The YMCA in Peace -Anniversary Review Part 5

After the war, as Britain was changing so was the YMCA. The new programme used ideas and equipment left over from the war and adapted them to meet the needs of a country recovering economic recession.

At this time youth work, education and physical fitness became a more fundamental part of the YMCA’s work. Rather than just fringe activities.

In the aftermath of the war, the YMCA spent years picking up the pieces. From 1916 until 1927 its Employment Department for men discharged from the forces found jobs for 38,000 ex-servicemen. It was not until 1923 that the association began to settle down once more to peacetime work.

The thousands of huts which provided comfort for troops during the war were dismissed and put together in cities, towns, and villages as “Red Triangle Clubs”. In 1932 there were 406 of those across the country.

They were centers for YMCA activities and provided a meeting place, with billiards or pool and bar serving tea. Some of them died out, others went to become fully-fledged local YMCAs.

Mildmay Conference Hall, North London, which had been a training center for volunteers war workers, was converted into a training center for secretaries and physical directors. Then, in 1927, national leadership training courses were developed for YMCA volunteers.

During this time boys’ work was expanding. Boys’ clubs, special sections for junior members and boy scout troops were springing up in YMCAs across the country, particularly in industrial towns and cities. By the fiftieth anniversary of the National Council in 1932, there were 217 of these in England, Ireland and Wales.

A "British Boys" training center

 At the same time, from the 1920s to 1932, the YMCA’s emigration programmes were sending boys aged 14, 15 and 16, from areas with high unemployment, to start new lives abroad. These school-leavers were given basic agricultural training before leaving for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

  When the emigration laws changed, these programmes evolved into the British Boys for British Farms scheme, which provided school-leavers with agricultural training and work placement on a farm in Britain.

 This scheme was revolutionary - the first complete training programme run by the YMCA. The boys lived in a hostel for eight weeks with a Christian, family atmosphere while they were trained. They were then placed with a farmer who paid them a minimum agricultural wage for eighteen months, during which time they had regular follow-up visits from the YMCA. The scheme, which received Government cash, trained 20,000 boys between 1932 and 1968.

  During the recession of the 1930s, the YMCA began work with the unemployed men and boys who were roaming Britain’s streets. The association’s original aim to help heart-pushed working men with little leisure time had become a very different task.

 A booklet brought out in 1932 to commemorate the National Council’s 15th anniversary, describes this work: “There are talks, debates and discussion groups; concerts sing-songs and dramatic productions; lantern lectures and wireless talks; drawing, sketching and painting groups; occupations of all sorts which the men themselves take a hand in planning for the hours of enforced leisure.”

  As well as simply keeping unemployed men occupied, the YMCA also provided intensive rehabilitation programs for those who had degenerated physically and mentally through being out of work. The men stayed in hostels for one to three months where they were fad good food, given recreation and trained in a skill. They were then found jobs.

Brian Davey (center), the first ever person to complete the British Boys for British Farms scheme,
teaches new recruits about dairy farming

 Despite the liveliness of the YMCA’s work at this time, an exhausting war and an economic recession had taken their toll on the movement. To mark its birthday in 1932, the National Council was appealing for £10,000 in donations to help pay off the £76,025 debt.

 By 1939, on the eve of war, on an agenda which 45 years earlier was dominated by Bible readings, gospel preaching, organ recitals and temperance societies, had shifted to include socials and dances, art and crafts groups and camping holidays. The organization which in 1894 was handing out religious tracts to a young man as they left theatres and music halls was now running amateur dramatic groups and film shows itself. 

Taken from the Anniversary Review