Colin Adams, far left, with Jeremy Corbyn MP and Brickworks staff and children at Blythwood community nursery

TOMORROW (Saturday) a Crouch Hill community centre will be popping prosecco and reminiscing about 50 years of serving the community.

The Hanley Crouch Community Association was set up in 1972 by local parents who needed somewhere for their children to play. After building an adventure playground and buying a second-hand bus, they soon took over a disused laundry building in Sparsholt Road and The Laundry – as the community centre was called then – came into being.

Today it is named Brickworks, after it moved into a purpose-designed and built centre in Crouch Hill five years ago to better meet the community’s needs.

Moving into the new building – which came with challenges as some neighbours opposed the design – proved that the community association was so much more than bricks and mortar.

For Brickworks director Colin Adams, “service” is in the blood. His mother used to run an old people’s home in Hackney and his father ran a dominoes club there.

Mr Adams, 60, has been at Hanley Crouch for 17 years, having previously worked as a civil servant at Westminster, losing half his salary in the process.

He said: “I’ve been running the centre for 12 years, and for four years or five years before that I used to run the youth club. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to work more on the ground. I ­didn’t want policies that I didn’t see the impact of. I wanted to really work with the people they impact and I thought this was a great opportunity.”

The original Laundry Club

Describing the centre, he said: “I think we’re integral. People rely on us. We don’t judge – we’re just here to help people.”

Brickworks, which is open from 8am until 10pm six nights a week and 6pm on Sundays, and also has a major food bank operating from it, has more than a thousand service users and roughly 30 people working for it.

By any standards it is a success story, but it could have worked out very differently after a financial challenge in the late 1980s nearly saw it close.

Under PM Margaret Thatcher, many services such as community centres went from being mostly funded by their local councils to being almost entirely funded by outside resources – if they managed to survive.

Sally Sturgeon, chair of the board of trustees, remembers clearly campaigning outside Tesco in Stroud Green Road to save the centre.

Describing it as an “outrageous” act at a time when others were simply indignant at the cuts, she suggested that “rebellious” streak saved Brickworks and continues today.

The single mother describes the early days of the centre as a “haven” for local parents and an “adventure” for the children.

“My grandson cried when he came back from a trip. He had a real blast – they’re like a retreat,” she recalled.

She praised it for giving families the chance to send their children on trips that far exceeded their own budgets.

Since then Brickworks has gone from strength to strength but the financials are always a stress. It runs a community nursery and the job centre alongside a stay and play and a centre 404 for disabled groups.

“Everything that we do in there is community focused. And it comes from a need in the community,” Ms Sturgeon added.

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, used to send his son Ben to a playgroup there more than 30 years ago, when he lived in nearby Turle Road.

A trustee for more than 20 years, he was there when they were clearing out the old building and found an old placemat Ben had made when he was just three.

“I really regretted not taking that placemat,” he said, underlining the special place Brickworks has in his heart.