Well...

The sentiment of this song resonated with us during 

our first few hours after we safely arrived at our Travel Lodge

in York for the u3a festival, being held on the campus of 

York University...but boiling hot for us…. and not raining as for Allan in Camp Grenada...

Finding our way around ready for the first morning on 1st July was our plan, and also to register all 26 of us in the porta cabins on the campus.... if only we could find them ...after we had already negotiated the longer than expected walk from our Travel Lodge to the outskirts of the campus. The library bus stop on University Road.

Ian Hinksman, part of our ceilidh band who had arrived under his own steam (along with 6 more from our u3a) and who we met on our way to find where everything was, informed us that the campus seemed as big as Stourport.... we thought he was joking but that was not much of an exaggeration ...25 mins later we arrived at the registration centre.... along with of course...100s of others with same idea...🙄

It was so hot, and with much activity all around us, but register we did, then split into smaller groups to do our own thing for the Tuesday evening. 

Some chose the Black Bull pub next to our Travel Lodge and engaged a taxi to get back there, so avoiding the walk of well over one mile... but I joined a group to travel by bus from the University library into York.

Before we knew it, we were sitting in front of the river by a moored boat, enjoying a very welcome and tasty meal with a glass of wine..or two...with Sylvia egging on the proceedings by leading us in singing her favourite song “Summerwine” (you may recall the rendition by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood).  We enjoyed our new sense of freedom, ‘recycled teenagers’ came to mind and just like the Allan Sherman’s story, the mood of trepidation had changed, to one of fun and laughter, when we realised we were actually going to have a great time with new experiences, meet new people...and that's exactly what happened.

There may have been slight frustrations as we negotiated our way around the many lecture rooms and theatres of the campus, but.... we became full of admiration for the National u3a Festival Team as the 3 days of sheer pleasure unfolded. 

To have put together the programme of activities they did was nothing short of genius...all helped of course by group leaders from all over the country, offering their services to be stewards or run sessions throughout the festival, and our u3a contributed a great deal to this massive event as you will glean from below.

On the first day, Wednesday, 62 activities to choose from, Thursday 88, Friday 47.

The variety on offer was mind-blowing. Some events you prebooked several weeks before the event; others were simply walk-ins....so much to choose from...so little time. 

To start off with, there were dozens of entertaining and educational ‘lecture style’ sessions on numerous topics. Ian Hinksman delivered a lecture on Morris Dancing.

I chose to deliver two sessions that I entitled, ”Destress your life and let the sunshine in” deriving great pleasure from both, which were well received... almost 100 attending in all and a topic desperately needed from the comments made! 

There were thirty-five ‘sporty style’ events like pickleball, curling and walking netball and cricket.

Twenty-seven different ‘musical style’ events:  my favourite, a band called “Cluster of Nuts” comprising of eight guitars, one ukulele and one ban jay drum, playing and singing music we all know and love in Hendrix Hall (no prizes for guessing that ‘he' played there once).

Fourteen ‘craft and art style’ sessions: In the ‘Slow Stitching’ event our ladies Annie, Susan and Sylvia produced beautiful 'pictures out of waste material' entitled ‘Beside the sea'. Annie is featured on the front page of the Events page of the National u3a web site taking part in this, enjoying every second of it by the look on her face. 

Twelve very different ‘dance style’ events were on offer, one of which I ran, along with dances choreographed by Sue Gay and David Struckett. Many of our own Dancing for Fun Group took part in this fun approach to dance. For the interval we enjoyed dancing demonstrations courtesy of, Annie and David performing Waltz and Quickstep, Ann and Robin delivering Foxtrot and Tango and two of the original founders of our u3a, Bernard and Ronnie, engaging in a very energetic rock n roll routine to ‘Johnny b Good’.  Such amazing energy they both had and they were admired by all...the epitome of ‘recycled teenagers’ simply enjoying life to the full. That’s the u3a for you!!

Without doubt, the best Wednesday evening dance event was our very own ceilidh band headed by Barry Walmsley with our caller Alan Ferguson. Ruth and I counted at least 100 there at one point. What a great, fun filled atmosphere with much laughter as we mingled with folk from other u3as, all joining in with gusto just as we were.  Barry also ran a Singing for Fun workshop on Thursday, and a Ceilidh Workshop on Friday, the last day of the festival, before we headed homewards at 2pm. So, we were all very busy! 

The whole event, which was opened by Johnny Ball (father of Zoe Ball), was quite amazing. I for one, am thrilled that I attended with some of our Wyre Forest and District u3a members. Our u3a was very much noticed and along with many other u3as, we contributed much to a most successful festival. The short video produced by the Third Age Trust and currently featured on the National Web site, provides a flavour of the event and if you look closely, you can see many faces from our u3a…member John is also seen giving a very brief interview…. 55 seconds in!!!     

Follow the link…….    https://youtu.be/qIwkEs19bJE

Sue Langley