Coppice Camp and other YCL pictures.

There always seemed to be someone digging a hole, usually for the new toilets, at Coppice Camp and always a good crowd watching and offering Marxist analysis of the actual digging.

Fashion Note, Ann Westbury has chosen a very practical white trousered outfit, ideal for the mud of Coppice.

Ann tells us the trousers were mens, purchased from Cecil Gee in Carnaby Street, the knitted top was handmade by her mother Gladys, well known to Coppice Campers as a supplier of home made and delicious pies.

Pictures from the Les Reed (McCaig) archive.

Jackie Moss, a regular at Coppice was always a bit of a sun worshiper. Where are you now Jackie?

Les Reed (now McCaig) and Ann Westbury (now Frost) on holiday in Dublin circa 1966. Nearly fifty years on Ann recently discovered that at least one other female comrade thought her and her friend Sue Angel (Now Thomas) so stylish that they must have been well off enough to buy all their clothes at Biba (below) and other Kensington boutiques. Sadly, recalls Ann this wasn’t true.

Inside Biba, later Ann would prefer Bus Stop the boutique next door to Biba and (shock horror – revisionist nonsense) write fashion notes for the YCL Magazine Challenge.

Who is this bubbly blonde outside the Eagle in Kelvedon Hatch? Its Julian Frost. Keeping a watchful eye is mum Ann.

A group shot at Coppice. Young Julian Frost seems terrified of the huge dog. Ann and Les are also in the picture. We think the other person on the bench is Bob Weech, who went to school with Peter.

Now two coach trips shots with loads of familiar faces for you to put names too if you can please let us know. We don’t know where the coach was going to, might just have been Coppice or the famous Skegness Congress? Ann and Peter aren’t in the coach and they were very busy on the Congress weekend giving birth to Julian.

Where had these two been and what had they been doing in the woods? Barry and Viv we want the truth.

Where is she now?

Ann Garraway was one of Ann’s best friends, She came from Camberwell and stayed a lot with Ann and her parents. She was the first person Ann knew with her own cheque book and was witness at Ann and Peter’s wedding. Then she completely disappeared. We heard stories of a marriage to a Venezuelan. Does anyone know anything of Ann?

The mystery unravels

This picture was long believed to be the launch of the famous Trend Campaign. Closer examination of the t-shirt logos suggested an International Youth Festival perhaps Sophia in 1968. I fact we now think it was the launch of the 1967 YCL Skegness Congress which was, rather grandly, renamed an International Youth Festival. One clue is that Ann Westbury is absent from the picture. If it is the launch of the Skegness Congress Ann would have been about eight and a half months pregnant.

Of the six women Sylvia Picton, Themi Syers and Les Reed have been identified. Peter Frost believes two others (3rd and 6th from left) were sisters, friend and neighbours of Sylvia from Stonebridge. Can you put a name to any of the others?

YOUR COMMENTS

Andy Barr writes about one of the coach pictures above.

Thanks to Ann Frost for sending old YCL photos. This is of course my good self, I’m sure you recognised, as I haven’t changed a bit. On the right is a friend Doc Holliday from the Connolly Youth who was visiting me at the time and sadly died about 20 years ago. On the left is Tina Jenkins and I notice George in the background. This photo was taken on a trip to Margate.

Sylvia Weekes commented on the coach picture “Sandwiched between George and her mum Jackie, is little Sara-Ann”.

Karl Carter says:-

The coach is definately not the YCL’s old 1950’s Bedford Duple one of which my dad drove for a living it was something more modern..in one of the seats I think its George Bridge.s I don’t reconise anyone else The photo that looks like a burial has just taken place with you and Pete in the centre has a guy with his bum to the camera and is wearing glasses is I think the one who drove the YCL Coach trouble is I can’t remember his name.
Are you sure the Festival was’nt the one in East Germany?

(Editor’s note:- The driver of the Medical Aid to Vietnam Coach and Lorry was Tony Levi from Harlesden.)

Karl sent this Photo which was sent to him by an old friend who was there with George (Bridges) in Rostok.

Tom Bell has sent this picture, we think mainly because he is still proud of his Afghan coat, truly the indication of street credibility in the 1960’s. The picture is believed to be the largest collection of flared trousers ever recorded on film.

When the Bedford OB coach that the YCL had bought to collect Medical Aid to Vietnam broke down they replaced it with this lorry. Les McCaig supplied the picture.

Andy Barr has shared this picture of what he describes as the famous Battersea Dyanmos Football team 1972.
Top left to right – A. Fenick, Barry (poacher) Vandenberg, D. McGee, Bob (bites your legs) Allen, Dave (chopper) Styles, L. Mates, T. Mates
Bottom Left – Lucas, Roger (the dodger) Kelly, Andy (twinkle toes) Barr, Ian (cannonball) Buckley, Roger (What’s his name)

Is there no stopping the man from Northern Ireland? Andy  has dug out another two pictures. The first is of another YCL football team, no surprise there then. Playing football on Clapham Common are – top left Ian Buckley, Pepe, Barney Davis Ian Muldoon, A.N.Other.
Bottom left A.N.Other, Barry Van Den Berg, Andy Barr, Greig McClennan, Steve Randal

Andy has also sent a demonstration picture. From 1973/4 from left to right Mary Grellier, Dave Carson, Andy Barr, Christine Myant, Chris Myant, Graeme Whyte, and Felix Harris. Frosty reckons it is a banner he painted with a fist log he ‘adopted’ from some Italian source.

Andy Barr has sent a further couple of pictures.

The first shows Andy with the Mason sisters, Ros and Laureen.

The other shows; Battersea and Putney YCL’ers left to right – Muneer Malik, Someone Mike Power thinks might be Gail Weston, Ian Muldoon, Laureen Mason, Andy Barr, Graham Hollamby, Digby Ridge.

 

Now another bunch of pictures from Les Read’s impressive collection, many familiar faces to be found here.

Lets start with Anyone put a name to this unknown YCLer?

We know he joined the Young Communist League in 1955, becoming its Yorkshire District Chair in 1956 and shortly after a member of its National Executive Committee. In 1957 he was elected NUM Yorkshire Area Youth Delegate, and attended the World Youth Festival in Moscow as a representative of the Yorkshire miners. In 1958, he attended the World Federation of Trade Unions youth congress in Prague.

In an interview he said “I was in the Young Communist League for about six or seven years and I became a member of its National Executive Committee responsible for industrial work. The secretary at this time was a very good friend of mine called Jimmy Reid. A lot of other people on the National Executive at that time went on and became very respectable Labour MPs in Parliament. Many of us started in the 1950s in the Young Communist League. So that was my initial introduction into socialism and into political militancy.

Anyone know what happened to him?

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