Easter eggs brought memories of YMCA 55 years ago, when the foundation stone of the new YMCA Tourist Hostel was laid by Sir Paul Gorebooth, the British High Commissioner to India. It was a pleasant summer evening and one had been deputed to cover the function.

Office-bearers, guests and media personnel were all standing in an open piece of land with scanty grass as Sir Paul initiated the proceedings. Those were the times when Mr Cornelius was the General Secretary and he stayed at the post for a very long time, indeed. It was under him that most of the early development of NDY took place.

His years of dedication to the organisation made him an institution in his own right. Among his close associates was Henry Devadas, whose son Bertie is now Assistant General Secretary. Devadas took part in the freedom movement in the South and regaled “Y” members with his experiences at a time when Independence was still a long way away. The YMCA started in Delhi in 1927.

While New Delhi “Y” came up, a branch of the YWCA was opened in Agra in Fantasia, the bungalow of J F Fanthome, author of the famous novel, Mariam ~ A story of the Indian Mutiny. Fanthome, who died in April 1914, had been a pioneer of the YMCA in India, headquartered in Calcutta. His great-grandson, F J Fanthome was also associated with New Delhi “Y” and died some years ago in Mussoorie, where members of the Fanthome family still reside.

But coming back to the British High Commissioner, one managed to have an impromptu interview with him just after the stone-laying ceremony. Sir Paul was an office-bearer of the Sherlock Holmes association (Baker Street Irregulars), which still does research on the sleuth made famous by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A hefty man, with stern features, Sir Paul was asked if a branch of the “Irregulers” could be opened at the local YMCA.

He said he would be the first person to help in setting it up if popular support was forthcoming. That, alas, never happened and Sir Paul left Delhi at the end of his tenure.

He had confessed in a lighter moment that while he was waiting for the ceremony to start, he was thinking about the story of the Speckled Band (see illustration) as twilight was settling over New Delhi, for it was through an open space like the one where the hostel was to come up that Sherlock Holmes arrived with Dr Watson to solve the intriguing case and rescue a young woman from the fatal conspiracy hatched by her stepfather. Easter eggs from CP felt tastier after re-reading the story yesterday (Easter Sunday) as the YMCA did not make them this year.