful years running Army churches.”

Susan, he says, was the highlight during the heyday of his Army career.

This was a man, who as a professional firemen would put out property fires and then, at shift's end, slip into his Salvation Army kit to put out personal fires. His life has been busy and pressured.

He also, inadvertently, got tangled in one of the biggest issues facing churches today – gay rights.

'One day my eldest daughter asked me if I was sitting down because I was about to get a shock.”

When he got his head around the fact one of his daughters was gay, he decided he would just continue to love her. Nothing had changed. Laurie and Susan went to her wedding in London.

But bigotry does run deep.

'A fine Christian man asked me to conduct his funeral. But when he found out I had a gay daughter and I hadn't condemned her, he didn't want me to do his funeral anymore.”

He just shrugs off disappointment and fixes on the positive.

Like when he was running the local Red Shield fundraiser, Tauranga was the second best ‘giving' place in the country.

”Something to be proud of.”

Also from his skite sheet – while mission coordinator, which he says is 'just introducing people to Jesus” he got 50 people on board.

'Should have been more. That's what drives me.”

We raise a glass of lemonade to you Laurie.