CLUBLAND: How the Working Men's Club Shaped Britain

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. Blending vivid reportage and candid autobiography, he illuminates these arts centres, debating halls and palaces of carefree delight with love and care. The intoxicating history begins with the movement's founding by a teetotal social reformer to its booze-soaked mid-century heyday when more than 4 million Brits were members. Often dismissed as relics of a bygone age, Pete Brown reminds us that long before the days of Phoenix Nights 3000 seat venues routinely played host to stars like Shirley Bassey, Louis Armstrong, and the Bee Gees. Britain's best-known comedians made reputations through 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. They were a vehicle for social mobility and self improvement, run for working people by working people. Brown looks at the club and himself, the clubs as an institute, the pub, music hall, the radicals, the ups and downs, women, change and the future. A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK, 290 pages.