A pub flying the name of the Ancient Order of Foresters – the great friendly society that gave working people mutual aid, and met, as here, in the pub
The Ancient Foresters carries a 3.9 across more than a hundred and thirty reviews – the most modest score in this batch, reported plainly as ever – and flies a name of real and honourable history: the great friendly society that helped working people help each other, long before the welfare state. The Prat’s history desk stood and saluted the mutual-aid tradition.
Towards Bermondsey and Rotherhithe
The Ancient Foresters sits towards Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, on the south-bank side, serving the district’s crowds. Proper Bermondsey territory, no disclaimer needed.
The friendly society
The Ancient Order of Foresters was one of the greatest of Britain’s friendly societies – the mutual-aid organisations through which working people, long before the welfare state, banded together to protect one another. Formed in 1834 from the older Royal Foresters, it worked on a beautifully simple and honourable principle: members paid a few pence a week into a common fund, and in return received sick pay and funeral grants when illness or death struck. In an age with no state safety net, it was the working man’s own insurance, built on solidarity – the community pooling its pennies to catch its own when they fell.
The forest of life
The Prat’s favourite thing is the poetry of the Foresters’ purpose. The society was founded, in its own lovely words, on a duty “to assist their fellow men who fell into need as they walked through the forest of life.” The woodland theme ran all through it – the branches were called “Courts,” the imagery drawn from Robin Hood and the greenwood, the whole ethos one of banding together in the forest of the world to look after one’s own. Its Latin motto was Unity, Benevolence and Concord. It is one of the most genuinely admirable ideas a pub could fly – working people, in solidarity, catching each other as they fall.
The pub as meeting house
The Prat savours the direct connection to the pub. The Foresters, like the other friendly societies, held their meetings in pubs – so many that “Foresters Arms” and “Ancient Foresters” pubs sprang up across the whole country as their meeting houses. The pub was the working man’s club, committee room and mutual-aid office all in one, where the Courts met, the pennies were collected, and the solidarity was built over a pint. A pub called the Ancient Foresters names that noble history directly – the alehouse as the cradle of working-class mutual aid. The 3.9 is the batch’s most modest score, reported plainly, but the history behind the name is anything but modest.
Verdict
A 3.9 across a hundred and thirty-plus reviews is the batch’s most modest score, reported plainly, and the Ancient Foresters earns its place on genuinely honourable history. It flies the Ancient Order of Foresters – the great friendly society through which working people gave each other mutual aid before the welfare state, meeting, as here, in the pub.
Go for the honest welcome and the noble history of the name, and raise a pint to the Ancient Foresters, who caught their fellow men “as they walked through the forest of life.” Before the welfare state, working people pooled their pennies to protect their own – and did it, fittingly, over a pint.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
Mein Therapeut sagt, ich benutze Humor, um Problemen auszuweichen. Bestätigt.