In the summer of 1983, a General Meeting of members voted (by a majority of one!) to ask the newly elected committee to seek ways of paying off the debts and re-opening the club in the image of what it had been in those early pioneering days, a centre for socialism and feminism.
Socialism re-floated.
On the May Day holiday 1984, striking miners and nursery nurses, anxious to repay the support given to them by club members, led a procession around the town.
The march ended in Wood Street where an outdoor street party and festival lasted long into the night.
Bolton Socialist Club had been re-born.
A brief memoir of the Eighties from Andy Hall.
After the political desert of the Seventies, the Eighties brought an oasis of hope. The club had been shut down. And the Labour Party who dominated the committee at the time were determined to sell it to raise money for their coffers.
The 1984-
1985 miners’ strike had seen the development of women's activism in coal mining communities across the country. These groups formed Women against Pit Closures (WAPC) which developed a national support network.
After the end of the strike in 1985, the WAPC continued to function to offer mutual support and to continue to fight further pit closures.
November 1995 Bernadette McAllskey was due to speak at the Mechanics Institute in 
Manchester.
However, the meeting was called off after threats to disrupt the meeting by the National Front.
The only venue in the greater Manchester to host the meeting was Bolton Socialist Club.
Page 1 of 2
