THE CRY “Mum, there’s nothing to do!” was unheard of from young people in Bourne during the late 1960s and early 1970s because it was just the opposite. There was too much to do.

There were so many clubs and activities to choose from, the traditional Girl Guides and Boy Scouts for instance, but we were after all no longer children and a fairly unconventional bunch into the bargain because few of us seemed to join these groups. We preferred instead to join the Saturday Club or the Hereward Youth Club, or usually both, meeting in church halls, although despite the religious connotation this did not seem to deter anyone from turning up. There was also the Red Cross group which met at Baldock's Mill, now the Heritage Centre, in South Street, but that was mainly to ogle the choirboys when they came out of practice on a Friday evening and to learn some basic first aid in between.

The Saturday Club was the brainchild of Jim and Doreen Cunnington and Ruth and Tim Moody and was held, as the name implies, on Saturdays, in the Abbey Church Hall. The four of them were the first grown ups we were allowed to call by their first names, a big step forward at that time when everyone was still Mr and Mrs until you were an adult yourself. It was also graced with the presence of the Rev Tony Sparham, probably the funkiest (to use the phrase of the time) curate ever at the Abbey Church, at least it seemed that way at the time. He smoked, had a beard and was occasionally heard to use the odd swear word, all very non C of E.

The club used to put on shows (one memorable presentation had The House of the Rising Sun as a background tune) and take part in church services that added a modern activity section to a very sedate 10 am choral communion. I am not sure that all of the regular worshippers appreciated these interpretative moments during such a solemn service but at least it captured the interest of teenagers who might otherwise have drifted off into other and less rewarding activities. But it was not however all spiritual. There was some wicked mimicry during the Christmas show, the Three Degrees being a popular drag act, and the show later developed into the Christmas Crackers concert put on by the entire congregation, both young and old.

We also got dirty, very dirty indeed. The Bourne web site last year broached the subject of cleaning up the Bourne Eau but this was something we used to do every other year. We would turn up on Saturdays in tee-shirts, shorts and plimsolls and wade in up to our knees, digging out cans, plastic bags, tyres, bike wheels and the occasional wire shopping basket. There were no trolleys in the town stores in those days. Larger items of rubbish that had become well embedded needed mob-handed attention and was tugged at by several of us at a time, often coming free with an almighty sucking sound resulting in everyone falling over and getting even muddier.

There were no tetanus jabs beforehand and no protective clothing or health checks afterwards but none of us ever had any ill effects. Black plastic bags were also unknown and everything we collected went into old hessian potato sacks that were collected and carted away by the council. It was usually an afternoon job on a Saturday and our stints lasted for about three hours. Afterwards, we all went back to the church hall to collect a change of clothes we had left there beforehand and to remove some of the mud before walking home. Smelly, muddy garments were normally dropped in the kitchen as you came in through the back door. The work cupboards beside the sinks in the church hall kitchen were very useful for sitting on while washing your feet.

A dirty job, yes, but very rewarding and it gave us all good feeling that we were really doing something for the town. It was also a good excuse to get absolutely filthy, throw mud about, stink for days and our parents could say nothing about it because it was all in a good cause.

There were also the trips out to faraway places, such as London where we went to see Lonesome Stone, a rock musical at the Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park (7th July 1973, stalls 50p). A day trip would have meant us coming home far too late and so it was arranged that we would stay overnight in a local hall. What fun, away from home with the opposite sex! But it was all well above board. Boys along one side of the hall and we girls down the other. I am not sure that anyone actually got any real sleep, least of all the adults in the party who came along to mind this group of unruly early teenagers. Don’t ask me what the musical was about. I just remember there was lots of glitter showered down on the audience at the end.

Then there was the Hereward Youth Club held on weekday evenings and run mainly by Derek Glover at the United Reformed Church hall in Eastgate. It was more a sporting than a social club, having teams in most of the local youth leagues. The girls’ five-a-side football team even went through to the regional finals one year, wearing very trim sky blue skirts and white tops, all very fetching. Certainly the team used to get a big cheer whenever they played but I think this may have had more to do with the short skirts than their soccer prowess. The regional final was held in Peterborough and a coach load of team and supporters went off for the evening. Girls’ football was still very much a novelty but they played just as hard as the boys, at least they did in the five-a-side version. Everyone seemed to come off the field bruised and battered but my goodness, what a good time they had.

There was also a very competitive boys’ team although one year this was seriously hampered by a series of knee and leg injuries to half of the squad and each time a player made a joke at one of the casualties, he was the next to go. Eventually there were four of the team all on crutches hobbling round the club feeling sorry for themselves but I must admit that although it was no laughing matter, the rest of us found it all very entertaining.

Eventually the Saturday club came to an end. Different interests occupied our minds on weekend evenings, namely courting. A core of the club reconvened on Sunday evenings becoming the precocious sounding Young People’s Fellowship, soon abbreviated to the YPF. This was a nominally Anglican group but really just an excuse to socialise and when the church hall was not available, or too cold because the heating had not been turned on, we would all descend on some unsuspecting parent for the evening in the warmth of their home.

The YPF was far more grown up than Saturday Club and we even had a resident driver or two, piling into any available car and whizzing off to someone's house to listen to records, chat and plan what to do next weekend. There were many events, one a sponsored pram push from Lincoln to Bourne. Even then the main A15 was a busy road so the police advised us to take the old Roman road (the B1177), only emerging on to the main road at Rippingale for the final push to Bourne. We covered the 35 miles in a single day, ending up exhausted on the vicarage lawn in time for tea. The YPF also helped us escape on other trips, youth hostelling in Wales, helping out on a local farm or a visit to Cambridge to go punting along the Cam with the undergraduates. Sheer luxury.

When we didn’t feel like walking we would all pile into any available car. It would be illegal now, perhaps it was then, but fifteen youngsters in an estate car seemed a very cheap and sensible way of getting around Bourne and was just about tolerable, squash-wise. Most of our activities took place with no real adult supervision and we considered ourselves to be completely responsible. We had far more freedom yet we were then far more naive than youngsters of similar age today. Hanky panky was only something we whispered and giggled about. We probably looked, or thought we did, more worldly wise than we really were.

Eventually the YPF too was dissolved and we all went off to college. There were many parties in the final year as we all hit 18 - but that is another story.

WRITTEN SEPTEMBER 2004

NOTE: Anne Emmett (née Parker) lived in Bourne from 1966, attending both Bourne Primary and Bourne Grammar Schools before going to college. She now works as Quality Assurance Manager for the Oncology Department at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. Her mother, the late Mary Parker, was known to many as a councillor, school governor and mayor, and her brother and sister and their families still live in the area.