Remembering The Old Clubhouse

When I went to school at Buxton I went from WB to Buxton on the train and passed it every week day. It was a members’ only club called The Union Club. It looked very posh and exclusive from the outside.
It was converted in the 70’s to The Old Clubhouse by Chris Brindley, landlord of The Eagle Hotel and Jimmy Milburn, managing director of the building firm Milburn and Mills.
Milburn and Mills had their offices on Lightwood Road on the site of the old outdoor swimming pool. I went there a couple of times as a young lad and it was absolutely freezing. But when M & M took occupation of the site they filled in the pool to make a ‘yard’ and used the changing rooms as their office. I worked there for a year as company quantity surveyor until I could stand it no longer. Everyday somebody would stagger into the office blind drunk and more often than not it would be Jimmy himself. He used to drive a large Mercedes car and took no notice at all of the drink driving laws.
Some mornings he would ring me from his home and ask me to take his kids to school. They were pests and were always trying to make me crash.
Then I would have to go back for Jim as his car wasn’t there. He couldn’t remember how he had got home but we needed to pick his car up from outside The Gaslight Club. It wasn’t there. Ah it must be outside The Queens; not there either. Ashwood Park Hotel then. Wrong. Prince of Wales perhaps.
No chance. Nineteenth Hole. Yes that’s where it will be. But it wasn’t.
Then I spotted it on the grass opposite the Golf Club. Right Jim, there it is, have you got your keys? Er, no.
Well I drove him to the side of the Mercedes and the window was right down and the keys were in the ignition. Ah, I knew I wouldn’t have mislaid them he said. What time is it? Look the Golf Club’s door is open let’s nip in for a few scoops.

Loads more on Jimmy one day

Tony Beswick. 

The Old Clubhouse Roof.  A watercolour by David Easton

Once Jim decided to splash the cash and he bought a reasonable plot of land and got Planning Permission to build 3 bungalows and 2 houses. The design was good and from a distance the properties looked very good. I won’t mention the location because hopefully they are till standing and are occupied.
The bungalows were completed first mainly because Jim was going to live in one and his partner Mills in another one.
They were virtually complete apart from kitchens, decoration and carpets when there was an unexpected visit from the Structural Engineer who had spotted a mistake on the drawings. There was a point where the roof had inadequate support and needed to be reinforced somehow. He did a quick on site sketch whereby a pillar needed to be built in the hallway and indeed it could be made into a feature if built from stone.
Jim agreed immediately. But then the Structural Engineer dropped a bombshell: a foundation would be needed and this meant the concrete floor would need to sawn out and a concrete foundation would have to be put in and he reminded Jim that the hardcore under the slab must not exceed 600mm and that would be where he should find the original clay which he could concrete on.

Now I knew full well that the hardcore was at least 1200mm in depth due to the original ground levels and I wondered how Jim would get out of yet another mess.
As soon as the Engineer had gone Jim turned to me and said: “Right you. How are you going to get me out of this?”
“Well just what do you expect me to do Jim. It is what it is.”

As it was Friday I went home and hardly gave it another thought.
When I went into the office on the Monday morning Jim arrived at about 11.00am after shaking off yet another severe hang over and he phoned the Engineer and told him the job was done and could he come out after lunch to do a final inspection as Jim was in a hurry to finish the bungalows.
The Engineer said that was fine and he would be on site at 2.00pm
Intrigued, I went round to the site and we all gathered around the hole which now had a firm clay foundation just below the floor slab level. The Engineer prodded it and declared it suitable to concrete on and gave Jim the go ahead.
Jim went to the pub and I went back to the office and shortly Jim’s partner Mills rocked up. And I asked him how such a thing could have happened and he told me Jim had sent Salty the apprentice bricklayer round the back of the 2 houses and dig out some clay and he told him to tip it into the hole and tread it down and then tamp it down to make it look like virgin clay which it did.
So as Jim said: “Bob’s your uncle get it concreted in and get on with your work. I’m off to a business meeting.”
Which everyone knew meant he was off to The Golf Club or somewhere like that.

Tony.