34 old teenage pensioners met for their half yearly reunion lunch of the YPF at the Indoor Bowling Club in Thanet Road on Monday 29th March. The next being Monday September 13th.

We met in the Quaker Building in Clifford St. in the 1940s and 50s and danced to Glen Miller and the big bands, or played table tennis. We also had access to Bootham School sports facilities and had regular weekend camps at Kirkham Abbey and week camps at Rieghton Gap near Hunmanby.

Many memories were exchanged, and old friends remembered. I thought of the weekend following a previous full camp at Kirkham, when all the tents were sodden wet and Mr Turner, the Station Master allowed six of us lads to camp in the waiting room and put the tents out to dry in the field behind the signal box where we usually pitched them. We collected coal along the lines and got the cast iron stove stoked up. Imagine the shock on the faces of the passengers on the early morning Scarbrough train when it pulled in for parcels. Six half clad youths cooking kippers over the stove and smiling at them. Or the morning when some got up early to fish below the weir, caught a young pike and threw it in the girls tent. Being beaten to the ball by Nancy Smith and finishing flat on my face, in a mixed football match.

We talked about whether this place we love should be called Kirkham Abbey as we know it, or Kirkham Priory as some call it today. The question arose following my letter in the Press on the subject. A chap who writes on their web site as Petethefeet, a retired school master, tried to enlighten me about Monks, Friars and religious orders to prove that the railway company had made a mistake and it really should be called a Priory. I told him that the Monks and Friars were not around to argue when we used it, and I would continue to back the railway company, Mr Turner the Station Master and all my old pals who were there with me, and call it Kirkham Abbey.

I promised Petethefeet I would ask Shirley Myers, who does a wonderful job of organising our reunions, if we could have a vote on the subject and let him know the outcome. We took a random group from those present, but they all insisted and a definite, unanimous 34 votes were cast in favour of Kirkham ABBEY Pete. Sorry!