As The Times (within the paywall) reported this morning, Trimdon Labour Club has poured its last pint. The club where Tony Blair repeatedly popped along to when he wanted to connect with traditional working class voters closed yesterday. It is a shame that Mr Blair couldn’t put his hand in his pockets to help the venue that helped him so many times.
The closure is just the latest chapter in the sad decline of British working men’s clubs. In the 1970s, there were over 4,000 working men’s clubs. Now, there are little more than 2,000. The decline of working mens’ clubs creates a shell in the community of towns and villages across the country.
The Working Men’s Clubs organisation is one of the most important organisations in the country. It provides an important glue to help hold our towns and villages together. They provide great community facilities, an excellent social setting, great banter and excellent value drinks. At the same time as other pubs are ripping their dartboards and pool tables out to make way for sometimes dubious claims to ‘gastropub’ status, the CIU constitution ensures that each club must have a board and a pool table. Ever since my Dad took me to some of the Working Men’s Clubs around the County Durham area for a pint or two, I have been a massive fan of the Working Men’s Club movement.
The sad truth is, unless the decline is arrested, working men’s clubs will become an increasing rarity. In an age where politicians talk about cooperatives and community involvement, the working mens’ clubs, the living breathing embodiments of such ideas, are in steep decline. They surely embody a lot of what the ‘big society’ should be about. Communal meeting places, run by enthused local volunteers and often acting as the beating heart of communities. The removal of a working me’s club often only serves to atomise communities further and diminish community spirit.
There are many factors that have caused the decline of the movement. Some of these factors are irreversible and societal. Some are connected with the tragic deindustrialisation of the the 1960s, 70s and 80s that hollowed out too much of working class life and, all too often, removed the vital glue from communities.
But other factors can be changed. Clubs are suffering because they cannot afford to pay the extortionate fees of BSkyB, so are losing the football and cricket watching crowds to the pub chains.
The smoking ban was introduced completely ignoring the views of the working mens’ club movement. As the General Secretary of the CIU says the ‘no compromise’ approach adopted by last Government has left elderly and infirm CIU members standing outside in the cold. Surely we can reach a compromise where working men’s clubs are enabled to have properly ventilated ‘smoking rooms’ if their members desire and their staff assent?
And that is on top of the other factors that are causing pubs around the country to struggle.
The decline of working men’s clubs is another example of how, all too often, working class communities have been ignored and marginalised. Hopefully, the working men’s club movement can play a reinvigorated role in reinvigorating communities in the coming years.
Related posts:
The decline of these clubs is just one indicator of the challenge that lies ahead for making the ‘Big Society’ idea work.
I agree that the working mens clubs were, and could be again pivotal parts of local communities. However, a lot of the clubs do nothing to help themselves. Many of them are set in their ways, and refuse to change. The market they should be aiming for (30s – 60+) has changed radically in its tastes. Who wants to sit through an hour long bingo interval in the middle of a night out, in a room that that looks like a 1960s cafeteria!