Last Waltz for the Country Bumpkin

"Twelve hours earlier they’d been dancing, laughing and drinking here"
The Country Bumpkin on Sunday Morning

Other towns had their Locarno Ballrooms, their Mecca Dance Halls – Andover prosaic to the last, had the drill Hall, otherwise the TA Centre, otherwise, possibly in a desperate effort to tart up the image, the oddly names Country Bumpkin.
(Image reproduced by kind permission of The Andover Advertiser)
(Click here for larger photo)

But it didn’t matter – the great sprawling building just behind the town’s main street was where every emotion from love to hate spilt out under the glittering lights. As it disappeared beneath the flames early on Sunday morning there was a lot of “I remembers” being spoken by spectators who arrived in the darkness and continued to arrive throughout Sunday and the following week to stand and stare and share memories.

The funny old building occupies a special sentimental niche for Andoverians. For how many did love flower in the smoke filled interior as the years rolled on and the music changed tempo from the Charleston through the waltz & quickstep, rock & roll, jive, reggae & disco. How many weddings reported in this paper had included the immortal phrase “The couple meet at the TA Centre or “The Country Bumpkin”.
(Click here for larger photo)

Did it have a heyday? For every generation it certainly did. For many older Andoverians it was the place where the towns premier balls were held – be invited to the annual Police ball in the late 40’s & 50’s and you had attended the highest spot in the town’s social calendar. Then the last interior was banked with flowers (supplied by the borough council’s parks department). Rows of sitting out chairs appeared, the Mayor attended and the latest ballroom fashions appeared

The war years must have been a lot different. More austere & the old TA memories even more poignant. It was a place to forget the awful outside world because inside there was music, laughter & friends. Outside it was darkness & loud noises of a war to be fought.

Those war-time days must have recalled for many the times when the drill hall first came into being. It was built by the well know Andover firm F.A.Beale & Sons, whose Adelaide Road premises have now disappeared.

In 1905 it was opened for the Army Volunteers forerunners of the TA. In the 1914-18 war it held grimmer memories, being used as a call up & enlistment centre.
Side by side with the Army use & the special events were the political meetings. Many MPs including Patrick Denner of Hustbourne Park spoke there & on one occasion in the early 40’s the renowned communist, Harry Pollitt, addressed over 600 trade unionists urging them to support the war effort.
(Click here for lager photo)

The old building gradually presented a more and more battered appearance as it’s clientele pounded it’s foundations and battered walls. Ten years ago the TA put it on the market and with some sprit of enlightenment the Andover Borough Council wanted to buy it but the post office serviced it on a compulsory purchase order to use it for one week a year for Christmas mail.

It looked as though the drill halls heyday had passed and it was in decline in the ‘60s. But there was rescue around the corner – Anton Promotions moved in, dreamed up the incredible name of the Country Bumpkin & the show hit the road, very different in style from the sedate mood of the earlier eras.

A colourful parade of patrons arrived. There were scuffles inside & outside. Cricklade College sent hordes of its students for annual discos and it became a great gathering place.

“See you up the Bumpkin” was the cry on Saturday nights in Andover. What else was there to do? Inevitably the Bumpkin hit the headlines as soldiers clashed with the local youths & gave police headaches sorting them out.

But although it attracted unwelcome publicity on such occasions the dear old Bumpkin was serving a purpose. It was a place, as it always had been, providing the ingredients of a good night out – drinks, music & girls & the last waltz was still being played, but that’s only a echo now

(The above article appeared on page 5 of the Andover Advertiser on the 14th October 1983 - By Ann Shaw)

17.03.2008. 11:41