Salad Days in Bodmin

Reporter Terry Fleet is with the youth of Bodmin at Nelson’s Diner where moves to set up a youth club seem to be thwarted mostly by apathy. The disaffected girls and boys have some differing ideas about forming a club and the local council are looking into it. Hanging out at the cafe listening to the jukebox or even marrying young provide some escapism from the humdrum but the lack of extra-curricular activities mean that even the traffic’s stop moving!

In 1960 Countess Albemarle Diana Keppel chaired the Committee which reported to parliament on services for young people. The Albemarle Report laid out the framework for youth services in England and Wales and led to increased funding, which enabled local councils to target young people and at the same time helped to calm public fears about a perceived rise in teenage delinquency. The report referred to a bulge in the adolescent population because family life had returned to normal post war leading to what came to be termed as the generation of baby boomers, generally those born between 1954 and 1964. As a result, youth clubs offering all types of entertainment and services sprung up across the land.