Ian Board
{{Short description|English bar owner}}
{{Use dmy dates|date= June 2021}}
{{Use British English|date= June 2021}}
File:39-41 Dean Street (geograph 5702589).jpg, at the far right]]
Ian David Archibald Board (16 December 1929 – 26 June 1994) was an English nightclub owner who ran The Colony Room Club in Dean Street in London's Soho district, from 1981 to 1994, having taken it over from Muriel Belcher who founded the private drinking club in 1948.{{cite news |last1=Howse |first1=Christopher |title=Obituary: Ian Board |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-ian-board-1425669.html |access-date=17 June 2021 |work=The Independent |date=27 June 1994}}
Early life
Board grew up in a poor family in Exeter, and his mother died when he was four years old. He liked neither his father nor his stepmother, and as a teenager ran away to London. On arrival, he went to Speakers' Corner and picked up a man, and lived with him for some weeks. He later worked as a commis waiter in Soho's Greek Street.
Career
Board served behind the bar at the Colony Room Club for 46 years, initially as Belcher's barman, and after she died as its proprietor.{{cite news |last1=Jennings |first1=Clive |title=Drink-Up Pay-Up F-Off: Tales from the Colony – London's Lost Bohemia |url=https://www.artlyst.com/news/drink-pay-f-off-tales-colony-londons-lost-bohemia/ |access-date=18 June 2021 |work=artlyst |date=9 May 2018}}
He assiduously cultivated the custom of artists including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Michael Andrews, and Barry Flanagan. One night, he ejected Bacon from the premises with the words, "Get out! Call yourself a painter. You can't fucking paint. Take your boring friends with you and don't bother coming back."
Board was known for carrying on Belcher's tradition of obscene language, with tirades to drunken customers such as "Look at you, you great lump, just take a look at yourself. You're a sad and pathetic sight. For fuck's sake pull yourself together..."
Board was gay, and the club under Belcher, herself a lesbian, had always been a safe space to be openly homosexual.{{cite news |last1=Bennett |first1=Oliver |title=Licor-ish allsorts |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/jan/16/weekend.oliverbennett |access-date=19 June 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=16 January 1999}} However, it was never exclusively so, and as Board said, "I don't mind those poofs, as long as they keep their distance."
Aged 60, Board stopped drinking brandy for breakfast, but continued to drink vodka at home in the morning, and from noon to 11 pm would consume vodka and brandy at the club.
Michael Wojas worked there as a barman and "Board's sidekick" for 13 years, and was bequeathed the club by Board at his 1994 death.{{cite news |last1=Willetts |first1=Paul |title=Michael Wojas obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jun/11/michael-wojas-obituary |access-date=18 June 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=11 June 2010}}