Brenda Hobbs and her husband Ellis Hobbs remember Harman’s Cross Youth Club

Brenda and Ellis came and spoke to us about the history of Harman's Cross Youth Club. Harman's Cross Youth Club was run by Brenda's mum, Mrs Mitchell, from the early 1950's until 1968. It was run seven days a week, more or less as they held two club nights, entertainment evenings, Panto rehearsals and at the weekend Mr Mitchell would drive them down to Baggator Adventure Centre. The club would also go abroad once a year.

Ellis told us that Mrs Mitchell ran the youth club because 'she got a lot of enjoyment from the young people and felt that she was doing something really worthwhile.' A youngster in trouble would come to her door because they knew they could talk to her. Brenda said 'they all called her mum so I used to call her Mrs Mitchell if I needed attention.' She added that 'people came to youth club because they wanted to, it wasn't like school.'

The volunteer leaders and young people did everything themselves, they organised events and competitions. Brenda said 'we took on fundraising very enthusiastically by taking part in 50 mile sponsored walks and things.' 'It was the youth clubs hey day in the 50's and 60's because people didn't have TVs, the entertainment was at the club.'

Each club hosted a harvest supper with entertainment and the Director would come to judge and award certificates. The supper was cooked at home and bought in, which usually consisted of salads and cold meat.

The club was all about having fun, they would have rounders tournaments with four boys and four girls on a team and 'the boys would flirt with the girls to put them off and it worked.'

Craft work was of a high standard, taught by Mrs Mitchell and involved weaving baskets and making lobster pots good enough for fishing.

Brenda and Ellis Hobbs with two young volunteers

The project work for the exhibition is progressing rapidly and we have been very busy collecting archive material from the different decades to match our themes of Fun and Friendship, Activities, Sport and Leaders. We are in the process of creating comic book pages with fun speech bubbles and photos of activities as panels for the exhibition. We will also be making slide shows with music of any additional youth club photos to display on a screen in the exhibition.