Mrs Pat Perks, former President and founding member of Ealing Mencap, shares her memories on the good times at the old Enterprise Lodge.

Ealing Mencap’s first event, a Guy Fawkes Party, was held on a muddy field in the middle of nowhere, close to the River Brent in November 1967.  Three years previously the Greater London Council (GLC) had been formed and borough boundaries changed.  Royal Mencap followed suit and Ealing Mencap was born.

A new committee of enthusiastic parents and some good friends, with go-ahead ideas, felt their first priority was to have somewhere for their members to spend their leisure time. Once the finances had been sorted out we found we had a sum of approximately £7000. Pressure was applied and Ealing Council not only gave us a 21-year lease at a peppercorn rent but also gave us £3000 towards the building costs.

By June 1968 a Swiftplan building was erected on that same muddy field (with a life expectancy of 10 years!) and Enterprise Lodge was officially opened. Fisons generously sent a research team one weekend to level the garden at the back and reseed it with a special hard wearing grass. On the same day the Variety Club of Great Britain presented us with our first minibus.

From the start, the Lodge was used by the Gateway Club for meetings, sports, dances, organising and decorating lorries for carnivals, plays, rehearsing for Greater London Gateway Rallies, and in 1987 representing London in a Nationwide Variety Rally at the Royal Festival Hall.

The Gateway Club met on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons tostart with.  Later on new Clubs started on Thursdays for the over eighteens and on Wednesdays for teenagers. The Peter Pan Club, for the very young, was on Saturday mornings. All of these clubs were run by volunteers.  In fact Ealing Mencap had no paid staff until the late 1980s when Joanna Bell, a long time volunteer, and Harbhajan Purewal were employed as Development Workers. Have a look at the staff photo on pages 10 and 11 of this year’s annual report and you can see how much things have changed since those days.