Wednesday 2 June 2010

Ancient Order of Froth Blowers

I found this in a charity shop in Putney last week. Does anyone else recognise what it is ?



The Ancient Order of Froth Blowers was a charitable group of beer drinkers that ran from 1924 to 1931 - at its peak over 700,000 had paid the life membership fee of five shillings which included a rather natty pair of cufflinks.
The following is a quote from their membership handbook :

A sociable and law abiding fraternity of absorptive Britons who sedately consume and quietly enjoy with commendable regularity and frequention the truly British malted beverage as did their forbears and as Britons ever will, and be damned to all pussyfoot hornswogglers from overseas and including low brows, teetotalers and MPs and not excluding nosey parkers, mock religious busy bodies and suburban fool hens all of which are structurally solid bone from the chin up

Amen to that, I say.

For more information, I can do no better on this blog than to draw attention to the very excellent Friends of the Froth Blowers website : www.frothblowers.co.uk

or for a shorter history, take a look at Wikipedia

5 comments:

BryanB said...

Hear hear!

Anonymous said...

Amazing. I must look out for a tankard like this. What is the going rate for one?

The Beer Justice said...

I guess it's worth what someone will pay for it. Mine was an £8 donation to Cancer Research. I have never seen one for sale before so I suppose they are fairly scarce. The cufflinks are often seen on Ebay and I have since bought a pair for £12

Tiny Thompson said...

Not "Any Old Fat Bird" then?

Rudolph said...

Well you live and learn something new everyday..! Could it be Any One For Beer?