not sure whether you also wish for anecdotes that are YMCA related. But here goes: In 1942 I was a member of a team responsible for advertising Proctor and Gamble soaps, travelling across the Midwest States of the USA. We had worked long and hard, with little respite or recreation, and were staying at the YMCA Hostel in 6th Street, Chicago.
One Saturday, a member of the team, a Minster's son, announced that he had hired a mini-bus to take us to a brothel. "You'll come, of course", he said to me.
"No,"I replied.
He tried to bully me, but another member of the team stepped between us.
"The boy says he's not going, and he's not going", he declared.
The bully glared at him, "He can change the mind", he "Yes, he can, but he won't," my friend Kreer responded, "and if he did it would make no difference because I won't let him go".
Now Kreer was 28, twice divorced, and a regular womaniser. "So what", the bully asked, "suddenly makes you the defender of morality?".
"Point taken," Kreer replied. "You're quite right: I have no morals, never did have, and probably never will have. But unlike you, I do have principles: I have never corrupted anyone else's morals, and I'm not going to allow you to. It's a long drop out of that window you understand?"
I leave you to read the moral into the story. Suffice to say that after 50 years I have not forgotten the lesson I learned that day.
Ken Platt, Sanderstead, Surrey