A searching look at the rise and fall of the youth club by renowned cultural documentarian Emma Warren, highlighting the seismic impact they have had on UK culture and why we need to ensure their existence for future generations.

For anyone who wants to understand how tragic that is, there is now a set text: a recently published book titled Up the Youth Club, by the journalist and writer Emma Warren, is both a superb work of social history, and a passionate call for a newly energised, modern version of everything she writes about. Her story goes back 150 years, and is split between the state and voluntary sectors. What ties everything together is the provision of what she describes as “warm and welcoming” spaces, where “those who are in their second decade of life can gather regularly … to do things they like doing … where restorative ‘hanging out’ is welcome”. There is fascinating material about trailblazing meeting places for LGBTQ+ people, the centrality of youth clubs to the music scenes of cities such as Bristol and Coventry, and their role as connection points in postwar new towns. And one theme recurs time and again: the plain fact that youth services ought to be thought of as one of the public realm’s most basic elements. by John Harris Britain’s youth clubs have been quietly decimated. What’s most revealing is that few seem to care | John Harris | The Guardian