10 hours ago
Member of Balliol Boys' Club Association flies in from Canada for reunion
They are certainly getting older and fewer in number, but they refuse to let the name of their former club die.
Members of the Balliol Boys' Club Association in Oxford never miss an opportunity to get together and celebrate the 'old days'.
That was certainly the case when they held their annual meeting and reunion at North Oxford Golf Club recently.
What's more, they didn't all travel short distances to attend - one flew all the way from Canada.
John Bridges was delighted to be reunited with other former members of the club.
In the picture above, you can see him in the front row, fourth from the left. His brother, Richard, who lives at Woodstock, is behind him, above his right shoulder.
As we recalled (Memory Lane, April 28), association secretary Sandra Tyrrell spotted a link John had posted on the Nostalgic Oxford website and managed to track him down to his home in Ontario.
She tells me: 'John was given a very warm welcome at the reunion. He didn't want to make a speech - he just wanted to feel like 'one of the boys' again. He is 83 and quite fit and healthy.'
Before leaving Oxford for Canada, John worked as a stonemason for Axtell Perry in the city.
Balliol Boys' Club provided activities for youngsters for more than 60 years.
It was formed in 1907 after 'young gentlemen from Balliol College' decided to start a boys' club, to be run by undergraduates, in the deprived parish of St Ebbe's.
An old sweet factory in Littlegate Street was acquired as a meeting place.
The formation of the club in the former Star Confectionery factory had been announced by the curate, the Rev Marks, at the Sunday afternoon service at Holy Trinity Church hall in St Ebbe's.
News quickly spread and according to the club's history book, a 'surging crowd of boys besieged the premises on the opening night'.
The club closed in 1971 but the memory of it continues through the association and its faithful old members.
