THEY had heard about St Stephen's Youth Fellowship in Little Harwood across the world by the Sixties.

It had a membership numbering more than a hundred, with an average age of 17 - and the main qualification for membership - costing 5s - was that they attended Sunday evening services.

St Stephen's was the only youth club in Blackburn to run its own magazine - which was sent to former members and friends in such places as Germany, France and Canada.

Editor Charles Leeming also sent it to the NATO youth organisation in Paris where the secretary was compiling a report on young people's groups.

He and two other choir members, John Lloyd and Derek Clegg had founded the fellowship in the early 1950s, after the vicar, the Rev J Dixon, called a meeting of all the church's young people.

About 20 turned up, a committee was formed and Harry Parkinson became the club's leader.

Activities included table tennis, snooker and darts and when they were given a decrepit hand-wound gramophone, they decided to hold a dance and invited St Jude's youth club to swell their numbers.

The first big step forward came at the beginning of 1956 when the first annual meeting was held, to elect a committee and discuss future activities.

Shortly afterwards the fellowship formed its own football team and they applied to join the Blackburn Combination - at the end of the first season, however, they sat next to bottom of the league, with 212 goals against and 50 for.

It was the lads' gracious acceptance of defeat and the fact none of them were ever reported by the referee, that led to them being honoured in 1957 with the Combination shield for 'the most sporting team'.

By the early 1960s, the fellowship also had a junior team in the Mill Hill league, but the most successful was the girls' netball team, who were the youth champions of Blackburn.

Members also played cricket and competed in Blackburn Corporation's athletics tournament - the English schools' long jump champion, Stella Edmundson, just happened to be in their ranks.

Regular meetings took place in St Stephen's school on Sunday and Thursday evenings and a speaker addressed them once a week, with guests including Rovers' captain Ronnie Clayton, Chief Insp F Walsh from the borough police force and the matron of the Infirmary Miss M Donovan and the young people also ran a debating group.

One labour they never failed to carry out every spring, was tidying and turning over the church gardens - and they also cleaned all the church windows for its golden jubilee in 1958.