1982john wrote:It's a shame these are closing, why do people think it's happening?
Lots of reasons, including:
- I suspect the relative costs of YH overnights and train fares have changed. If memory serves, when I was a teenager, to cycle from London to western Dorset via Overton and Cranbourne YH's was cheaper (in hostel fees) than going by rail. I probably wasn't the only one who rode for a couple of days through known territory first to get to the area I was really interested in, when today we tend to get the train out there and then start riding.
That may account for a number of YH's which were not in places of particular interest but made good stops on route from cities to common cycle touring regions.
- I think the specific demographic group that made the YHA has changed a great deal. It grew out of the working-class hiking movement which developed primarily in the industrial cities either side of the Pennines, much encouraged by both the Methodist church which saw it as healthy exercise and as keeping men out of pubs, and by left-wing intellectuals who saw it as working-class collective self-improvement. The early YHA had a good supply of members with craft skills volunteering within it, and people used to membership clubs and collective efforts run on a shoestring and therefore willing to accept the club premises (the hostels) being basic to keep the members costs down.
I think one the YHA's big problems is that many of it's new users see themselves as customers and feel insulted at receiving basic facilities, rather than as members who don't want to be paying more than necessary.
