21 December 1957    End Of Three Year Wait: Fochriw’s First Labour Club    After three years of patient waiting, a committee of eleven men were rewarded on Friday last when Fochriw’s first Workingmen’s Club was declared open. The club was opened by Mr. C. W. Bridges, J.P., who declared that it was now one of the 3,500 clubs in the Workingmen’s Club and Institute Union, embracing some two million members of that union. He wished the club a happy and successful future, and stressed the importance the social aspect of the club’s activities, for the growing population of Fochriw, which seemed to have limited facilities for those who gave of their best in the industrial field. Mr. Bridges proceeded to deal with certain criticisms levelled at the Workingmen’s Club and its organisation, and said that the best way to counter much if this was to conduct the Institute in a way that made it apparent to all in the town that it was well managed. Also present was Mr. J. Penry Evans, treasurer of the South Wales branch of the Club and Institute Union.

I believe that the club was initially opened in a large house in Brook Row and then moved to larger premises in the old Farley’s Shop in Railway Terrace at the bottom of Martin Street before moving to a new purpose built building near Plantation Street. I recall on many a Saturday and Sunday evenings listening to the singing in the club, which would have done any male voice choir justice, from the doorstep of my home in Martin Street. Hymns were sung with great ferver but yet the chapels were far from full.