{"id":28723,"date":"2025-07-06T14:47:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T13:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infed.org\/mobi\/?page_id=28723"},"modified":"2025-08-04T22:05:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:05:54","slug":"mary-robinson-girls-in-the-nineteen-sixties","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/infed.org\/dir\/welcome\/mary-robinson-girls-in-the-nineteen-sixties\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Robinson – Girls in the Nineteen Sixties"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"infed<\/h6>\n
the girls clubs’ and youth clubs’ collection<\/a><\/h6>\n
\"\"<\/h6>\n

The cover photograph was used by kind permission of \u201cThe Sunday Times\u201d. It was the winning boys\u2019 entry in the 1962<\/em> N. A. Y.C \/ \u201cSunday Times\u201d Photographic Competition \u201cTeenagers Today,\u201d and was taken by Christopher Franklin, of the Berkshire Association of Youth Clubs.<\/em><\/p>\n

Foreword<\/a> | Introduction<\/a> |\u00a0 Chapter 1: The girl herself in the 1960s<\/a> | Chapter 2: Programmes and premises<\/a> \u00a0| Chapter 3: Personal relationships<\/a> | Chapter 4: Work<\/a> |\u00a0Appendix:\u00a0The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme for Girls<\/a><\/p>\n

This booklet, first published in 1963, set out why youth workers should focus more strongly on the specific needs of young women. Mary Robinson argued that young women were demanding a more imaginative approach from the Youth Service.<\/p>\n

Wherever and whenever the opportunity is given and the right person is there, girls are not slow to venture. The challenge of this lies not in the limitations of the girls themselves but too often in the inability of adult society to communicate to them, first of all the reward of self-achievement and secondly, the pleasure of becoming a useful member of a community. [Robinson 1963: 30]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mary Robinson was the Senior Member Training Adviser at the National Association of Youth Clubs.<\/p>\n

This booklet is also available to download as a pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>Foreword<\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/em>A previous National Association of Youth Clubs pamphlet \u201cGirls’ Interests\u201d originally written by Dr. J. Macalister Brew and revised later by some of her colleagues, has been a best seller for many years. Now Miss Mary Robinson has written a sequel \u201cGirls in the 1960s\u201d. Miss Robinson, Senior Member Training Adviser to the Association and known to many generations of club members, probably has as wide a knowledge and understanding of today’s young people as anyone in this country.<\/em><\/p>\n

This book, with its practical suggestions and its imaginative approach, will be widely welcomed by all those who work with girls in these somewhat difficult days. Many of its ideas arose from a series of discussions with the men leaders of large mixed clubs affiliated to the London Union of Youth Clubs, and the Association would like to express its gratitude for their help.<\/em><\/p>\n

I heartily commend this book to leaders, organisers and sympathetic adults, both in the National Association of Youth Clubs<\/em> and in the wider sphere of youth service and education.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean Mackenzie<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chairman, N.A.Y.C. Executive Committee<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>Introduction<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

[page 7] The first girls\u2019 club of which there is a record was opened in Bristol in 1861. Its aim was \u201cto provide advantages, pleasure and safeguards for young women away from home influence\u201d at a time when many of the girls were living in deplorable conditions in slum districts, and standards of behaviour and morals were low. As girls\u2019 clubs spread throughout the country and more records became available, there is evidence of the kind of work the clubs were trying to do for girls. In most clubs, having paid their Id. a week, they did musical drill with staves and dumb-bells ; they learned to sing ballads, hymns, choruses ; ladies came to help them with sewing, teaching them to make blouses of soberer hues than the gaudy colours usually worn by the factory girl, or to patch, darn or feather stitch a flannel petticoat. Each week there was a Bible class, a time when leaders could draw more closely to these rough young women and girls and try to put to them the positive virtues which would buttress them against the temptations of their working life. Club leaders were trying to give to girls in their scant leisure time \u201cwhatever is most lacking in their everyday life, filling up the gaps, broadening their lives, making them more complete women\u201d.<\/p>\n

Over a century later, in completely changed economic and social conditions, the club leader of today has the same aim, but against the background of a revolution in the lives of the girls. To the girls of a hundred years ago, today\u2019s conditions would seem dreamlike, and yet a new pattern of softer affluent living has brought for the girls of today a new set of problems that can seem to them as night\u00admarish as those of long ago.<\/p>\n

What is she like, the girl of today ? What are her problems ? What now is the day-to-day job of the club leader who would try to help ?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>Chapter 1: The girl herself in the 1960s<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Page 7] The needs of girls within a mixed youth group are especially important. Within any group it is vitally necessary that girls are given an opportunity to take a full part. Too often this full part is interpreted as the chores of the club for \u201cisn\u2019t the girl to become tomorrow\u2019s housewife ? \u201d Indeed she is, but the successful wife and mother is the setter of standards in the home and the educator of the family. Girls\u2019 activities therefore need to be geared to help the girl to become herself, to widen her interests and to develop her talents. It is important to remember that the girl today is as much tomorrow\u2019s citizen as is the boy. Thus there is a need in a mixed youth club for activities geared to both the social and the cultural interests of the girl. Much of this work is best done by women, for girls respond to lively and enthus\u00adiastic women, and there is at the present time a vital need for volunteers who will share with groups of girls, in an informal manner, their experience, skills and enthusiasms. It is important to note that the girl\u2019s sphere of interest has widened enormously over the past few years. Rifle-shooting, pot-holing, canoeing, pottery, drama, art, archery and committee work are some of the activities she shares today with the boys. Here she has the chance to be accepted amongst them for her accom\u00adplishment. But there is still the need for her to develop as a woman\u2014 as a budgetter, buyer, dressmaker, cook, interior decorator, nurse, hostess, voter, partner and mother. All activities concerned with home-making have an appeal for most girls and are often most valuable when done as a separate girls\u2019 activity. The \u201cgirls only\u201d activity is as <\/em>important as the \u201cboys only\u201d activity, and, because of the new boy\/girl ratio of the population, perhaps even more<\/em> vital than ever before. The boy in the youth club has always been easier to cater for than the girl and the smaller numbers of girls in groups may mean that little attempt is made to provide a programme for them.<\/p>\n

Whilst many of the things that educationists desired for girls are now part of their life, these very things have forced girls to face adult decisions at a time when they are still emotionally immature. They have, in most cases, immense freedom, but the teaching of responsible behaviour, in the light of increased freedom, lags far behind. They have more leisure, but too often a discriminating and satisfying use of it has not been taught. They have more money at an early age and the commercial world woos them\u2014 \u201cYou can only be Miss 1960s if your skin is . . . , if your hair is \u00a0. . . , [page 10] if your vital statistics are . . . Thus, whilst the whole commercial world encourages them to be adult, school, home, church and the youth club leaders say \u201cYou are too young\u201d. Girls are still, in most places, in great demand in the employment market, but their scarcity value means that they are not stretched nor are standards of work set too high. They have a knowledge of sex, but the teaching of the uniqueness of each individual has been neglected. They are told \u201cdon\u2019t go too far\u201d, but there are varying standards of advice on what is meant by too far. They are often\u2014as other generations were\u2014lonely, bewildered, unhappy, frustrated and needing advice, but the one thing so often denied to them by adults is time and the ability to listen. The commercial world lures them to marriage\u2014a romantic and ideal state\u2014but around them they see a picture of shot-gun weddings and broken and unhappy homes. They have been given a collective name\u2014teenagers\u2014and typed by society at a time when better education is making them more individual. They live in a society where an adult world still demands \u201crespect for your elders\u201d at a time when debased adult standards too often command little respect in the eyes of the young idealist.<\/p>\n

To an older generation , the 1960\u2019s girl frequently seems, brash, brazen, loud and sophisticated. To the 1960s girl, one half of the adult world seems to encourage her to be so \u2013 the world of glamour that that is with it<\/em>. The other half \u2013 the world of thou shall not<\/em>, the world that I not with it<\/em> –\u00a0 seems to condemn. Many of those who come into the latter group demand from the girl disciples which they themselves too often seem to ignore, even whilst they try to impose them on her. Into this bewildering world she has to grow and find her place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>Chapter 2: Programmes and premises<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Programmes<\/h5>\n

[page 11] All youth group programmes for girls must be considered in the light of the following 1960s necessities :\u2014<\/p>\n

1. Girls do not enjoy ill-prepared, inefficient, sub-standard events ; neither do boys. But boys will sometimes put up with these, while the practicality of the girl makes her impatient of them and unwilling to participate.<\/p>\n

2. Girls (older teenagers in particular) mind about the places to which they go. They want to be proud of their club. A boy can be proud of its achievements, but a girl is more anxious to be known to go to the right places.<\/em><\/p>\n

3. Girls need to be treated at an earlier age as young adults. They are more sensitive to criticism than boys and more alert to any \u201cmicky-taking\u201d. They are often more criticised and teased at home than the boy and they want to escape to an adult world. Men are excused up to late middle-age for the little boy that remains in their make-up. No middle-aged woman is excused for the little girl that remains in her. Girls are aware of this.<\/p>\n

4. It is therefore essential that an up-to-date and adult approach is used in any programme planning. Girls will not forgive a pro\u00adgramme that is \u201cwhat we did at school\u201d.<\/p>\n

5. Any programme planning must take account of the new width of girls\u2019 interests, and knowledge of how to foster these interests must be a leader\u2019s concern. The four walls of a club cannot give the girl what she is demanding today.<\/p>\n

6. Girls tire more quickly of events than boys. The 1960s world moves quickly and so should the club programme.<\/p>\n

7. Points 4, 5 and 6 must be coupled with an understanding that girls are vitally interested in themselves\u2014<\/p>\n

(a)<\/em> as girls<\/p>\n

(b) as future wives<\/p>\n

(c) as workers.<\/p>\n

In older adolescence, most boys are anxious for the top job\u2014 hence the frustration of the unskilled. Girls may do their job adequately or very well, but usually their interest is in (a) and (b) before (c).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

8. Girls are invariably more concerned with a person than with his or her expertise. Much more integrating of any voluntary helper or instructor is necessary in a girls\u2019 group than a boys\u2019 group. Boys will accept a man whom they may not like very much if he is a [page 12] first-class football coach ; girls will not accept advice even from the world\u2019s most famous model if they do not like her as a person.<\/p>\n

9. Girls can today so easily feel failures at an early age. Inability to pass the eleven-plus, slight physical imper\u00adfections (incredibly important to the girl) and no steady courting, can bring about a feeling of \u201cI\u2019m no good\u201d by the age of sixteen. Chances to succeed and do well in the eyes of a respected adult are often tremendously import\u00adant, but it should be noted that, in the older teenage girl, success must very often be individual success (sometimes geared to the girl\u2019s development as an attractive woman) and not so often team success. Amongst sports this is perhaps why canoeing, fencing, tennis, rifle-shooting, riding, judo, archery and angling are on the increase as interests. Team interests will often only follow on individual skill at one sport. Sailing, mountain climbing and some athletics are the second step. It is perhaps also worth noting that girls play a game<\/em> ; they never just kick a ball around.<\/em><\/p>\n

10. Because of widening interests and more individual tastes, it will be increasingly necessary to work often with very small numbers. This means that a good club must seek the help of neighbours with hobbies and special interests. Full-time clubs might well ask women\u2019s groups to hold at least one meeting a year in the youth club to hear what is happening and what help is needed. Towns\u00adwomen\u2019s Guilds, Women\u2019s Institutes, Young Wives\u2019 Fellowships, Inner Wheel and similar groups must surely have members who would be prepared to offer short-term help in many subjects.<\/p>\n

11. Girls are very conscious of age differences and frequently the seventeen-year-old will feel it very \u201cinfra dig\u201d to be taking part in the same activities as fourteen-year-olds. Wherever possible certain extras should be laid on for the older girl.<\/p>\n

12. Girls need careful briefing about every new activity they under\u00adtake. They make more mistakes about clothes than boys do and then are considered dumb or unsporty. Girls cannot be blamed if they have thought a social needed \u201cbest dresses\u201d and then are [page 13] dismayed to find that they are expected to take part in games which involve lying on the floor or bury\u00ading their faces in a mound of flour to extract a thimble. Nor can they be blamed for feeling furious if they have been lured to a training week-end where conditions are geared to roughing it unless they were told very carefully what to expect and what to wear. Made to feel a fool and out of it, a girl will rarely adventure again.<\/p>\n

13. Many adults have still to learn to accept as programme the girls\u2019 gossip group and to stop perpetually urging girls \u201cto do some\u00adthing\u201d. The gossip group, sympathetically guided, may result in doing<\/em> something and, if it does not, much that is important to the girl may be thrashed out in chat. This is the place where the girl often learns to belong. Acceptance by a group and the status that follows by being a contributor to the group is immensely important to the girl. It should be remembered that women can learn to stuff an eiderdown or bottle fruit as members of a women\u2019s group later on in life, but if they have never learned \u201cto belong\u201d then they will be held back from joining such a group through lack of confidence in their ability to get on with other people. The problem of the lonely women in many of our new towns is not that they cannot do things, but that they lack the confidence to join a group or the ability to start one.<\/p>\n

A decreasing marriage age brings new considerations before every youth club leader. The most im\u00adportant perhaps is\u2014are we pro\u00adviding a recreational meeting place for girls or is it felt that, as part of the Education Service of this country, the job of the mixed youth club is the provision of a programme which will gear girls towards satis\u00adfactory married life ? If we are to answer yes to both\u2014and especially to gearing girls towards a satisfact\u00adory married life\u2014what does this [page 14] involve in terms of programme work ? It has already been stated that the girl is expected, when she marries, to be a budgetter, interior decorator, buyer, dressmaker, cook, hostess, nurse, voter, partner and mother. Home\u00admaking is therefore important, but many girls today will have had some training at school. As a wage-earner and young adult, the girl will expect a new and real approach to these subjects and it is at this point that programmes seem to suffer from malnutrition of the imagination.<\/p>\n

A look at the in\u00addividual roles may be worthwhile :\u2014<\/p>\n

Budgetter. <\/strong>Rarely do girls seem to know anything of how their \u00a32 0s. 0d. contribution to the home is used. Housewives who can talk about their own experience as budgetters with – <\/em>not at – <\/em>groups of girls, invariably capture their interest and attention. This is real experience, not make-believe. Interest caught may lead on to the essentials of insurance, mortgages and hire purchase.<\/p>\n

Buyer. <\/strong>A \u201cShopping Market\u201d might be helpful, and here the help of local tradespeople could be sought. Many butchers today complain of the young married woman\u2019s abysmal ignorance of how to buy meat and how to cook it. One butcher was kind enough to take a side of meat to a girls\u2019 group and demonstrate the various cuts and the best ways of cooking them.<\/p>\n

Other tradespeople could give similar help.<\/p>\n

Interior Decorator. <\/strong>Furnishing, furniture, colours, fabrics could be part of the \u201cShopping Market\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dressmaker<\/strong>. Here the value of a girls\u2019 room is obvious. Many girls have a basic knowledge of dressmaking and want some\u00adwhere to make a dress \u201cto wear next Friday\u201d. Home does not always provide this facility. For those who enjoy making or altering their own clothes, well run fashion shows are popular today. The [page 15] right clothes for the right occasion teach not only dressmaking but dress sense and poise.<\/p>\n

Cook and hostess. <\/strong>Girls enjoy enter\u00adtaining and cookery can be made exciting when there is an end in view\u2014 perhaps a buffet for the Christmas party, a dinner for the adult committee, a coffee evening for club supporters, or a supper for international visitors. There are endless possibilities, but the occasion should be a real one. Girls want very much to do the right thing and here is a chance to learn.<\/p>\n

Nurse. <\/strong>Once again the real situation is important. Here is the opportunity for service to others (so often needed by girls). Helping in hospitals, visiting the sick, old or handicapped, should tie in with any instruction in home nursing or first aid. With some groups mothercraft is popular\u2014and baby-sitting the real, and needed, piece of service.<\/p>\n

Voter<\/strong><\/p>\n

(a)<\/em> Club Government. <\/strong>It is agreed that the good club committee, and a well run annual general meeting, carry real teaching about democracy. But leaders must be patient with girls who do not at first find it easy to contribute to a discussion. Agendas should be carefully prepared to contain at least one practical item on which the girls\u2019 opinion is sought. Sub-committees and sometimes a \u201cgirls only\u201d sub\u00adcommittee for a special event can show the girl how necessary it is for her to say her piece and abide by majority decisions. Here too the girl often learns that loyalty to a club may have to over-ride loyalty to \u201cmy best friend\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many schools today encourage young people to accept some responsibility within the life of the school. Once girls educated in this way have settled into work, a number of them accept a good deal of responsibility in their job. The kind of girl who has had responsibility at school and at work, finds the lip-service often paid to the idea of the \u201cfourth partner\u201d in the youth club infuriating.<\/p>\n

It would be reasonable to suppose that many girls will not accept some of the responsibilities offered them within the youth club because they seem trifling compared with work responsibility. Many of these jobs are in fact [page 16] trifling and young people need to be shown this to learn a readiness to accept them. They will not do this if adults make little of the jobs to be done and then, adding insult to injury, supervise too closely and are too prone to interfere.<\/p>\n

There is much in youth leadership still to be learned from, for instance, the hairdresser who, training the apprentice, supervises the rinsing of a head of hair. The mixing of the solution is carefully watched, as is the application, but it is all done in an unobtrusive manner that makes the client completely confident. The girl who has accepted this type of responsibility and supervision during the day is not going to accept obtrusive leadership in her leisure time. Girls must be given jobs and left to get on with them in the knowledge that, if necessary, there is the right person in the background to give instruction and advice. The badly handled giving of responsibility often leads to complete lack of interest, bossiness or rebellion, all of which eventu\u00adally get labelled\u2014irresponsibility. Responsibility can only safely be handed out when a leader really knows each member\u2019s individual ability.<\/p>\n

(b)<\/em> Local Government. <\/strong>Many girls are vaguely interested in health, welfare, town planning and \u201cwhat you get for your rates\u201d. But a visit to a local Council meeting is not the answer to arousing a vivid interest in the neighbourhood. What first interests most girls are things that affect people and the home. How do you get a home help when mother is having a baby ? How do baby welfare clinics work ? Why are housing lists so long ? Who gets on the lists ? Who pays the teacher ? Who builds new schools ? Who sub\u00adsidises free milk, and why ? How does one grandma get into a different type of hospital from another ? Who sees to street lighting ? who arranges bus stops and decides where to build shel\u00adters? All these things have to do with a girl\u2019s life in a neigh\u00adbourhood.<\/p>\n

Girls always enjoy occasions. A special invitation to meet, and have coffee with, [page 17] a woman councillor can be very successful. This is the opportunity for finding out the answers to all the questions listed above and the time to discover why women want to serve their neighbourhood in this way. How much time does it take, how many committees does the councillor serve on and, if she has a home to run, how does she fit it all in ? Here again it is the person who matters\u2014then may follow an interest in how the neighbourhood ticks.<\/p>\n

(c)<\/em> National Government. <\/strong>Far too infrequently does the home take note of an older girl\u2019s interest in political affairs. If she has opinions about the \u2018Bomb\u2019 or wage claims, she often suffers from being \u201ctoo big for her boots and she will<\/em> ar\u00adgue with her Dad\u201d. She may also be teased at work for being a little know-all if she dares to try her ideas out there. But she is tomorrow\u2019s voter and should be encouraged in the youth club to learn how to think about the things she will soon be voting about. Social problems are often the way into this kind of teaching. Visits to hospitals, homes for the handicapped, old people\u2019s homes, children\u2019s homes, factories, offices ; talks with\u2014not by\u2014Members of Parliament, industrialists, Trade Unionists, educationists, social workers ; all these give an insight into the problems that face any government. How Parliament works is a second step ; what and who it is concerned with is the first. Visits from people men\u00adtioned above should be informal and be taken with a cup of tea or coffee. Many youth clubs could well consider a larger amount of money spent on hospitality as an item of valuable equipment where girls are concerned.<\/p>\n

(d)<\/em> International Affairs. <\/strong>Once again, the way to interest girls is often via social problems\u2014hunger, disease, the plight of the refugee, racial discrimination. This is all to do with people first. Care should be taken that there is an end in the [page 18] \u00a0<\/strong>leader\u2019s mind when this kind of subject is under discussion, e.g., a project which can be undertaken. There have never been more people from other countries living in the United Kingdom than at the present time\u2014immigrants, students, au pair visitors, delegates to conferences. Here, surely, accepting girls\u2019 interest in people, is an ideal answer to a knowledge of other people and other lands. It is worth saying that so often straight talks to straight rows about, for example, the West Indies, cannot carry with them the same initial interest as a party with calypsos, bongo drums and coffee. Here is the chance to make friends, not \u201cto hear about\u201d. Excellent as are the many programmes on international affairs offered us by T.V. and, as nearly as it brings friends into our homes, it is not as good as the one thing we still have within the scope of the club, i.e., face-to- face, living encounter with people. Much more should be done to encourage this.<\/p>\n

It is important to note that nearly all the programmes mentioned for the girl involve a neighbourhood interest. The Supporters Council suggested in the Albemarle Committee Report opened a perfect way for such help. Have clubs really sufficiently explored this idea?<\/p>\n

All this programme work needs either the premises suggested later on or, failing that\u2014and even better sometimes\u2014the use of a room in someone\u2019s home. Up and down the country, the latter is a growing extension to the youth club and the use of \u201cour own room\u201d or \u201csome\u00adbody\u2019s front room\u201d for such work will, in an informal, intimate atmos\u00adphere, teach the girl so much of what is perhaps the most important of all, something of people and personal relationships.<\/p>\n

All of this assumes that all girls are gregarious. This is not so. Every leader will, from time to time, meet with the self-contained girl. Attempts to integrate her within a group fail, and she becomes the person of whom it is easy to ask \u201cI wonder why she comes ? She joins in nothing and has no particular friends\u201d. It is worthwhile making a special effort to discover the interests of \u201cthe solitary\u201d outside the club. She is often a great reader, a keen needlewoman, or follows intently some interest that does not necessarily involve other people. She can often be helped by a link with an adult, who follows just as enthusi\u00adastically a similar interest, and who is prepared to guide, help and offer encouragement.<\/p>\n

To leave programme suggestions tied only to the very obvious housewife, mother and citizenship needs would not satisfy today\u2019s girl. To list the indoor and outdoor activities that some girls enjoy would be to list almost every leisure time pursuit known. Only the widest pro\u00adgramme, the widest conception of girls\u2019 interests, indoors and outdoors, [page19] can answer today\u2019s needs. The club leader, to fulfil these needs, must have far wider contacts and more helpers than ever before and must learn to work with adults as well as with the young.<\/p>\n

Leaders, however, have also to remember that most young people come first to a club to enjoy each other\u2019s company. The leader\u2019s job is to show them how to work as a community and how to get the maximum enjoyment in their leisure time. The girl is slower to respond than the boy and example means almost everything to her. The leader who takes a group of girls to see St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral and says \u201cgo and look round \u2014I\u2019ll sit and wait at the back\u201d is asking for trouble. She must not be surprised if the verger seeks her out to ask her \u201cis that your group of girls giggling in the Gallery ? \u201d Her very act of sitting has done two things. First of all, it would appear that she, the leader, is not inter\u00adested in the outing and, secondly, that it is not adult to look around. If she cannot enjoy what the girls are doing, it would be better not to go, for no enthusiasm has been caught and nothing has been taught; better to send somebody-else who loves the Cathedral with the girls, or stay away and ask them to come back and say what they particularly enjoyed.<\/p>\n

It is often depressing that the training of girls is still measured by how many hours of what appears to many adults to be valuable education are contained in the programme, and programmes that include visits of observation and social events are often criticised as being only a holiday. Yet in well-arranged visits or well-run dinners, social evenings or barbecues, there can be much learned that is part of what today\u2019s girl wants to know, and should know. A well-prepared and organised sausage and mash party can teach budgeting, cooking and hostessing and may contain more that is real education than a spasmodically- attended arts and crafts group held in a corner of a youth club in poor lighting and with equipment well below school standards.<\/p>\n

It is often hard for some training officers of voluntary organisations and some L.E.A. Youth Officers to convince adult committees that money spent on social and cultural education can return as many dividends, in an attempt to help young people mature, as can money spent on a training in committee procedure or public speaking. Well arranged social events contain this kind of learning but in an adult setting. Adults who really want to help girls in the 1960s have got to jerk themselves out of an attitude of mind that says \u201cthis is all fancy stuff\u201d. This it may be to many older people, but this fancy stuff is as everyday to the girl in the 1960s as is the owning of a scooter, a record player, or a tape recorder, or going to the ballet, an art gallery or a jazz club.<\/p>\n

In a world where the time of the adult is so seldom offered to young people, it is perhaps significant that training courses on which know\u00adledgeable adults give time to show the young people around on visits of [page 20] \u00a0observation, or give parties for them or enjoy a social event with them, invariably bring from the girls, at an evaluation, the comment \u201cwhat I liked most was the way important people had time for us and wanted to talk to us and listen to us\u201d.<\/p>\n

Adult committees who want to be up-to-date with the 1960s girl may have to persuade treasurers that petrol or bus fares for an outing to the Motor Show, the Ideal Home Exhibition, a fashion parade or a flower show ; or part payment of a first visit to a \u201cposh\u201d restaurant, theatre or art gallery ; or part payment for lessons in riding, sailing, ski-ing, angling or archery ; or money spent on helping girls to run a first party for children, old people or the physically handicapped ; are every bit as good an investment as is money spent on billiard cues, football boots or table tennis balls.<\/p>\n

In the end, all programme within the youth club is training.<\/p>\n

Premises<\/h5>\n

Many girls today, at a time when home conditions are so vastly improved, will not be attracted to clubs unless standards of accommod\u00adation have also risen considerably. This is of vital importance.<\/p>\n

In new buildings and in re\u00adarranged buildings, emphasis should be laid on the need for a girl\u2019s room. This may be a well furnished lounge or a large and comfortably furn\u00adished powder and rest-room. It is necessary to stress that both these facilities will be inadequately used unless :<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Plans for building or re\u00addecorating are discussed with the girls wherever possible and they are participators in the decorating and upkeep of their accommodation. This should be their room\u2014<\/em>no boys or men should enter it without invitation. The girls may have to be helped to learn to share it on occasions.<\/li>\n
  2. There is a woman helper or leader, acceptable to the girls, who becomes the focal point for listening, advising and development of interests.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Where possible, the girls\u2019 room should be equipped with: a hair dryer, wash basins, ironing board and iron, up-to-date magazines, sewing machine, mending box, make-up box and tape-recorder. The powder room could have some of this equipment. Although in a number of homes these facilities may be available, the group benefit of [page 21] having club equipment of this kind is enormous. The group at work on Molly\u2019s new hair style or Margaret\u2019s party dress carries a wealth of development of the critical faculty, and here is the ideal place for the adult to make a contribution. Adults often complain about the manners of the young. It is not so much bad manners that are notice\u00adable throughout society, as a lack of good taste.<\/p>\n

    One-room clubs could well consider the use of movable screening which could be set up in conjunction with coloured sections of flooring. Some of the equipment mentioned above should be available.<\/p>\n

    For clubs that have a room that can be used as a girls\u2019 room but which for the present there is no possibility of equipping fully, chairs, a long mirror and some books could be the beginning. If the girls are helped to feel it is a room of their own, they can then be encouraged to help themselves with collecting further equipment. A mending box and a make-up box could be the start.<\/p>\n

    In hired rooms, there should be a determined drive for at least reasonable cloakroom accommodation. This will be appreciated by adults also ! There should be clean lavatory accommodation, a decent long mirror, a mirror with a shelf underneath, and places where good clothes can be hung up and displayed without fear of spoiling. There is a training value even in the proper use of cloakroom accommodation and certainly in the care of, and taking a pride in, one\u2019s clothes.<\/p>\n

    The following points are worth stressing. First, if facilities cannot be achieved in the club in order to do interesting programme work, it may be necessary to use a room in someone\u2019s home or a hired room outside the club itself. Secondly, it is vitally necessary as a priority to provide suitable accommodation, because girls\u2019 only activities need more emphasis in the majority of youth clubs.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    <\/a>Chapter 3: Personal relationships<\/h3>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [page 22] Girls are always concerned about people and they feel they should be able to manage people. \u201cI can\u2019t cope with …\u201d is a sentence so often heard. To be happy, to conform, to be in harmony with others, is vitally necessary to girls. Personal relationships are therefore immensely important.<\/p>\n

    Home<\/h5>\n

    Many of the problems of the girl at home, as she strives for independ\u00adence and the overthrow of parental authority, are well known and have been fully discussed. Two points, that may be new, are important. The new small compact family life of this generation has often removed grandparents from a close relationship with young people. This influence is obviously much missed by the girls\u2014\u201cGrannie is with it\u2014 mother is not\u201d. The older woman helper in a club often offers the same unemotional advice that could be offered by Grannie. This is appreci\u00adated and is a point worth noting in the recruitment of helpers.<\/p>\n

    There has always been a group of young people receiving better educa\u00adtion than their parents. This group is on the increase in this generation and many grammar schoolgirls talk of no \u2014 \u201cmeeting point with parents on things that interest us\u201d. Indeed the girls\u2019 …. need of a grandmother…. <\/em>interests are often described as time wasters. They have no point of contact at the point of experience because emotional ties enter into the relationship, and problems concerned with vital things\u2014gambling, drinking, holidays and behaviour \u2014all mean rows. For girls this is particularly serious unless there is an unshockable, undemanding and sympathetic adult to whom they can turn. Many parents would welcome help with girls and it would be worth exploring whether there should be more contact with women\u2019s groups both in order to interpret and in order to recruit help for girls\u2019 interests. Could full-time leaders, members of management committees, organising secretaries and Youth Officers be used more often as speakers for women\u2019s meetings. [page 23]<\/p>\n

    Relationships between boys and girls<\/h5>\n