In the early days of the 1970s two inspirational Barrow leaders put their heads together to dream up a plan. Wynne Morris, then headmaster of Humphrey Perkins and Norman Peck, then minister of Barrow’s Methodist Church set in motion discussions which resulted in the creation in 1971 of a Community Association (CA) for all residents of Barrow and neighbouring villages and a plan for the village to build a community centre attached to Humphrey Perkins School.
The village set about raising serious money to pay for the building project which cost £30,000. Leicestershire County Council contributed £12,000, Charnwood Borough Council £6,000 and the Parish Council provided £6,000 with the CA making up the balance. We benefited hugely from the voluntary assistance of many experts to draw up plans, sort out legal arrangements with Leicestershire County Council whose land was to be built on, provide materials and so on. We got our community centre in 1980. It had the familiar lounge, bar, kitchen, toilets and some storage areas. Although it was built for the community it was also to be shared with the school.
Meanwhile we continued with the fund raising. How I remember those Donkey Derbies! Pancake races down Wycliffe Avenue, barn dances, New Year’s Eve dances, modern dances, discos, barbecues and some fairly outrageous entertainment evenings including the infamous Blaster Bates and Race evenings.
Over time we furnished the kitchen, set up a really professional-looking bar, bought coffee tables and comfy seats for the lounge and generally made a welcoming space for the community of Barrow and around. The playgroup, that had started up in the Methodist Church in 1970, began to expand rapidly and soon started to operate in the Community Lounge in afternoons as well as mornings. Community Education classes became very popular and by the 1980s Humphrey Perkins Community Centre was buzzing with many kinds of activities. The Community Association was tasked with the financial management of the Centre which entailed a close and positive relationship with school leaders and governors.
The first nail in the coffin came in the early 1990s with new laws to put all financial management of schools in the hands of governors; that is, we lost control of the Delegated Community Budget, although we still had a close advisory role in the management of the Centre and relationships were supportive, including with the County Council. Barrow’s Centre fared much better during the next 15 years than many other community centres and colleges in the county, many of which were lost entirely to their communities. Community Education as a service disappeared from the County Council. Then the real death knell was sounded with the invention of Academies. Humphries became an academy on Jan 1st 2012. That involves very tight control of the school budget, none of which is legally allowed to be used to subsidise community activity. BUSCA enjoyed a very comfortable four years of discounted hire charges that took into account the historical relationship with Humphries all those years ago and its very frequent use of the facilities.
We are grateful to Humphries for that. Sadly, the rest of the village more or less stopped using it because the hire charges were unaffordable.
The knock-on effect on BUSCA was that the bar, which had been a lucrative source of income to help pay for overheads (insurance etc), no longer really justified its continued existence. We agonized about closing it down but that would mean in turn that events such as ballroom dances would fold. No-one wants to go to a dance in a posh frock when you can’t even have a G&T.
When officers of the BUSCA Trustee Board were summoned to a meeting we were hardly surprised to find our discounted hire charges swept away. Even more serious, we were perhaps to be charged an annual fee of £1000 to secure the continued sole use of the bar, parts of the kitchen and various storage areas. Coupled with totally impracticable changes in the way the bar could be operated, we bowed to the inevitable.
On Monday 6th January, a team of BUSCA members assembled in the Community Centre and emptied the bar and much of the kitchen. The bar is no more. With no bar, we have therefore run our last dance. We will carry on for as long as we can with other events, mostly those of our thriving Panto Group with its annual pantomime, murder mystery and those marvelous Youth Theatre productions – Oliver being the latest.
That is not to say that BUSCA is dead; far from it. We are hugely proud of our management of Barrow Library, Barrow Voice continues to get better and better as an outstanding community magazine, the Heritage Group flourishes, The Twinning Association is now attracting more and more young families to exchanges with Marans in France and the Website Administrators continue to expand the value of our various village websites.
Judith Rodgers
What Barrow really has lost is a community centre and somehow, somewhere, the village needs to build another one. If you have ideas or a parcel of land to bear your name for posterity or a massive donation, perhaps you might like to give me a ring (07718153117) or email (judithrodgers155@gmail.com) and I will pass on the info.