When Young People Speak - From Experience

"This is the town's young people from about fifty-plus years ago – though all in our sixties now and scattered across the globe. We've got a message for Newton Stewart from all those years back and we hope you`ll find what we say very useful for today and the future.

Quite by chance in 2024, a goodly number of us discovered that we had vivid memories of something which we found we shared, and looking back, we really value it. It started with a post that Linda Brown, now in Australia, had put up, which was meant as a wee challenge. It was the location that set us all thinking and remembering, as it was on a wee road off Church Street, just across from where our youth centre had been. Yes, our Youth Centre.

So we started reminiscing about that great establishment, and all that it had meant to us at the time – that would have been back in the early to mid-1970s. The passage of time has not dimmed our memories one bit, and the common thread running through it all is how much we valued and enjoyed all that went on in it.

One person who seemed to stand out, as we cast our minds back to those youthful days, was Mary who ran the café, or coffee bar. She was special. Well, the whole place was special, and in a way it made us feel special too, particularly in retrospect. You see, it was a youth club, youth centre if you like, and had no other purpose. We seemed to matter enough, for the authorities then, to take us seriously. To give us our place, staff it, and pay the bills to keep the lights on. When the word `youth` was subsequently removed from the sign above the door, and replaced with `community`, it seemed a bit bland; it lost something.

So we chatted online in 2024, prompted by Linda's post, we recreated links, shared memories, and rekindled something very real for us all. When I say We, there must have been about twenty or more of us, all from Newton Stewart parts of Wigtownshire.

Mary Rudd seemed to stand out in all this because she treated us so well. She was neither a teacher nor a parent, but an independent adult, not really in authority. Though she stood no nonsense in her coffee bar and seemed to know how to sort out any altercations. She listened to us and was both impartial and non-judgemental. Mary gave advice when it was sought and was very discrete. Never mind the coffee bar, she was a true youth worker, as we can all now see so well, in hindsight.

The other staff were great too, each in their way. They not only gave us activities to get involved in, but what one of our number has called `managed freedom`. Yes, that was special. We could call it managed responsibility, it would seem. Although there probably wasn’t much money around then, we had plenty to do in Newton Stewart Youth Centre: ping pong, darts, cards, judo, badminton – although the ceiling was a bit low for that, board games, music, our TV, football club, and even a motorcycle section. That was, as we recalled, named the Stocking Leg Club, and met in a concrete building out the back. We created our zipline between some trees, also out the back. This gave a real thrill until the authorities came along and cut it down.

Then there were the Friday night discos. Those were fabulous. Some of us only got to go to them, because they were in the Youth Centre. Parents would never have let us go to the bigger adult ones in McMillan Hall. There was a carload of at least seven who turned up every week in what purported to be a taxi, having travelled for fifty pence each from Kirkinner. There was a twenty-four-hour disco when we were raising money to buy our minibus. We danced in shifts, and when we were supposed to be resting, Mary made sure there was no hanky-panky. All done with such good humour though.

We had competitions sometimes, and that introduced a good bit of rivalry. Don’t think it ever came to blows; well not inside the building anyway. One summer we had a float in the Galloway Pageant, and our theme was Alice Cooper`s `Schools Out for Summer`. Man Alive that was fun, with a banger of a car hoisted up onto our float, and some loud music, of course. We let it rip.

Oh, the memories seemed to flood back in 2024. Poo bulbing on the Palnure Burn, a burger disco up at some remote former school. Some of us even made it up The Merrick one day in summer.

So why are we recording and sharing all this, so many years after the events? Does it still matter? We assuredly believe it does, with absolute conviction. OK, we may not have realised it at the time, as we just sought to have fun in our youth club, a humble reused timber facility in what had previously been temporary classrooms, probably converted at a relatively low cost. It served a very useful function for us and in the wider context of NS. At times we may have volunteered, done a bit of coaching, run the disco ourselves and begun to experience some leadership, but we just did it all, because that was what it was all about. Now we know that we were all growing as social individuals, discovering, beginning to experience relationships, learning about life, and beginning to find our place in the wider scheme of things. Confidence, communication skills, enhanced self-esteem, and even caring for others, were all part of this essential process of expanding personal growth. That’s what good youth work is all about, as a distinct end in itself – no other service can achieve this with such a focused purpose for young people specifically, in a place they can call their own.

Please hear us, Newton Stewart of today. For many of us, that youth centre, or club, whatever you like to call it, played a huge part in our young lives. Looking back, the subtext is that we mattered within the town and were valued. Oh, no doubt some adults even then called us young people all sorts of bad names, said that the youth of today (then) was just a load of wasters and things like that. But for many of us the experiences we had at that dedicated place, and the adults who ran it, influenced us greatly, and this positive experience shaped our lives as we grew. Yes, we can only see that now, with hindsight. But as we reminisced, there seemed to be a real consensus on this. Nobody was trying to influence how we looked back on it all, it just came from each of us so clearly; so naturally.

OK, young people today have so many different influences on them, but they are not so very different from what we were we were all those years ago. The journey from childhood, through youth to adulthood is still called adolescence, and it can still be a bumpy ride. It's still preparing us for all that may lie ahead as we venture to take our place in the wider community. If anyone tells you otherwise, we`d say they are sadly mistaken. We noted that some of us are now, today, involved in trying to make things better for everyone in the community, through various roles that they have chosen to take on.

We`ve discovered that the Newton Stewart Initiative is at the forefront of driving forward many great plans which will surely improve things for everyone, we would say, especially young people. The demographics in the area are well and truly stacked against the area, with its rapidly ageing population. These are facts, and from our shared experiences and journeys through life, we know that much needs to be done – this is surely inescapable.

So the message that we have for you today, echoing down all those years, is that young people matter, they matter a lot. They are the future, in the same way as we did in our turn. So a dedicated place for young people in the town, and for no other purpose would be one of the best investments you could possibly make. Of course other sectors and interests in the community matter.

Please, give the youth a chance. Now, today."

This message has been compiled from comments shared online by many former young people from the area during 1973 – 76.