The ace of clubs

SIR: What delightful memories Liz Hodgkinson called to mind in her piece on church youth clubs (November issue), which were the source of so many of my early friends.

I believe the clubs’ demise owes something to the Church’s decision to move the emphasis on family worship from evensong to the family Eucharist, an event which occurred in about the late Sixties.

After evensong, adults would go home to watch The Forsyte Saga or War and Peace, while the young people stayed and formed a club in the church hall.

When the family went instead to the 9.30am Eucharist, all would go home to mow the lawn or clean the car before Sunday lunch – and the link with the Church’s social role was lost. Stephen Halliday, Cambridge