If I’m being honest, working men’s clubs have never been my bag. I shirk work where possible, and find predominantly straight male spaces mind-boggling.
But when I heard that a 138‑year‑old club in Newington Green was trying to rectify this imbalance, I couldn’t put my loafers on fast enough.
To mark Women’s History Month, the Mildmay Club has put on a series of events celebrating the contribution of women to the club over the years - including a talk titled What About The Women?, featuring excerpts from the film Women from Hackney’s History.
The Mildmay Club has existed at its current premises since 1900 - and it’s a rabbit warren, which proves particularly confusing for a newbie. It feels visually unchanged since the 1980s, with plastic streamers flanking old wooden stages and portraits of men looking assertively down into the halls, with lists of names etched into wood, shields, or tarnished cups.
But all that is changing. It has been since 2007, when women were allowed into these hallowed halls and given equal status as members, and in 2010 they were finally allowed into the snooker hall. Membership has recently climbed and now stands at around 3,000, we are told as we take our seats. Judging by the talk and the audience demographic (around 80 per cent are women), I wonder what the gender split is among these new members.
The evening is more than an esoteric glimpse at female contribution to club life. Ruth Cherrington’s amusing personal titbits about growing up and performing in Coventry working men’s clubs do provide that, while Rebecca Feiner - club member and driving force behind the Women’s Month events - explains the importance of these evenings in a wider sociopolitical setting.
“You can’t be in solidarity with something you can’t see”, she says. Susan Doe, local historian and author of the two-part book series Women from Hackney’s History provides a helpful slideshow outlining the exciting lives of Mildmay performers Vesta Fay and the famous WWII singer Vera Lynn.
The discussion is broken up by excerpts from the film, made by local filmmaker Barney Snow and actress Nina Sprigge, with research by Susan Doe. This impressive film dramatises the lives of these fascinating women and is one of the sections which most appeals to us “non-members”.
From Florence Fenwick Miller, a powerhouse social reformer and suffragette, to sweet factory worker Rebecca Askin bringing to life Victorian Britain’s labour conditions and Rio Cinema (then the Kingsland Empire) founder Clara Ludski, fur-clad and pearled - and many more these titans of Hackney history - are brought to life with simple monologues, faithfully given life by various performers from the Hackney History Society and Tower Theatre.
Finally, Kate Maclean - UCL professor of feminist geography - takes to the stage with a talk about the gendering of space.
“I assume the snooker hall was only opened to women due to the 2010 Equality Act”, she carefully posits. This aligns neatly with Sue Brayley’s well-researched (but slightly dispiriting) timeline of women’s life at the Mildmay, laid out along tables at one side of the room. Maclean discusses the nuance of gender segregation and the complexity of institutions such as the Mildmay, based on an industrial society that no longer exists.
The evening is a compelling peek into a changing world - and a changing Mildmay. With the introduction of Zumba, choirs, book clubs and knitting groups, the club is moving with the times, and acknowledging the presence of the women who have always been there is a big step.
