CAMRA, the most successful single-issue consumer organisation in history, was born on Wednesday 16th March 1971, its parents four men from the North West of England who were disillusioned by the “Big Six” domination of the UK beer market – six breweries that were hellbent on destroying a unique British beer style. By January 1972, CAMRA’s 5,000 members needed a newsletter to keep them informed about issues and policies; hence the launch of “What’s Brewing”. Regional branches then slowly followed suit with their own newsletters.
By June 1973, there was a West Lancashire Branch, which covered Lancashire as far west as the Fylde, and a year later that group split and Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Branch was formed. At that time, most of its membership and committee were concentrated in the north Fylde – in Fleetwood, Thornton Cleveleys and Poulton-le-Fylde – and many supporters appeared to be employed by ICI at Thornton. People like Ken Hargreaves, John Hammond, Steve and Danny Crane and Neil Schofield took up some of the first committee posts.
In 1978 West Lancs produced one of the first newsletters in the area, “Ale Cry”, but it wasn’t until March 1990 that our first copy of “Fylde Ale” appeared. Its editor was the late Ian Ward, with Terry Gorst, Andrew Dowling and Gary Walkey helping. The 150 copies of the A4-size, doublesided news-sheet was printed on Blackpool Town Hall’s photocopier, with the cost of printing being paid by pub sponsors such as the Wyre Lounge, Fleetwood. The first issue of FA presented this much missed pub as the Branch’s 1989 Pub Of The Year, chosen from a short list that included the Eagle and Child at Wharles, the Saddle and the Running Pump in Catforth. The winner was described as “one of the most sparkling jewels in Fleetwood’s real ale crown”. There was also a report by Dave Owen on a South Fylde survey trip aimed at improving membership in that area. This, along with a short branch programme, was the sum total of FA Issue Number 1.
However, I have information that proves this wasn’t the Branch’s first attempt at a newsletter. I had heard rumours of something appearing almost a decade earlier. Then I struck gold. I managed to get hold of a publication entitled “Fylde Fermenter” dated September 1982. This was edited by local CAMRA stalwart, Ken Hargreaves. Although not numbered, it seems there were at least three such publications. It was a well-produced, eight page magazine, professionally printed by Alex Pilling Ltd. On the cover was “Free for FRADS” (I guessed that to be “FYLDE REAL ALE DRINKERS SOCIETY”), so it may not have had an official CAMRA connection. It was a wonderful read, bringing back lots of memories. The front page was headed “FOLK PUBS OF THE FYLDE” and listed no less than eight local pubs and clubs that held regular folk evenings. This brought back memories of Tuesday evenings in the Kings Arms on Talbot Road, listening to the Taverners and enjoying Higson’s Bitter (a wonderful beer) – all now sadly gone. Although I had been a CAMRA member for a number of years, it was at that venue I first met some of our local members and was encouraged to work at the next Fleetwood festival.
By the 1990’s, I had long been interested in the magic of beer, but my tastes had moved on from the traditional bland, brown British beer styles. For many years, I had been fascinated by the amazing range of Belgian styles and discovered the new exciting beers coming out of the USA. As early as 1970, I discovered that these beers weren’t available outside their country of origin, quite often not even outside the area where they were brewed. To fund my regular visits abroad to find them, I began selling articles about these beers, bars and breweries to airlines for publication in their in-flight magazine, and amongst my customers were Sabena, KLM, Air France, Pan Am, American Airlines and more. My ability to write with enthusiasm about what others thought of as a mundane subject indirectly led to my appointment, in the late 1980’s, as editor of the Court Service monthly magazine “Court in the Act” (CitA) – as a kind of extension of my day job. By the 1990’s I was regularly attending local CAMRA meetings and working at beer festivals. Although I was never interested in volunteering for any committee posts, I became aware that, in the late 90’s, FA was looking for a new editor. The original founders had not really moved the magazine on. It still consisted of a doubled sided, Roneo’d A4 sheet, produced only very occasionally. Andrew Dowling and I became joint editors in 1998 and the following year Andrew left the job in my hands.
I wanted the magazine to appear at regular intervals, sell some advertising (so we could cover costs and improve presentation) and ensure copies got to all our local members. Initially, I used Microsoft Publisher to lay out the finished article. We used pictures but only line drawings. I approached Forsyth & Steele in Poulton to do the printing and the two partners, Ian and Rob, were amazingly helpful and enthusiastic, and both of them were real ale fans. To move the presentation up a notch, they loaned me a copy of a very expensive professional publishing programme and helped me develop the skills to use it. This resulted in a multi-page, A4 size, glossy magazine, with razor sharp illustrations and a real professional look about it.
This happened at the end of 2003, but I found quite a difference between the production of CitA and FA. For a judicial magazine like CitA, I had to interview, and get contributions from, all kind of professional people – solicitors, barristers, registrars, County, Crown and High Court judges, MP’s and even Cabinet Ministers. When I had to cut, chop and change their articles, they all accepted this without fuss. But when I had to edit FA articles from your regular ordinary members – trying to cut out repetitions, clichés, irrelevancies and, most importantly, potential libels and defamations – they played holy hell. Bloody amateurs!
One of the big stories I covered in FA was the 2006 CAMRA Members’ Weekend, which took place in Blackpool’s Winter Gardens. That also saw our first full colour magazine, thanks to the generosity of Thwaites Brewery. Ted Bruning, at that time lead writer for “What’s Brewing”, told me then that he was a fan of FYLDE ALE, which he saw as a magazine, not just a newsletter. He was amazed that our Regional Director had never l listed it in the “Most Improved Magazine ” category for a Regional CAMRA award. It was no surprise at all to me. In 2006 I passed FA on to Marie Gledhill, who took care of it while I had a couple of years off. Naturally, she contributed some valuable changes herself: the format moved to A5 and this allowed more colour features to appear.
Then Marian and I came back to it in 2008. This heralded the next major change in FA, when we signed up with Matelot Marketing and Tanmoko Design to produce a fine looking, professional magazine. These firms were market leaders in publishing this type of product. Seven trouble-free years followed, working happily with Neil and Dan from those companies – leaving them with the cares of advertising and production costs, and leaving us free to concentrate on the magazine’s editorial content.
Another change we had to accept was about distribution. At one time, FA had been distributed by volunteers to every Branch member as well as to our pubs. But, as our membership numbers grew (now over 2,800), this became an increasingly impractical burden on Marian and me (we had to put copies of FA into personally addressed envelopes) and to all the volunteer distributors. Eventually we gave in to the inevitable and restricted distribution to pubs only. Some diehards protested, but there was no longer any sensible alternative.
That brings me to the vital importance of helpers in all this. Wardy would probably have been at a complete loss without his in the early days of the FA newsletter. And I would have been too.
Not only the contributors and distributors, but also my dear wife, Marian – as aide, counsellor and preserver of my sanity! I cannot thank her and everyone else enough. By 2015 old age had caught up with me, I had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, which left me with problems physical and mental, so we decided to retire gracefully. Our years with FA brought us many friends and it is still a pleasure to be stopped in the street by strangers who recognise us and say how much they enjoyed the magazine. One amazingly popular feature was “A Postcard From …”. Each edition chose a different city, area, country and told about good bars, beers and things of interest. That brought in lots of letters, often from people who had built an enjoyable holiday around my recommendations. When J. D Wetherspoon opened their amazing, three-storey Velvet Coaster pub in Blackpool (the biggest in the UK), they were kind enough to mark the event by asking me to pull the first pint of beer! What a fantastic note to finish on! Fortunately, my friend and fellow enthusiast, Neil Pascoe, was prepared to take over the magazine from me and the story of FYLDE ALE has been able to continue. Long may it do so!
Alan Doggart
You might wonder what happened to FA since Alan and Marian’s retirement in 2015. Well, I don’t want to add much to Alan’s excellent and fascinating story. But the figures speak for themselves. Alan edited FA for (by my estimate) 14 years all told and produced some 62 editions. My own paltry contribution was 3 years and 10 editions. He is up with there with the other great stalwarts of this Branch, such as Ian Ward (who, amongst his many other achievements, produced the first 13 editions of FA). Alas, our arrangement with Matelot did not long survive Alan’s editorship, and that with its successor, Studio Capital, started well but also foundered eventually. This happened on my watch, so I cannot escape all of the blame. I am told magazine publishing like this is not the lucrative business it once was, though Matelot still manages somehow to continue publishing CAMRA mags. We once published FA ourselves (Alan did it in his first period of editorship), but problems emerged later on and we switched to Matelot. The last expedient of publishing on-line was better than nothing but was not (in my opinion) as effective a campaigning approach as hard copy. My own assessment was (and still is) that, to avoid past problems and manage the commercial risks properly, hard copy self-publishing requires more than one person. Ideally, I think it needs a small, dedicated team – much as Central Lancs have for “Ale Cry”. But that is a thought that I must now pass on to any new editor – with my best wishes for the future.
Neil Pascoe
Since the departure of Neil as FA editor the branch has struggled to find a replacement. At the 2018 AGM the post remained vacant and the future of FA was uncertain. Unwilling to lose this important campaigning tool, the committee revisited some previous ideas and decided that the best way to keep FA alive was through digital publication. A new, more dynamic FA was launched here on WordPress. The overall aim was to help us keep this longstanding branch asset alive, deliver news more frequently and provide a forum for people to discuss their views on the various articles .
In early 2025 when we decided to migrate our branch website over to CAMRA’s “Beer Engine” Unfortunately a small oversight resulted in us losing the existing Fylde Ale site and the articles posted on it.
Over the years FA has welcomed letters, photographs, news, views and articles from its readers and we would much like to continue to feature your contributions for the foreseeable future. Should you have anything you would like featured, please keep them short and to the point, send them to a member of the branch committee.
Matt Walker