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The Avenue - Biggleswade war workers’ second home
The Avenue in Biggleswade was once home to The Avenue Club – a purpose-built war workers’ community club in the early years of the Second World War.
The club operated for a decade but the building remained there for community use until 1998. Catherine Rose spoke to Vic and Doris Brunt, who originally met at the club, about their memories of a very special meeting place.
THE Avenue Club was conceived ‘to provide comfort and recreation to transferred war workers’. These were families who had been relocated along with their factories from parts of the country that were suffering regular air raids.
The Avenue gave them a ‘home from home’ and a community meeting point for those who had been displaced by the war. Money for running the club was supplied by the war effort.
Shared activities and friendship were the order of the day, socialising alongside evacuees and local people who also used the club.
The official opening of the club was in 1943 by Sir Stafford Cripps, the wartime Government Minister of Aircraft Production, who later became Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Biggleswade changed dramatically during WWII from a quiet market town to an industrial one with factories moving in from Kent, Yorkshire and elsewhere. This era marked the beginning of a turn for Biggleswade from being a town of farming, brewing and horse fairs to becoming a home to industrial companies like Smart & Brown, Berkeley Coachworks, Weatherley Oilgear and Kayser Bondor to name but few.
In addition there was an influx of evacuees fleeing London and other bombed cities.
Vic’s wife Doris, nee Lodge, first came to Biggleswade with her her mother and sister in September 1940 when the bombing was at its most severe, initially for a two week respite. She later settled here and her friend, a Jewish evacuee named Daphne Weiss, encouraged her to go to The Avenue Club in October 1943.
She was very glad she did.“It just clicked,” explains Doris.
Vic believes the influx of war workers and evacuees brought fresh ideas and attitudes to an insular town that was set in its ways.
“What made The Avenue Club unique was the mix of war workers, evacuees and local people which provided a dynamism that gave a real sense of community in a difficult war period. There was also a healthy mix of people of all ages, political and religious beliefs and those with no fixed allegiances which added spice to the regular discussions and debates.
“The beauty of the club was that it offered everything. It had a democratic nature and an elected members committee who planned and organised day to day activities but many things originated over cuppas or a snack. There was also a management committee who looked after the administration of the club.”
The first chairman was Mr A Clough-Waters, who was Clerk to the Local Justices. Later chairmen included Fred Simms, well known editor of the Biggleswade Chronicle, and Mr G T Conniford, who was MD of Pobjoys Aero-engines, one of the transferred industries which went on to provide lots of jobs for Biggleswade folk.
The club helped nurture political discussion and debate with noteable local people attending and involved with it. Robin Thurston, a Chronicle reporter and friend of the Brunts, was secretary to the management committee in 1948. And Albert Ruth, cartoonist for the North Beds Courier was also a member. Sally Jervis, a friend of the Brunts and another member who recalls the club, came to Biggleswade as an evacuee, and became a political verse commentator using the pen name VJS for the Chronicle under Fred Simms in the 1940s.
But the lynch pin of the club was the warden who lived on site. The first wardens were Mr and Mrs White, followed by Mrs Hicks, then Mrs Gibson – an ex-WREN officer.
When Vic attended it was Mrs Valeriani from St Albans, known to all as Mrs Val. “She was a kind but strict motherly lady who took under her wing lots of young people that would otherwise have been at a loose end, and many away from friends and family” says Vic.
Doris remembers Anne Carruthers, another of the wardens, along with Bill Atkinson who, as a bus driver, would take members on trips.
She says: “It was a wonderful place to be – an all-age club. I went there when I was 14. We grew up there and the older generation kept us on the straight and narrow. There were people from their teens to well into their eighties.”
Doris and Vic both believe that this lack of a generation gap was one of the strongest features of The Avenue Club and is something we are sadly missing in today’s society, where clubs and organisations are often limited to narrow age bands by their nature or membership.
Consequently, Vic and Doris don’t believe in youth clubs. “We need to get rid of the generation gap” believes Vic. “Older people have got lots of skills they could pass on to the younger generation while keeping them in check. And in return, younger people have a lot to offer older ones in terms of enthusiasm, new ideas and energy.”
Vic started going to the club in 1944 during leave while serving in the wartime Royal Navy. The club soon became his second home and the place where he met Doris. After service in Normandy and the Middle East, Vic was demobbed in 1946 and the club became his regular port of call.
The club catered for the factory shift workers and operated daily, including weekends with an open door policy. People could call in for a cup of tea, a hot meal and a chat at any time. “We made lifelong friendships there,” says Vic “and long-lived marriages.”
The club also provided accommodation. A cruciform shaped building, there were bedrooms at the end of the cross pieces – female on one side and male on the other. Doris can recall a man named Jeff Beers living in one end, and an Irish lady called Bridie at the other. There was also a laundry.
Everyone who had a talent in anything offered their services at the club, both teaching and running activities which included billiards, snooker, darts, table tennis, socials, dancing classes, plays and concerts, fancy dress parties, quizzes, musical appreciation, dancing, debates and discussion groups, cycling, rambling and messing about on the River Ivel.
The people who gave up their time to run these activities left a huge impression. Doris describes Irene Worth as “a soubrette” who put on shows and attributes treading the boards there for helping her overcome her natural shyness and reticence at public speaking (she later became a county councillor and was also Biggleswade Mayor.)
Frank Collard introduced her to classical music, Larry Wayman played piano accordion, and Frank Bilcock taught ballroom dancing with his wife Florrie Dellar. Members could even get a haircut thanks to the hairdressing expertise of Danny Rose. “It was an education for life,” says Doris.
Many local organisations were born out of the club including the local Workers’ Education Association which held adult education classes there and Biggleswade Athletics Club which was formed there in 1951 and met at the building until 1955. Lawnside’s Jack and Jill Playgroup used the club premises until 1998.
The running of the club was transferred to Beds County Council Ministry of Education on April 1, 1946. Then in 1949, when its wartime use ended, the club premises were ‘freely conveyed from the Ministry of Education to the Beds County Council Education Committee so long as it continued to be used for community purposes.’
Unfortunately, not long afterwards, the club ceased activities due to lack of local funding but the premises were still used for further education, the Youth Employment Bureau and many local voluntary groups with 349 events held there in 1953.
By 1982 inadequate maintenance led to a county council decision to demolish the building but following discussion, it was bought by Biggleswade Town Council in order to continue housing its users at that time. Vic was a member of the town council then and wanted the money ring-fenced for community centre use in the future, but eventually the money went elsewhere.
In April 1989, when the building was once again under threat, Vic and Doris tried to arrange a reunion of former club members, and eventually this took place on the day the club closed on October 31, 1998. Club stalwarts enjoyed a nostalgic evening of 1940s music and refreshments with a display of photographs and memorabilia. Around half the members are still alive today but few club records survive.
“The Avenue Club was the nearest our town has had to a real community centre. Sadly we lack one now whereas Biggleswade’s twin town, Erlensee has three! But I live in hope that one day we will have its like again,” says Vic.
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Weather for Biggleswade
Wednesday 23 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
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Nostalgia Correspondent
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 12:10 PMThis article was originally published in the newspaper on January 6, 2012 but due to technical issues has only now appeared in full online. Apologies.
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