1976 Discos at South Reading Youth Club

 

In January 1976 I began work as a Grade something-or-other (Four?) Youth and Community Worker attached to the South Reading Youth and Community Centre. The Centre was a 1930s affair built at the same time as the Whitley council estate and now reserved for adults; I was in charge of the adjacent Youth Club housed in a war-time, breeze-block former British Restaurant over-ripe for demolition. I lasted nine months in what was the last job-but-one which I sought from a sense of social commitment or obligation. (A little over a decade later I put up my hand to direct the University of Sussex’s secondary PGCE course, a post to which negative academic kudos attached. South Reading successfully killed off perverse choices in the interim).

At first interview I got the support of the paid council officer in charge of Reading’s youth work but was objected to by the local Labour councillor on the panel. But somehow she was persuaded to interview again and this time I was accepted. Throughout my nine months I was well-supported both by that officer and by my immediate boss who ran the Community centre, both mid-career male professionals. The Centre employed two caretakers, older local men who did things, including their time-sheets, as they liked to do them and I was later told had taken bets on how long it would be before I got beaten up. It’s plausible. The Whitley Estate was almost-all white and  old-style working class; it provided the local newspaper with most of its copy for the Your Neighbour in Court page.

My chief responsibility was to “run” the Youth Club in the evenings, a task more simply described as opening the doors to all comers. For some unknown-to-me reason the upper age limit for admission was set at 21 which meant that those who came through the door included those who had been banned from local pubs which admitted at 18 or, in practice, whatever you self-identified as.

Equipment was in short supply, sometimes vandalised or stolen. There were no organised activities. It seemed to me that girls were completely marginalised and I persuaded the neighbouring secondary school to offer girls’ gymnastics one evening per week. It worked. Gymnastics was popular, a popularity enhanced by Nadia Comaneci’s “Perfect 10” at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Over time, I organised other activities: visits to the town-centre swimming pool, coach trips to pop concerts.

There were repeated request for discos. Why can’t we have them? So I asked my boss,Why can’t they have them? Well, he said, they evade paying admission, they bring in alcohol, fights break out, and equipment gets stolen. And, he might have added, they won’t take a blind bit of notice of you. Do you think you could  pick any of them up by the scruff of the neck?

That gave me an idea. Clearly, all I needed was a Bouncer. Someone who was large, strong, and able to command respect. There was someone who fitted the bill. I was picking up local knowledge and had heard his name mentioned by boys in the club; they were clearly in awe  of him because he had once led a local gang (named after a road on the estate so I don’t give it in case I cause reputational damage). But when I met him - I think he looked into the Club one evening to appraise me - I found him likeable and thoughtful. I also discovered that he was retired from his previous role terrorising the neighbourhood. He was going steady with a girl and was very keen that it should work out. I guess he was in his early or mid-twenties.

I approached him to ask if he was interested, He was. And he proved an excellent choice. As a result of his Presence (and he really was very tall and very broad) admission money was paid, everyone behaved and if, occasionally, they didn’t he was firm but completely unflustered in dealing with it. I paid him cash in hand out of the door money and it’s possible that I did not explain this arrangement to my boss. But he was pleased that I was satisfying local demand.

I googled but couldn’t find the Bouncer, though I may have found his son in Your Neighbour in Court.