Uncle George and Chipper brought back lots of memories

Who remembers the Chipper Club, we asked.
An excerpt from a Chipper Club page.An excerpt from a Chipper Club page.
An excerpt from a Chipper Club page.

And the answer, we soon found out, was thousands of you!

We took a trip down Memory Lane to ask people if they were members of the club which specifically catered for young Mail readers.

It brought back so many memories.It brought back so many memories.
It brought back so many memories.

It reached 11,000 of you on social media after we posted a photograph which showed youngsters enjoying a disco event in Hartlepool which was held in the 1990s.

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The event was a combined effort between two great Hartlepool clubs for children - Chipper and Grapevine.

It seems to have brought back many fond memories for lots of you.

Many former Chipper Club members got in touch to re-live the good old days including Gary Hogg who said: “Oh yes still got my badge.”

It brought back so many memories.It brought back so many memories.
It brought back so many memories.

Joanne Pardue simply commented “Omg” while Sarah Smith told us: “Still have my chipper club card.”

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Mary Dodd told us: “Yes! I was five when I got my badge. I was SO excited!”

While Stephy Walker said: “I was! The good old days eh?”

Andrea Lodge commented: “Awww I used to love the chipper club!”

It was a club that everyone wanted to be a part of and it led to lots of great comments being shared online. Our story reached 11,000 people and dozens of you shared it with friends.

For the uninitiated, Chipper Club had thousands of young members, and was a regular feature in the Mail.

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Its members looked forward to reading the messages from Uncle George as well as many other features.

In the 1970s, one of the highlights was the Lucky Chipsters column. Each week, Uncle George would select at random two lucky Chipsters to receive Chipper merit cards.

When they got a third card - by having a letter or a poem published - they were entitled to a 50 pence gift voucher.

There were Chipper competitions to enter and the informative club had its own Did You Know That section

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Chipper also raised money for worthy causes and there was Pet’s Corner where you could tell us about your favourite animal.

Many of you had letters published and a highlight for many children was seeing their name in the paper, especially when it was their birthday.

Thanks to all of you who followed the story online including Claire Davis, Gail Watson, Vikki Pounder, Sandi Gall, Darren Clark, and Gerald Scanlon who described them as “great times.”

We would still like to hear from more people who were members of the Chipper Club.

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What were the highlights and what did you love best about it.

Did you get your name in the paper and do you remember your Chipper number?

Did you get a merit card, a Chipper badge of win a voucher.

Or perhaps you got your letter in the pages of the Mail.

Get in touch and let’s share the memories.