Working
men’s clubs and institutes were once right at the very centre of many working
class communities and their leisure time. During their post-war heyday, over
4000 were affiliated to the main national organisation, the Club and Institute
Union (CIU) which celebrated its 150th anniversary in June this year.
There were over 4 million members nationwide and many on waiting lists to join
in the early 1970s. On busy nights, members would have to get to their club early
to claim a seat or risk queuing to get in.
But
times have changed and the crowds long gone. Clubs now appear to be in decline
with around half the number still open for business. Only this month, on August
12th, another well-known and popular club called last orders for the
final time. The Layton Institute in Blackpool was approaching its centenary but
finCancial difficulties prevented it from reaching that historical event.
Instead, it has joined scores of others that have closed down this year. The
members will be reeling from the shock of losing their club for some time to
come and the whole community loses a facility. Long-term members told the BBC
how the closure would "rip the heart out of the Layton” and of how it
provided a support network to the close-knit community. One claimed simply to
be “gutted” and there were concerns
about the older people in the community who went there not only to play bingo
but to meet their friends and have a bit of company.
These sentiments echo those of thousands of others as
they have watched their clubs lose the battle to stay afloat in economically
challenging times and to compete with other leisure activities. The sense of
losing a support network also has a direct link to the ideals of the early club
movement in the mid-19th century. The aim of the CIU, founded in 1862 by teetotal
Reverend Henry Solly, was to help working men to set up clubs as a healthy
alternative to pubs. It espoused educational ideals and wanted to promote
self-help and mutual support amongst working people, to help them better
themselves. Very early on, the sale of beer was permitted if the members wished
this but as private members clubs, you had to be a fully paid up member to use
any of a club’s facilities. People couldn’t just walk in off the street and buy
a drink as with pubs and any profit from beer sales went straight back into the
club. These were not-for-profit organisations long before the term was thought
up.
Members
organized themselves to provide a range of sporting activities and games
ranging from dominoes to billiards, as well as to providing entertainment for
themselves. Women started to accompany their husbands and children were taken
along too. Day trips to the countryside or seaside also soon became part of a
good club’s annual events along with Christmas parties for the children and
older members. The CIU even set up its own convalescent homes, at one point
running six in different coastal regions. Long before the Welfare State was
established, recovering club men could spend a week or two in one of these to
help them get back on their feet. And charity was always on the list of club
activities, whether it was to raise money for a member’s sick child or for
national charity. All these activities and facilities, largely provided through
member’s subscriptions and their own time as volunteers, meant that clubs
offered much more than beer drinking and games of bingo. By their post-war peak
in the early 70s, members had much of their leisure time taken care of by local
clubs, which were conveniently situated close to home.
The
decline can be accounted for by many factors apart from economic recession,
social and cultural change. Cheap supermarket drink is often cited as a key
reason for many people preferring to stay home more in their free time but
home-based leisure activities have been on the rise since the 1970s. The
smoking ban certainly hasn’t helped clubs, who were told they would be exempt
from the 2007 law but then, at the last minute, were included.
Perhaps
they have just had their day and should be left in the past. I would disagree,
however, because of the valuable community roles clubs have clearly played and
could continue to do. Members pulling together to provide something for the
wider group: surely this is now of a model of community action? Self-help: this
is often proposed as an antidote to the ‘nanny’ state. Clubs as community
venues where a whole range of activities can take place, for all ages: don’t we
need social spaces where people of different generations can get together at
low or no cost? Clubs were doing the Big Society long before David Cameron
claimed this idea as his own and as the way forward.
Perhaps many
clubs do need to adapt to keep up with the times, to offer a more modern and
inclusive approach and to reconsider membership rules. Many already are and are
being revived as a result. But their original ideals of self-help and mutual
support are very much part of the current political and social currency.
Perhaps the need for people to ‘club together’ is even greater now than ever
before.
Ruth Cherrington is the author of Not
Just Beer and Bingo! A Social History of Working Men’s Clubs,
Publisher: Authorhouse, ISBN 978-1-4772-3184-5