It all started in 1958 when HCPT groups took on numbers. Harry Hewett, Marianne Strode's father, led the first group under the Group One banner.

Lourdes was packed in 1958 because it was the centenary year of the first Lourdes Apparition. 1958 was also the first year the Trust flew to Lourdes. The following year they reverted to trains until 1965 and in fact continued to go by train until the early-nineties.

Freddie Wolff led Group One from 1959 - 1965. Micky Burgess, who took over from him, says of Freddie:

"Much of the ethos and many of the practices of Group One (the Baths and the Stations of the Cross, the late night visit to the Grotto and the last night party, for example) are because this was the way that Freddie had done things, and as they worked and worked well, we continued them."

Robert took the Group on from Micky at a moment's notice. He remembers being driven at high speed the 100 miles from Camberley to Dover on Easter Sunday 1979 while Patrick Burgess, leader of Group 24, held the ferry in the port.

Robert continued to run the Group until 1995. When he was in the Falklands in 1982 Robert's brother, Mike Bruce stepped in. Theresa Ashurst (nee Bowes) (AKA Bowsie) ran the Group while he was abroad in 1987.

Through the eighties the Group took on a Scottish flavour although, Robert recalls, "the special thing about Group One was that people came from all around the country and even some years from the US, Chile and Kenya, yet everyone always knitted together into a cracking group".

Bowsie ran Group One between 1996 and 97. The year 2000 saw Group One go out to Lourdes for the first time since 1997 with Christian Bruce, Robert's youngest daughter taking the lead. Check out this year's trip in the Holiday section. There are also various photos from the last forty years in the Archives section.