Clubland

How the Working Men’s Club Shaped Britain

By: Pete Brown

Narrated by: Pete Brown

Ferment Magazine’s Best Beer Book of the Year

The untold story of a British institution.

Pete Brown is a convivial guide on this journey through the intoxicating history of the working men’s clubs. From the movement’s founding by teetotaller social reformer the Reverend Henry Solly to the booze-soaked mid-century heyday, when more than seven million Brits were members, this warm-hearted and entertaining book reveals how and why the clubs became the cornerstone of Britain’s social life—offering much more than cheap Federation Bitter and chicken in a basket.

Often dismissed as relics of a bygone age—bastions of bigotry and racism—Brown reminds us that long before the days of Phoenix Nights 3,000-seat venues routinely played host to stars like Shirley Bassey, Louis Armstrong and the Bee Gees, offering entertainment for all the family, and close to home at that. Britain’s best-known comedians made reputations through a thick miasma of smoke, from Sunniside to Skegness. For a young man growing up in the pit town of Barnsley, this was a radiant wonderland that transformed those who entered.

Brown explores the clubs’ role in defining masculinity, community and class identity for generations of men in Britain’s industrial towns. They were, at their best, a vehicle for social mobility and self-improvement, run as cooperatives for working people by working people: an informal, community-owned pre-cursor to the Welfare State.

As the movement approaches its 160th anniversary, this exuberant book brings to life the thrills and the spills of a cultural phenomenon that might still be rescued from irrelevance.

©2022 Pete Brown (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Pete Brown is a brilliant master of ceremonies as he brings the history of these fine institutions to life and demonstrates their importance in working class communities across the country." (Alan Johnson, author of This Boy)

"A compelling mixture of social history, vivid reportage and candid autobiography, Clubland makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of Britain in the last century and a half." (David Kynaston, author of Austerity Britain)

"Leave any flat-capped clichés at the door: Brown offers an earnest exploration of this crucially formative area of British social history." (John Warland, author of Liquid History)