WEST End Catholic Youth Club once played a large part in the life of many Blackburn teenagers.

It was a major social centre, organised sports teams and staged trips out for large memberships.

Who remembers St Thomas’s Young People’s Society, in Blackburn, in the sixties, which had new clubrooms in Newton Street?

Their premises cost just £14,000 and the club leader at the time was Raymond Southworth.

West End Catholic Youth Club had a burgeoning membership at that time and, in 1963, plans were revealed for a brand new £40,000 centre in Syke Street. Its Astley Gate meeting place had been earmarked for demolition as part of the town centre redevelopment.

Among the features planned for the new club was a ground floor car park and a ‘pierced’ ceiling between the first and second storeys.

The bill was partly met by the government and Blackburn corporation, but the club had to find £10,000 towards the cost and a full-time organiser was appointed to help raise the funds.

He was J T Strain, who launched a ‘help the youth’ campaign, sending out 4,000 letters and leaflets around the town.

Among the money- raising ideas was a musical group competition, along the lines of the TV hit Juke Box Jury, fashion shows, and shoe and hair dressing parades.

The new club comprised a reception area, leaders’ rooms and social areas, a 40 sq ft social centre, mezzanine coffee bar and snug.

A hanging spiral staircase led to the second floor where there were games rooms, social areas and changing rooms.

We’ve found two photographs in our archives, showing some of the members of yesteryear.

One, showing a dozen girl members, was taken more than 60 years ago, in the 1940s, but we don’t know any of the names.

Maybe you recognise someone?

The second is of a group of members with club chaplain Father Whelan.

We think it’s from 1963.