Reliving golden era of workingmen’s clubs

CAMBRIDGE ACADEMIC CHARTS A RICH SOCIAL HISTORY

Reporter WHAT, one wonders, would Bobby “The Little Waster” Thompson have made of it.

This weekend Cambridge academic Richard Hall will be on Tyneside to talk about workingmen’s clubs – the setting in which comedian Bobby revelled.

Club audiences loved his insights into North East workingclass life.

On Saturday it will be Richard’s turn to offer his thoughts on the world of workingmen’s clubs, whose stronghold has always been in the North East.

The 1963 handbook of the Club and Institute Union – the CIU, to which most clubs belonged – lists 445 clubs in the region.

Richard’s talk at noon on Saturday in the Old Low Light heritage centre on North Shields Fish Quay is based on his study titled “Being a Man, Being a Member: Masculinity and Community in Britain’s Workingmen’s Clubs,” which has been published in the academic journal of the Social History Society.

The clubs have a long history, dating from the 19th Century. By 1960 there were more than 3,500 workingmen’s clubs in Britain, with a combined membership of more than two million.

But, says Richard: “Very little has been done when it comes to writing about the clubs’ cultural history. There has been a complete omission.

“Clubs have been completely overlooked in terms of social history, despite their proliferation.

“Although routinely grouped together with pubs in histories of working class leisure, they differed in several fundamental aspects.”

While the number of clubs increased by more than 500 during the years 1945-60, 30,000 pubs closed their doors.

From the 1950s onwards they could offer what the pubs could not – large-scale entertainment on stage.

Club membership also meant privacy, with the members themselves deciding on club affairs. Clubs could determine what beers they sold and at what price – often undercutting pubs.

Richard says: “In times of change, clubs also provided a feeling of belonging and community, where the generations could meet.

“In the 1950s they were thriving bastions of working class social life.”

Richard, 43, who was born in Cheshire, carried out his study for his masters degree in contemporary history, immersing himself in the comprehensive archive of the Club Journal at the CIU headquarters.

He is currently working for a PhD at Cambridge University.

His study concluded that after the upheaval of the Second World War, many men craved stability, normality and comradeship – and the clubs delivered.

Members paid a small subscription and became shareholders. For a little extra they could buy an associate, or pass card, which allowed entry into other CIU clubs.

The Club Journal encouraged members to join the “associate brotherhood.” The 1963 handbook advertises the clubs’ own breweries, such as the Northern Clubs Federation Brewery on Tyneside.

Clubmen were urged to “drink clubs’ brewery beers – share the benefits of co-operative brewing. Loyalty pays.”

The handbook also informs members they can buy a leather card case embossed with their club’s name in gold leaf and a CIU embroidered blazer badge.

Richard says: “Many felt proud to belong to a national, as well as local, community.”

The clubs also offered an alternative to organisations such as the Freemasons and Rotary.

“Membership of workingmen’s clubs outnumbered that of these middle class associations by several hundred thousand,” says Richard.

From the 1960s, many clubs evolved from being small, maledominated places for drinking, games and conversation to larger leisure venues catering for hundreds with bingo and ambitious stage acts.

“Clubs ploughed escalating bar profits into lavish extensions,” says Richard.

One Durham miner is recorded as remarking that he had to “walk half a mile” to reach the dartboard.

In the socially changing 1960s and 70s, a younger generation could still identify with much of the traditional club culture, with sons following fathers as members.

“Mass entertainment transformed the clubs, merging the old with the new. The Durham miner, despite considerable modifications to his home and social life, might still have found a vital source of rootedness and belonging in his identity as a clubman,” says Richard.

Now the boom times have mostly gone. Factors such as cheap supermarket drink prices and the smoking ban have been blamed.

But, thinks Richard, a significant reason is the digital generation who are more likely to be found at home in front of a screen.

“They have grown up knowing nothing other than the digital world. A lot of young people are spending more time indoors. Massive numbers are spending more time behind screens.”

And just what would Bobby Thompson have thought about that?