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Royal British Legion clubs struggling to survive

Fri 5th Mar, 2010 • Scotsman

Membership of the Royal British Legion has fallen by more than 37 per cent since 1995, to 47,000 in Scotland. There are now only 5,800 members in Edinburgh, which means that many local Legion clubs are struggling to survive. One of the region's oldest clubs, Portobello, has seen numbers tumble from 1,700 a decade ago to just 700. This is not enough to keep it going, and to open up such clubs to the general public would threaten their charitable status.Hundreds of public houses have called time in Scotland in recent months, and the smoking ban is one of the main reasons. But when Portobello's Legion joins them next month, the town's only war "memorial" will also close.

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