Open Writing

In 1955 the Boys Brigade started a King George VI Leadership Course in memory of the late King. This was a two-week residential programme spread over two years and it was designed for future B.B. leaders.

I was fortunate enough to obtain a place on the first course held in August 1955 and enjoyed a stimulating week developing leadership skills with about thirty potential B.B. Officers. What made this visit to London different was that I travelled there and back overnight, and at twenty years of age, used the daylight hours to see the many and varied sights of the capital for the first time.

The day I returned, I left my case at King's Cross left luggage office at lunch time and spent most of the afternoon and early evening seeing as much of London as humanly possible. I found out there was a Saturday night dance on at St Pancras Town Hall just opposite the station, and as it was nice and handy for a quick getaway, I decided to give it a visit. Using my newly acquired dancing skills I partnered several members of the opposite sex.

Chatting to one attractive young girl I must have told her I was from the northeast and would be catching the midnight train back to Tyneside. I later found out her name was Sylvia. At about 11.30 p.m. I duly said goodnight and left the dance to collect my case and board the train.

As I sat waiting for the train to depart, someone knocked on the window of my compartment. It was Sylvia with a girl friend. I was extremely flattered. Her friend walked away to give us some space, and as I leaned out of the window to say goodbye, it must have looked as if we had known each other for years, not just two hours. I was very much smitten by meeting Sylvia, but although we exchanged addresses and wrote to each other a number of times, on my meagre wage and with 300 miles separating us, there was little hope of any follow-up romance. I never saw her again.

Due to family and financial circumstances, I never had any sort of Christmas or birthday party while I was growing up. When I was twenty-one in April 1956 I was determined to put that right, but there were several major problems to overcome. Was our house in John Clay Street suitable for such an event? If so, how many could we accommodate? Did we have enough furniture or crockery? Music and records?

It was decided that we could accommodate about ten people. My mother and Jenny would do the catering and we would borrow chairs, crockery and a record player. The bed would be removed from the front room, and we would use that larger room for the party and the smaller living room for eating.

The major problem left was that we lacked a sofa or other suitable seating. Jenny said, "Borrow ours". That sounded okay, but transporting it from Cranford Street - about a mile away - to John Clay Street and back was the problem. The answer was a barrow from Hanratty's! My mother said she had moved house via such a method of transport, so a sofa shouldn't be a major problem.

The Saturday morning of the party saw me pushing a large barrow from High Shields to Cranford Street to collect the sofa, transporting the same to John Clay Street and then returning the barrow to High Shields.

The party went well; the sofa worked overtime and I made the return journey with the barrow and sofa the following day.

It's unbelievable to think in today's liberal environment that in 1956 my mother refused to leave the house during the above party in case ten twenty-one-year olds should get up to something that they shouldn't!

From 1946 to 1954, the Rev Rodgers was a guiding figure and mentor to me and many others at St Andrew's. Although he was a rather quiet and at times shy individual, the work he and his wife put in behind the scenes benefited every part of the church. Perhaps the B.B. Company benefited more than others, because he was greatly influential in the success of our Company Camps. He also rarely missed a Company Parade night.

The Rev was also a keen photographer and fisherman. He used to take and print photos of our activities at camp and once took two of us fishing - illegally - whilst camping at Rothbury. I was therefore extremely saddened when, in 1954, he left St Andrew's for pastures new at St George's Church in Huddersfield

The new minister at St Andrew's in 1955 was the Rev Stanley Jones, who in many ways was just the opposite of his predecessor. He was younger and had previously worked as a Bevin Boy and was much more outgoing. In the late fifties he became known as the TV Chaplain because he often conducted the epilogue when TV closed down about 11 p.m.

He was also very innovative. One weekend in 1957, when he organised a special Youth Sunday, he had me in naval uniform in the pulpit, with Mary Clark - a young lady from a teacher training college - leading the evening service.

Looking back, it was those two ministers, along with Bill Barron and Norman Graham, who greatly influenced the adolescent years of myself and many others at St Andrew's Church during the late forties and early fifties.

I was always sorry I didn't put more back into the B.B. that gave me so much during those influential teenage years. Perhaps the religion, drill and discipline that the B.B. taught were not wasted. Many years later a former member of the 18th Company went on to be a Bishop with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Another became a Lieutenant General in the British Army. It would be nice to think that in some small way the B.B. had contributed to their success.

St Andrew's Church sadly closed its doors for the last time in the nineteen eighties. A year or so later it opened again as the Charles Young Centre and continued to serve the local community in a different way. The B.B. Company, however, proved its resilience by moving 200 yards along the road to Talbot Road Methodist Church.

It still exists today with the Boys' Brigade Motto of "SURE AND STEADFAST'.

South Shields Battalion of the Boys’ Brigade in 1948

1st Company St Paul’s Presbyterian
2nd Company Mile End Presbyterian
3rd Company St Margaret’s Presbyterian
4th Company Thornholme Methodist
5th Company Baring Street Methodist
6th Company Frederick Street Methodist
7th Company Unknown
8th Company Laygate Baptist
9th Company Birchington Avenue Methodist
10th Company Alice Street Mission
11th Company Sunderland Road Methodist
12th Company Later Whiteleas Church
13th Company Wenlock Road Methodist
14th Company Glebe Methodist
15th Company Bethesda Church
16th Company Cleadon/East Boldon Church
17th Company Talbot Road Methodisti
18th Company St Andrew’s Presbyterian
21st Company Dean Road Methodist
22nd Company East Boldon Church
27th Company West Harton Methodist
28th Company Unknown
29th Company Boldon Colliery church

PLUS

1st Jarrow St John’s Methodist
2nd Jarrow Unknown
3rd Jarrow Unknown
4th Jarrow Park Road Methodist
1st Hebburn Glen Street Methodist