by Neil Sayer, Archdiocesan Archivist

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The school used to be the heart of the Catholic parish. For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, building schools led to the formation of our parishes. Education was of huge importance. However, after the Second World War, society had changed. Schools were already established, and education was to a great degree funded by the government. What was needed in our parishes now was a club.

 

There had been clubs before, of course. The Catholic Young Men’s Society of a parish might have established a room where they could go to play billiards. A parish hall might offer an opportunity for a drama production or a tea dance. Leisure time was becoming more important in the 1960s, and by 1965, the Pic was reporting that “the social side of parish life is gaining ground with the rising popularity of the family club. In the development plans for new parishes, the club has replaced the unlicensed parish hall as the fourth MUST after the church, presbytery and school. That is why in such a new parish as St Joseph the Worker, Kirkby, there is such a thriving club accommodating hundreds of members for dances, concerts or bingo in luxurious surroundings.” Although the tradition of men’s clubs was in some cases maintained, “more and more the trend is to make the parish club cater for the whole family.” Some clubs compromised by setting aside a special bar and games room for members of the CYMS or Men’s Guild, while the general club facilities could be used by all the adults in the parish. “Even the all-male clubs are likely to have a regular ladies night.” You can’t stop progress.

 

Meeting places were seen as crucial for communities to develop: “A ‘live parish’ has to play together as well as pray together. And this usually means popping into the club.” Perhaps this was especially true for some new parishes, whose clubs gave a comforting sense of cohesion. Postwar housing schemes displaced people wholesale from the centre of Liverpool into new towns and estates in Speke, Kirkby and Skelmersdale. Disruption was inevitable. “The novelty of a new house or flat soon wears off – and a hankering for the old community, often a sense of loss, replaces it”, according to the Pic. So the opening of a new club at St Mark’s in Halewood in 1967 was seen as “the first ice thawing operation – the baptism of a new community.” It had an “entertainment hall” that could hold 400, a committee room, and a changing room for visiting entertainers. The club’s new punters were impressed with the new facility: “They’ll not be stuck for custom here”, said one burly docker as he surveyed the lounge and halls admiringly. Said one mother, having her first night out for months: ‘I suppose we’ll have to queue to get in before long’.”

 

 

By the time a new club opened at St Anthony of Padua in Mossley Hill, 50 years ago this month, clubs selling alcohol were big earners for a parish. It had cost £30,000 to build the club. Father Ignatius, the Parish Priest, did stress that “it is not primarily a parish club but a parish centre. The fact that it is licensed is incidental.”

 

Nevertheless, with facilities including a bar, kitchen and a large hall with a stage, it was competing with the other local working men’s, social and political clubs. Father Ignatius outlined some of their plans: “At weekends we will obviously have dances and cabarets, but during the week we have planned cultural activities. We hope to start ballet and keep-fit classes, plus chess, modern dance and guitar. We will have discos for the younger parishioners once a week and a weekly folk night. Tuesdays will be reserved for bingo.” Established parishes may have had to re-use other buildings. St Sylvester’s, in Liverpool, created a “tip-top club for the parish” when they converted a disused cinema off Scotland Road in the mid-1960s. St Marie’s in Southport adapted their old school in 1974, being “one of the few parishes that has no need of a school. Most of the people in the holiday town are retired.” Holy Rosary in Aintree was founded with a temporary church building in 1954. After a couple of years a new church was built, so the old one was repurposed as a social centre, youth club, school, and bingo hall until, in 1972, it was refurbished to become “the most modern social centre in the archdiocese”, with that essential for the times “sophisticated electronic burglar alarm.” The club was administered by a committee of parishioners, with the Parish Priest as Chairman. And that may illustrate one problem: the tail was beginning to wag the dog. By 1976, an anonymous priest of the diocese was quoted in the pages of The Tablet on “Liverpool’s challenge”, facing the incoming Archbishop Worlock that year: “In those parts of the archdiocese where Mass attendance is low, priests are forced to f inance their schools through beer and bingo, fruit machines and club entertainers. It can be very big business indeed…”