The Performance Ensemble is working with HOPS, gathering stories from Hawksworth Wood from older men under lockdown with funding provided by Leeds City Council Public Health. Grants are being administered and supported by Leeds Older People’s Forum.

I guess I was about 6 or 7 years old, happily sliding freely up and down the hall floor, testing the dance floor powder that we had been spreading to make the floor nice and slippy for the evenings dancing, when suddenly the music started. I was then quickly caught by a fairly large lady who needed a partner for the St Bernard’s Waltz, the Military Two Step, a Progressive Barn dance or whatever dance they were starting with. There always seemed to be a shortage of men in the 50’s, so though I was only a kid I guess I was fair game. I was then firmly steered round the hall breathing some rather powerful perfume, having difficulty seeing where I was going as my face was clasped very closely to a rather large chest, with the fingers of my right trapped in some bony structure round the lady’s middle.

Dances were a regular Saturday night event interspersed with Whist Drives, Beetle Drives, Fur and Feather events, Tramps Suppers, where we dressed down and ate supper sitting on the floor. Ladies Weekends and Gents Weekends were something of a highlight involving a “Variety” show produced on the stage. The Cub and Scout groups also performed an annual Gang show, which in later years progressed to the Civic Theatre.

But Tuesday nights were my favourite night in the hall. From the age of 8 I joined the cubs, then from 11 years I was in the Scouts. The group was led by brother and sister Ron and Nellie Marshall and thinking back now they pretty much devoted most of their lives to the group, she running the cubs and him the scouts. We were Air Scouts (though we never got much higher than the stage in the church hall) so instead of the usual khaki uniform we had grey shirts and navy blue shorts with sky blue neckerchief. We also had the wonderful wide-brimmed hat, kept in shape with four of Mums strongest clothes pegs.

Though the hall was our regular meeting place we spent a lot of time outdoors, doing wide-games in Hawksworth Woods, tracking, practising our knots, etc. Weekends camping in Golden Acre, sleeping in dens in the woods, cooking on campfires, campfire songs and games, sneaking over the wall for a late-night swim in the Blue Lagoon at the Parkway Hotel. In the early 60’s we leased the old village school at Litton and converted into hostel type accommodation with bunks, kitchen and toilet, and spent many happy times there walking, swimming in the river, caving and potholing with torches and carbide lamps. Even our parents got to use it for Mum’s or Dad’s weekends.

Each summer there was a summer camp for a couple of weeks. Visits to Derbyshire, South Wales, Anglesey and a camp in Devon where, on a very hot day, we young lads were introduced by some helpful locals to a very refreshing apple drink called Scrumpy. We discovered the consequences of that over the next couple of days.

On alternate years the summer camp was spent abroad, visiting various combinations of places in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, always travelling by rail. I went on my first foreign trip was when I was 12 years old, after eventually convincing my Mum that I was old enough to look after myself for 15 nights abroad, and also by convincing my Dad that I would try and help to raise the £18/10 shillings that it would cost! I also needed a rucksack to carry the tent, poles, mess tin, billycan, sleeping bag and campsite clothes. We always wore uniform when we were offsite, and though we did do some basic clothes washing, we must have smelt pretty ripe when we got home. The trip was unforgettable, visiting the Black Forest and the Bernese Oberland, staying in four or five different locations, almost always on a lakeside. We had a superb programme of activities, mountain hiking, swimming, boating, cog railway up to the Jungfraujoch, ice caves in the Rhone glacier, Lake Brienz, camping in the castle in Heidelberg. What an amazing feat of organisation for the late 1950s/early 60s, for a group of 20 to 30 Scouts and leaders. He had also organised for us to have a hot evening meal somewhere near each campsite where possible to save time shopping and cooking.

Only a few years ago I was clearing out a wardrobe and came across my old Scout uniform. On checking the shorts I could feel a coin; guessing it must be an old pfennig or a franc or schilling I searched the pockets and the lining, but only after carefully unpicking the stitching of the turnups I found a silver St Christopher carefully sewn in! It must have travelled with me all over Europe.

I stayed in touch with St Marys and its church hall in various ways until the mid 80’s when I moved out of the area and lost contact somewhat. Just a few years ago some old friends invited my wife to come and join in some of the HOPS activities and then I joined her to see one of the excellent performances by the Leeds Playhouse group. I was really pleased to see the way the hall had been developed, and delighted to see the superb HOPS programme set up by Martin and Susan bringing so much enjoyment to so many people like myself enjoyed some 70 years ago.