Belle Vue Social Club is only a few years away from celebrating its 100th birthday, and taking a look at it today, it is more than ready to head into its second century.
Founded in 1926, the social club started life as a watering hole for railwaymen to grab a pint before they started their shift – and they would presumably stop by afterwards too.
Thankfully, rules and regulations have changed since the 1920s, but people in the 2020s have as much of an appetite to enjoy the good times now as they did nearly 100 years ago.
Recently renovated, Belle Vue Social Club is in Colne Bank Avenue and has around 400 members – though it welcomes bookings for events such as parties and baby showers.
The club’s origins post-World War I were modest even for the 1920s – the materials for the first building arrived quite literally on the back of a horse and cart in the form of flat-packed Nissen huts.
The cost? Half a crown – or 2s 6d – which in today’s money equates to the rather nominal sum of about 20p.
If that is something of a throwback, then so were the discoveries from made by renovators Godden and Rudling, who found wasp nests, honeycombs, and even a bottle from Colchester’s old brewery Daniell and Sons.
Sue Stock is the club's president; husband and wife, David and Sandra Knight, fill the positions of vice president and secretary.
Mrs Knight has been involved in the club for 16 years, and with Belle Vue having fully reopened after an understandably quiet period between 2020 and this year, new members have largely been on the younger side.
But for the traditional members of the club, many of whom have been coming along for decades, there are still card games of cribbage and canasta.
The monthly subscription of £1 per month is remarkably cheap – though given the price of the club’s first building was about 20p, one realises just how much life can change over 96 years.
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