The woman got on the 295 bus near Clapham Junction, the railway spaghetti junction in southwest London that is Europe’s busiest train hub. I wasn’t sure where exactly she boarded because I was sitting upstairs with my head in my phone, on my way to Fulham. The woman remained downstairs. She said she was on her way to paradise.
The first thing we noticed from the top deck was her singing. It started off low; a soft, joyful melody pirouetting its way up the stairwell. I noticed it immediately because people usually don’t even make eye contact with each other on London’s public transport. Yet here was a woman singing unabashed.
She sang sweetly and with real emotion, puncturing the anonymity of this often-hard city with verses about love. I didn’t recognise the tune but, as she sang so well, it didn’t dampen my enjoyment. Then came the first clue that she wasn’t merely a joyful commuter letting it all out on a Sunday. “Jesus loves us all!” she proclaimed. “Bless you, bus driver. Jesus will take us to heaven!”
I would have settled for him just taking us to Sherbrooke Road. I was behind schedule on my way to a friend’s house. Not even Jesus can rise above the weekend traffic on Battersea’s Plough Road.
London is a proud bastion of the forces of Mammon, a hedonistic dominion where you can buy anything or anyone that you desire at any time of the day or night. This is not a stronghold of puritans. Yet newcomers may notice that, like other great global cities that attract diverse characters, there are street preachers everywhere.
It is most obvious on some of the busiest thoroughfares of the commercial heartland of the West End. Many use amplifiers to penetrate the crowds, the word of God booming up city streets. One particularly loud fellow hangs around near the John Lewis store on Oxford Street. He makes the windows rattle in the shops. I could still hear him clearly one day, warning me from outside to avoid damnation as I ascended an elevator to buy a duvet.
Britain’s values venerate the freedoms of the common man and woman, and its laws generally protect the right to speak publicly and to evangelise. But sometimes preachers are a source of annoyance or offence.
One Free Methodist minister wrote on a conservative blog about how he was approached by multiple police officers on a busy road a mile or two from Heathrow airport in 2021. There were complaints he was being homophobic as he preached the Book of Genesis. The way he told it, the response was overkill. Not everyone wants to hear your views on same sex marriage outside Uxbridge station. But it shouldn’t take, as he claimed, 14 officers to deliver the message.
The case of another preacher arrested for a breach of the peace in Enfield in 2019 was raised in the House of Commons by Theresa Villiers, the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland.
Back on the 295 to Fulham, things were kicking off. The woman’s joyful singing had given way to haranguing. A woman had clearly cursed at her to shut up. “Lady, don’t swear,” the preacher shouted. “The bible says ‘let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth’.”
From her accent and the sound of her voice, I concluded she was African. So-called “bus preaching” is common in countries such as Nigeria, where Christianity is more evangelical than here.
She demanded to know of the woman who had sworn whether her companion was her husband or her boyfriend. Neither answered. For those of us listening from upstairs, it was like tuning in to a rowdy radio play.
“No ring on your finger! I pray that this time next year you are married and have children. Today is a good day to propose, sir.”
I had boarded alongside two women wearing hijabs and their kids. The preacher clocked them. “Muslim ladies, you think I’m going to tell you off. But I’m here to say Jesus loves you and your children belong to him.”
The bell rang. The woman proclaimed finally that “Jesus commands us to be courageous”, before alighting at Wandsworth Bridge. Upstairs, 20 faces were pressed against the windows trying to catch a glimpse of the source of the commotion.
[ London Letter: The city is a bubble, afloat on its own importanceOpens in new window ]
The woman stepped off the bus, dropped to one knee and blessed herself. She had long hair tied back, although it was possibly a wig. She was aged about 45 and wore a long, lavish animal print coat and a flowing, bright red dress. She looked striking. Beautiful yet ferocious. She marched towards another bus stop, presumably to save more commuters.
“Thank God,” sighed a man across the aisle from me, “she didn’t come up those bloody stairs.”