The clubs that shaped a generation will be lost
Howard Williamson
Monday, February 21, 2011
On the last Saturday of January, I attended a surprise 50th birthday party. The target of the surprise was a man who has spent his life as a used-car salesman (and a talented guitar player).
Awaiting his arrival, in a pub near his home, were about 60 individuals of a similar age, from an array of different working backgrounds: sales and social work, care and computers, business and boilers, management and machinery.
What they all shared was that, somewhere between the late 1970s and early 1980s, they had been regular members of my youth club in Bournville, Birmingham. They had grown up together in the same vicinity and gone to the same schools. The youth club was an integral part of that experience. Most went their separate ways around the age of 21 but, through clusters of friendship groups, they have stayed in touch. They rendezvous these days for significant birthdays and for funerals; it used to be for christenings and weddings.
The defining experience of their life was the club - they always called it just the "club". It has shaped their history and their identity. Though they did many different things while they were there and have done so since, this is their common reference point. It is almost impossible to exaggerate what youth work did for that particular cohort: it gave them experiences, ideas and beliefs that, many of them claim, they would never have got from anywhere else.
Two days before the party, I got a telephone call asking me if I had heard of the draconian cuts that were about to take place to Birmingham youth service. The current 60 youth centres were to be reduced to 17. Jobs were at risk and many were certain to go.
All satellite centres were to close. The club would almost certainly be one of them.
This produced something of a cloud at the party. A central part of their life was about to disappear. But, beyond an arguably selfish nostalgia, there was both sadness and anger. Young people in that area would not even have the place, and space, that had meant so much to them.
Some days later, I got a text message from another former youth club member, some 20 years younger than those at the party: "Happy New Year, mate. Just spoke to manager of the club. After a big meeting today they've been told that 60 per cent of youth service money is being cut this year. All part-time staff axed, many full timers. The club and scores of others closing. Where are the government coming from with this, mate? What's expected to fill the void? Dark days."
Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan
