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It’s no surprise the kids ended up as staunch clubgoers in later years. Their own experience of life with the ‘club family’ started at an early age and happy memories of the ‘club trip’ were etched into their DNA. It was regularly a military operation involving scores of coaches heading for the coast depending on size of club and number of children involved. They were well organised and gave a sense of amazing freedom to the kids that got to roam about a sea resort for the day on their own. Cleethorpes, Bridlington, Blackpool and Skegness were always popular destinations...

The tragic death of entertainer Bobby Ball is a reminder of how fast an entertainment world once dominated by the Working Men’s Clubs is fast disappearing. He was one half of a duo that had the movement to thank for their eventual rise to true comedy greats. Over four decades on from the era that Cannon & Ball first rose to prominence and it’s hard to appreciate the power and influence the Working Men’s Club movement had over life in 1970s Britain. Its tentacles permeated every sector of society – working class or otherwise. The movement had a stranglehold on...

Though people talk about the golden years of the cabaret and Working Men’s Club circuit of the 1970s and early 1980s, it definitely was anything but plain sailing for venues and their resident musicians – especially when things like the three day week and the Miners’ Strike left punters with little money to go out. Though venues were operating at a capacity virtually unheard of when compared to the present day, the period was littered with industrial strife, political turmoil and recession. Drummer Mike Hayes worked through the whole period at venues spanning Chesterfield’s Aquarius to the Fiesta – then...