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the club secretary i was chatting to today had been running the club since 1969. The Chairman since 1967. It's a way of life, a totem of who they are and what they have done for the 'Community' .
Drinking, socialising, kinship and family is culture. It's the culture of our fathers and grandads from wherever they came from. Irish, west indian, hindu , Cockney in the 60's and 70's. Work hard play hard at the local working mens club..
It would be an outrage , tragic beyond measure , if working mens clubs were lost forever to split level starter home barrett boxes, albanian barbers and shisha bars.
Those of a certain age on here will remember these places dotted in their legion all over the UK.
Working class peoples living in their concrete esso parrafin asphalt jungle council gaffs and prefabs could get together to escape the 24/7 knuckle duster of life and the slow motion riot of the 238 bus to the local injection moulding factory for their 8-4 shift , and have a few pints of Long life and a double diamond in the local labour/conservative/lib dem club .
I remember the East ham working mens club, ( now a block of flats) , Blokes in pringles and wexmans at the bar, Their women at the tables knocking back skol white top while the club secretary in his knock off Eton Rifle regimental blazer badge sculpted in bullion wire with hand-finished embroidery , was flogging raffle tickets for a beano to Thorpe bay to a pissed up joyus crowd. An organic collective of people who share a bond.
The word 'community' to me has been rendered down over the years i distilled into a saline nothingness.. imo Working mens clubs are at the heart of the 'community'. To me 'Community' means shared values and a shared background where we were spawned from, those shared hardships , those shared parameters of living in a gilded cage of the working class area you grew up in. Like our Grandads, nans, mothers and fathers that put the slog in during the week and then came together for a piss up at the weekend at the local working mans club.
Most of them are gone now. Flats, chicken shops and fu cking paddy powers with electronic roulette wheels have taken their place. Evil.
Well, today i joined one. These Dojo's of working class culture for good or bad are dying out.
I'd love to know who is a member of one on here. We should support them. I come from the East end so i don't know if they were as popular in west london as they were in the east..
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