Various Halls

Among the places I encountered growing up there were a number of halls where weddings and suchlike took place. I have already mentioned Shackleton Hall but there was also, at the corner of King Street and Featherstone Road, the Co-op Hall, which was above the Co-op shop (more of that another time). This was a square and spartan place with a boarded floor, a few supporting pillars and a low stage at one end. I remember it had an upright piano. I was there for weddings and meetings of various kinds. Not far from it, along Featherstone Road, was the Working Men's Club. This was a club of the old type, with a bar and a social area. I vaguely remember that there was sometimes music there (and possibly comedians) but it was more frequented by my father's generation than mine. Back towards the railway, off the Green and quite near the old Gem cinema was the British Legion, another club and bar, I was only in there once or twice, it was mainly for ex-servicemen and their wives. At the top of Lady Margaret Road, just behind the old Town Hall, was a hall which I think belonged to Holy Trinity church. I think it's now a Hindu temple. In my day it was used for social, family and other gatherings as well as church things. Sideways from it, again behind the Town Hall and reached through a lane that ran between the Town Hall and the old Fire Station, was the Conservative Club. I can't remember ever seeing the inside of that although my father was there.

My point of reference was more the old Labour Club, on the Broadway next to Woolworths, a very substantial affair. It had a bar and social area downstairs, various meeting rooms, upstairs and down, where Labour coouncillors, party members and trade unions met until 1965 when Southall became part of Ealing. Upstairs was also a large hall with a high and large stage which had proceneum arches and heavy curtains. The Labour Party never officially 'owned' the Labour Club. That role was taken by a committee which was essentially linked to the trades unions. The big ones were the AEU, the rail unions and the general unions. The Labour Party itself had a glorified nissen-hut behind the Club in the car-park, quite adequate, with two office rooms and a meeting room. My grandfather, who was active in ASLEF (train drivers' union), was a founding member of the Labour Club. He told me it came from a time when the unions could find nowhere to meet in the Southall area. ASLEF had had a strike during or just after the First World War and used to meet in the King's Hall Methodist Church on South Road. But there were Australian troops stationed not far away and there was a confrontation, with furniture being used. Other unions had similar problems and an orchard plot, on the Uxbridge Road, was acquired and a hut erected on it. From that the Labour Club grew. The Labour Club had a long drawn out civil war over admitting non-white members, which ran from the mid-1960s. Later, after the Labour Party itself had shifted premises, it became the Southall Club for a while, but its support base got very old and dwindled.

The Town Hall itself had a large room upstairs, the old Southall Council Chamber, which was used for meetings and other functions from the late 1960s. Scattered around southall there were other huts and places for church members, scouts and the like. I remember the Air Training Corps (ATC) had a hut on Featherstone Road.