To reminise

Another lovely day today, very blue clear skies and quite warm at 24C

I mentioned in my last post about the Pyrford youth club that I started going to in 1971.  There were three main halls, one dedicated to table tennis, the large main one, where other activities happened, such as the trampoline, badminton etc  and the coffee lounge, a nice place to sit and chill with friends. Outside was a small pitch, ideal for 5 a side.

On Mondays evenings it was weight training for the girls, this was synchronised movements but using a bar with weights. There was one boy doing normal weights, he wanted to be a fireman but his physic was not up to their standard, but by the time Fred had finished with him he sailed through and got his dream job.  We are all still friends today

My bar had 1.5 lbs each end plus the bar, not very heavy you may think, however when all the routines were put to music and the bars were swinging you certainly didn´t want to get in the way. Also if you missed a week, boy did your muscles tell you about it a day later.

We had routines to various songs of the day, Delilah, push bike song, where did your love go, plus others.  We would be booked for events like the local parish days and would appear in our uniforms to perform.  Sometimes the boys would sneer and make comments about the weights, so we always encouraged them to try for themselves, one they didn´t have a clue or rhythm, two, they would get only half way through and give up because...it was too heavy!

In 1973 I became the Captain of the team, and would be standing in the centre leading

 With our coach Fred Moran

Look at those long white socks!

We had our moment of fame when we were invited to go up to London to the BBC studios and do a routine for Blue Peter. A great day but John Knoaks kept forgetting his lines and we had various takes but all went well in the end.

As we were leaving we bumped into Dick Emery who immediately played the fool wielding our bars around and getting into the character of Mr Lampwick.

We had to leave for the journey back to Surrey as we wanted to watch ourselves on the TV  program that afternoon, no video recorders then!

I still have my Blue Peter badge for this, along side another one sent years before when I sent up a photo of our guinea pig, Pru, with her 8 babies asking if it was a record, they kindly wrote back saying they couldn´t be sure but enclosed a badge.

I still have my bars, must confess to being a bit rusty on the routines now, mind you even a broom stick would suffice to begin with and I cannot hear any of the songs without being transported straight back to those days.

An added bonus was that Chris lived nearby and would come up to the club too.

Maybe I should get the bar out of moth balls for some gentle exercise

take care

xcx