Reports

SUE DUNLOP - ‘’The Cumberland International Youth Camps’’ 18th March

This week our guest speaker was Sue Dunlop who came to talk to us about the Cumberland International Youth Camps set up in our area from 1944 to 1958. They stemmed from some initial 2 day courses organised by the United Nations between 1942 - 3 to try to foster friendship and understanding between young people from different countries, two were held in Carlisle & Cockermouth where the mantra initiated by G.B.Brown of the British Council was “You can’t be friendly with a yellow spot on a map”.
The Cumbrian Youth Camps were then organised by a collaboration between the British Council and the Cumberland Education Dept. They were held during the summer holidays based in schools around Cumbria with some teachers giving up some of their holidays to run them - Sue’s father was appointed as their director. The camps went from strength to strength some in Cockermouth School, in Keswick secondary modern and from 1956 in Penrith.
All of the students were between 16 - 18 years old from Cumbria and around the world with some from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, China, Belgium and France with some Germans joining the group from 1951.
Most of the time the students spent outdoors with activities including fell walking, rock climbing, cycling, swimming, boating, tennis and cricket. They had agricultural visits (such as their day trips to Penrith livestock market), historical visits (to Hadrian’s Wall) and industrial visits (they came to our Haigh Pit in 1949 and the lights failed meaning they had to walk back underground in the dark, they went to Workington harbour and Florence mine too). The main theme however was always communication, understanding and awareness of how other people lived.
They had evening talks, country dancing lessons, treasure hunts and in 1952 even hosted a recording of Question Time, each camp closing with a concert with everyone taking part.

Sue’s talk was both entertaining and informative with some members of the audience able to relive old memories of when they had taken part as teenagers. The camps had been set up as an annual experience for young people from around the world to further the cause of understanding and empathy for others from very different backgrounds and the hope was that those attending would become better citizens of the world as a result.