Hastings RSA just won't fade away

JONATHAN DOW
"I haven't been in a pub in years," says Les More, nursing a handle of beer and watching the racing on the TV.
It's 2.30 in the afternoon and there are about two dozen people at the Hastings RSA.
As a former member of the territorials, Mr More is an associate member of what was last year re-named the Returned and Services Association.
"The atmosphere here leaves a pub for dead," the Blenheim man says.
The Hastings RSA has about 2500 members and more than half are still returned servicemen.
"But it is changing a bit," says president Trevor Harie. Bringing in associate members, who have not been members of the armed forces has "kept it alive".
Some RSAs are struggling, some are amalgamating - but not Hastings.
Today most of the people in the club look far too young to have served in WW II.
But members of the 22nd Battalion - about 33 when you count their wives - had their annual luncheon earlier in the day. But next Tuesday, Anzac Day, the club will be "bursting at the seams," Mr Harie says.
The lone smoker has been shifted outside. Only three of the 18 pokie machines are free. Men are watching the racing and rugby. The sound is up on the daytime soap, but no-one is watching it.
The anti-smoking laws have kept away about 5 percent of their customers, but that isn't as bad as others who have lost up to 25 percent, Mr Harie says.
"Old codgers - but all gentlemen," is how one of the snooker players describes his crew.
Four of the six tables are in use but I need to be here on a Tuesday afternoon when there will be 35 blokes playing in the sixty-plus club.
But you need to be sharp to be able to play your shot and keep up the constant good-natured banter with your opponents.
"It's just what ex-servicemen do," says Fred Pederson, 81, who served in the air force at Guadalcanal in 1945, and has been a member of the RSA since then.
Brent Harris, 27, is the youngest here. The Hastings man joined as an associate member so he could play snooker, as his uncles do in Waipukurau and Havelock North.