THE Y.M.C.A.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1943, Page 2

THE Y.M.C.A.

PROGRESS THROUGH YEARS TIMES OF DIFFICULTY & STRESS. CHALLENGING RESOLUTION RECALLED. (By “Forty Years- On.”) In the period immediately preceding the first German war the Masterton Athletic Club was probably the strongest club in New Zealand. Jack Bradbury, Harvey (the pole vaulter), Bob McKenzie (440 yards hurdler), Roy Messenger and Jock Berry in the sprints are names that come back from “the years which the locust hath eaten.” These boys used to train in the Y.M.C.A. gymnasium under different leaders, one of whom, the late Oscar Gallie, was in 1916 recommended for the V.C. and received the D.S.O. By 1910 Baden Powell’s Scout movement had reached Masterton and a troop was formed by the Y.M.C.A. which kept healthy and strong through tlie* war years. A picture comes back to the writer of a small boy (a son of DavidParton, one of the founders) striding along at the tail of his patrol—too small to keep step. Today that small boy is a Doctor of Philosophy—a grave and reverend signior of the professor-, ial staff in Christchurch.

During the 1914-18 period the Masterton Y.M.C.A. was responsible for much of the Y.M.C.A. work in TauIherenikau camp and the local Y.M.C.A. was open at all hours for the use of ithe boys on leave, just as it has been during the present war. Then came the post war years, chiefly remarkable, in the early 1920’s for the post-war slump. The slump affected the finances of the institution and it was often a grim struggle to see that the doors were kept open. There is a motion in the minute book of the association, moved by way of a challenge by the late Mr C. E. Daniell, that the Masterton Y.M.C.A. close its doors. The motion was held up and the doors were not shut. (To be continued.)