The Pioneers at the "back of the Vic" sitting on the stairs leading to the "hall".

Indescribable mess

That was how we came to the stables at 'The Back of the Vic'. It seemed a good idea to put various committees to entrench our eighty to ninety members in a permanent headquarters so I was delegated to open negotiations with the Brewery Company who owned Rushden's Queen Victoria Hotel.

My first thought on climbing the rickety-stairs was to run home and hide. The mess was indescribable as the place had been used for making shoe-parts and the floor was inches deep in leather bits. The walls were crumbling and the windows none too clean. Fortunately, there was a contingent of young folk behind me on the steps and the state of rooms did not seem bother them at all. They had a lot of fun tipping the rubbish over the banisters but not so much in bagging it up and carting it away.

This was in the early fifties when furniture was difficult to get so we negotiated for 50 upholstered seats from a derelict bus. The craftsmen in the group fixed them to elm legs - a really hard job as it meant a hundred legs to be bolted on, and elm is a very hard wood to work. It was all we could get as wood was 'on licence' at the time These seats were, of course, made in pairs and were very convenient for snogging, especially in the back rows. I was horrified when I first became aware of it as I had not even heard the word at that time. In my youth the nearest we ever got to it, in public was a surreptitious peck in a darkened cinema - and this sally usually landed on the top of the head.

When, at long last, the rooms were cleared, the walls painted and furniture in place we held a grand opening. One older member had painted a wonderful mural which went the entire length of one wall - I can see the white ducks (or were they supposed to be swans?) swimming in the blue lake now. I can also see another leading member doing a rapturous turn as a decrepit schoolmaster. His make-up was so good I remember thinking: 'Oh! poor fellow. Fancy only two teeth left at his age ..."

Unseemly incidents

One of my early misgivings about being at the 'back of the Vic' was our close proximity to the Police Station, but our relationships were fine. They did not seem to bother us and we were careful not to bother them - though I guess the exuberance on special events must have caused the bobby-in-charge to look out of his window at times. Some of the other members may recall unseemly incidents but if there were any I was kept comfortably in the dark.

I really did very little in the middle years apart from coming up on Sunday evenings and taking part in the many 'annual' celebrations such as ‘kek-cutting'. It is one of my regrets that I was never able to join a Zig procession, though I was allowed to welcome it when the merry makers arrived triumphant at the top of the stairs.

Zig came into being when members decided to put on their own plays. Not only did they write and produce them but they made their own props as well. Nothing seemed too much to tackle, from a fantastic Nativity Play which filled the Methodist Church one year to the other extreme of Murder in the Red Barn which was put on in the Adult Schools. Zig was 'sculpted' as a skeleton to guard his booth at Polestead fair: 'Don't miss the living skeleton, the wonder of the age!' was his cry.

The idea of a living skeleton appealed and Zig became a leading figure in most club activities. It had it's own anthem, set to the tune of The Lincolnshire Poacher, and was regularly paraded through the town.

Big feast

Among the many celebrations was the annual Kek-cutting when everyone avail­able on a Saturday set off for a walk up the Bedford Road, or wherever kek was readily available. (As a foreigner from Bucks that was a new name for me - we called the weed 'cow-parsley'). Having had fun cutting the kek the party then decked themselves all over till they looked like bouquets, caus­ing some stir, and not a little amusement, as they paraded through the town led by Zig. Of course there was big feast that evening, the main item on the menu being a peculiar pink soup called 'Borsch', concocted by the treasurer.

Little Zig was a rush job when it was found that Zig was too big to get on the train at one of the Club excursions. (Yes, there were trains to and from Rushden in those days). It became popular at Committees, and other small events, to save Big Zig being hauled off his perch high up on the end walls of our hall. The little namesake had an endearing face which resembled a worn-out table tennis bat.

The cast of one of the plays – all were written and produced by members. This was a ‘take-off’ of the current film Quo Vadis.

It will be incredible to present-day young people - and some not so young - that there were no violent scenes to speak of, and no vandalism that I knew about. True, the globe off a Belisha Beacon decorated one of the walls and some of the stronger ones purloined a huge plywood Gin bottle from a local pub, but they were probably moti­vated by teetotalism!

You may well think I was a bit naive at the time (still am) but when you think of the calibre of those young folk - and see their achievements through subsequent years it all fits in.

No names ... one early member is now Head of Youth Services in Birmingham (I often wonder if he remembers his efforts to get us all thinking about the 'C' in CYA?), another is Head of the Biology Department in a London Polytech (a great innovator of our more obscure festivals), another former chairman is Youth (and/or Sports) Organiser for a whole county, (his prowess in jumping off, and up, the stairs is legendary). We have a Trade Union Secretary who is a credit to the whole community and the fellow who organised the bus seat legs is now a Senior Lecturer in a University 'down under'. You will be able to add to this - there are Head Masters, Deputy Heads, Schoolmasters, a Doctor and a Vicar, Managers, self-employed, and so on all over the country.

The committee in a corner of the hall with the Chairman Little Zig.

The stables at 'the back of the Vic' have now made way for a block of flats for the elderly. I hope the present residents find happiness there and will take kindly to the haunting of the big Zig if he/she/it decides to roam through the corridors.