Back in the early 1980s, before video game consoles were omnipresent and DBS checks were a thing, it seemed like everyone I knew joined a youth organisation.

Youth clubs (remember them?) had their place, but didn’t offer much in the way of organised activities – more just a chance to play table-tennis and chat to your pals. Which, it should be said, was not to be sniffed at, but you get my point.

Living in Tunbridge Wells at the time, my primary desire was to join the Cubs or Scouts. It was something of a rite of passage.

They could frequently be seen in their green outfits and a cap which looked just like those you achieved when you played your first match for the England international football team. I wanted in.

But, of course, the great middle-class masses in the spa town all felt the same and the waiting list to enrol stretched way into the distance. That was a time when six months felt like six years to a young boy.

So, instead, I plumped for the Boys’ Brigade. Primarily because they had spaces. And a number of my friends had signed up.

It was a bit like opting for Betamax when you really wanted VHS.

My podgy little body was squeezed into a badged blue jumper and upon my head a cap in the style of those worn by Sgt Wilson in Dad’s Army (but, blue, natch). I’ve still got that cap somewhere.

We lined up on parade; stood at ease and at attention (not a euphemism) and saluted as and when instructed.

We did charity walks (one around Bewl Water sticks in my memory), played football matches against other troops (one saw us winning 11-0 when disheartened members of the opposing team started strolling off as they’d had enough – possibly my sporting high) and did things like attempting to spring and leap over those big wooden vault boxes that all school gyms seemed to boast back in the day. I was, needless to say, dreadful at that.

But as it was an organisation firmly grounded in the Christian faith, we also had to attend a church service once a month. Now this, I must admit, was perhaps the biggest drawback.

Organised religion has never really been my thing.

Being forced to attend a church service, in full uniform, and belt out All Things Bright and Beautiful on a Sunday morning was enough to ensure my stay in the troop was relatively short-lived.

I probably should have thought about that when I joined – but I just wanted to spend time with my friends.

Today, the landscape is so different.

For people of my generation, youth organisations are still tarred by the controversies which were revealed at the dawn of the century; tales of the nefarious few who took positions of responsibility in a number of them and abused that power.

Of course, such enormous steps have been taken to eradicate such behaviour – those aforementioned DBS checks being just one.

In fact, it’s probably never been safer to send your child to these places today such are the checks and balances now in place.

These organisations continue - although it seems options to join the Boys’ Brigade are far and few between these days - and many of today’s children, quite wisely, get involved.

But rather than being a natural thing you aspired to as you got a bit older, today it faces such fierce competition.

The internet – an unimaginable innovation back in my Boys’ Brigade days – now allow youngsters to plug in, play video games with their mates and chat at the same time; albeit with them in their respective homes.

But it’s not quite the same. They, it seems, worship at the alter of technology today rather than sat, disgruntled, in a pew singing a hymn.