The National Liberal Club today is very different to the Club I joined in 1962. Sixty-plus years ago it was a traditional gentleman’s club that happened to have a Liberal ethos and background. I had just come to work at Liberal Party headquarters in the Local Government Department and Richard Wainwright, who was the party officer in charge of local government, introduced me to the Club, saying that I needed to have somewhere to bring Liberal councillors visiting the party office. Generously, he paid my first year sub! The then Club Secretary, Coss Billson, showed me round and briefed me, not particularly on the rules to be observed but more on the long traditions that should not be trespassed on. Coss had served in the navy during WWII and was a paid-up Liberal who had been the party’s candidate in the 1950 election, leaving his deposit behind as all too many Liberals did in that election, in Coss’ case in the Islington East constituency. He was a very skilful club operator, gently heading off the impending disputes and rivalries endemic in a large members’ club and placating members unhappy with the bar service or the regular complaints about members sequestering newspapers.

Coss pointed out to me the different seating areas  in the smoking room and the specific post lunch discussion topics for each. Politics, for instance, was the agenda for the seats in the east of the room, near to the clock, and education occupied the space by the fireplace. From time to time distinguished past political figures glided through as well as noted broadcasters and writers including Neville Cardus and John Arlott. The Clubhouse, in its day the largest in London, had many more facilities available for members than now, having had to pass many rooms to the neighbouring hotel under a survival deal negotiated by Lawrence Robson. In the 1960s. In my early days there were large function rooms on the second floor, plus a marvellous library presided over by the laconic and cadaverous George Awdry, brother of the Rev Awdry of Thomas the Tank Engine fame. There were also four floors of bedrooms a few of which were the permanent residences of Club members. By the time of the sale of the bedrooms to the hotel they were in a state regarded as primitive by modern standards!

In the basement, also passed over to the hotel, was the Billiard Room with four excellent tables, mainly used for snooker not billiards. For those of us who struggled to cope with the nuances of the game of snooker, it was very useful that payment was by the frame rather than by the hour! For some years in the early sixties ITV broadcast all its snooker programmes - in black and white - from the Club. Members could hire a wide variety of meeting rooms ranging from the Small Oak Room to the grand River Room. What is now the Lloyd George room was originally the Grill Room providing the bar and slightly simpler meals than the Dining Room which occupied the whole of the existing space. Following being introduced to the Club’s General Committee, the crook calling himself George de Chabris took up residence in the Club and proceeded to asset strip whatever he could, including the excellent cellar of vintage Bordeaux. I recall seeing him in the Grill Room with various cronies ordering up superb bottles and simply knocking them back. He also persuaded the Trustees of the Gladstone Library to sell off the books and the bound volumes of journals, plus the unique collection of election addresses dating back to the 1880s. The only saving grace is that everything went to Bristol University where it has been kept intact. When de Chabris was eventually exposed and told to leave the building he emptied the tills on his way out! (The detailed history of these years is contained in the Wikipedia entry for the Club.)

The Club’s failure to include women members was, of course, reprehensible but was, alas, par for the course for such clubs at the time. Apart from this failure the Club was from its inception unusually diverse among London clubs and included Jewish, Asian and Irish members, a number of whom played prominent roles.  In my early days the Club hierarchy had one of its worthy moments of wanting to have younger members on the General Committee (today the Members’ Council) and I was somehow elected and thus attended amongst fellow members most of whom were around fifty years older than I! I regularly proposed that the Club should accept women members but was always voted down; the usual excuse was that the plumbing would not accommodate female members! On one such occasion I recall that an elderly member awoke from slumber and expostulated, “Does this mean that we would have women members in the Club at .... breakfast?” I couldn’t immediately see the relevance of the remark until Coss Billson explained to me that the member in question was one of the permanent occupants of a Club bedroom who regularly came down to breakfast in their pyjamas! Such was the nature of the Club sixty-odd years ago! I have always loved the Club throughout its many vicissitudes and value the way it is today grappling with the challenges whilst retaining its crucial political and social heritage.