An Institute, An Institution...

I read an amusing take on the Gentlemen's Club scene in this weekends FT. Pretty much all of which one could concur with. The underlying reasons for the institutions and such social groupings themselves make a lot of sense, given the tribal nature of the human race. Even the pathologically un-clubbable, such as myself - who refused point-blank to entertain the notion of joining any youth group that had a uniform and swore allegiance to anything whatsoever - find ways of group-forming. In my case it was 'The Lads', an umbrella term that encompassed a motley group of school-friends and their partners. Many years, nay decades, ago, my mate Pete [Powerful Pierre]'s dad used to work at the Birmingham & Midlands Institute on Margaret Street in the centre of Birmingham, which was, to me, a kind of cross between a seat of learning and a club. It had, and still has, a great library, and a programme of arts, music and science events throughout the calendar year, all of which occur within the precincts of its lovely Grade 2* listed, red-brick building. It's highbrow in a good way, like the Welsh caban.

I used to gravitate there when I lost interest in attending Sixth Form at school, going to read in one of its side rooms on the second floor of its lovely old Victorian edifice. I remember an encounter on the stairs with someone who to my seventeen-year-old eyes and ears seemed an old and posh buffer - although I suspect now he was neither old nor a 'buffer' - who, as I skipped down the stairwell, proffered cheerily "... off for your morning constitutional?": my reply was a rather cheeky "Oh yes, I've not been yet..." Make of this what you will; however, the BMI was and is an august and egalitarian institution founded on the kind of principles sorely lacking in our current 'version' of society. These kinds of places, like public libraries, baths and parks, are the very institutions we need, where they still exist, to support and succour: the very antithesis of exclusivity, and thankfully available to all.