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| Well,
when did you have your first pint in
Prescot? Did you sneak out
at lunchtime to the old British Soldier?
How much
did you pay for that first jar of nectar?
Let the
PRESCOTIAN know how!
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| Ray Hubbard |
It was speech day
evening in November 1967- I was a cool 15
studying hard (??) for "O"
levels. After a series of exciting
speeches in the new "Spencer Davis
hall" we went hotfoot to the Kings
Arms (now the Fusilier). my two pals
("Jacko"-Dave Jackson and Pete
Bellard) seemed more familiar with pubs
and I was loaned a cravat (well-it was
the swinging sixties) to hide my obvious
youthfulness and told to sit in the
corner so the bar man couldn't see me. I
was provided with a pint of double
diamond for just under two bob (10p these
days)and I recall wondering what all the
fuss was about--I soon returned to my
then favourite tipple of hayes and
connings' cream soda. Happy and innocent
days!!! |
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| Sean Connor |
My first pint in
Prescot was taken at the Deanes House,
probably around 1979. I would have been
around 16 at the time ( a late starter
!). Myself and Tony McClennan boldly
marched up to the bar and
ordered two pints of "Best
Bitter". We were rewarded with two
glasses of frothy brown Greenhall's which
we proceeded to down in a suitably manly
fashion (or so we thought).
Later on that year the management changed
and on one visit we were marched straight
through and out the back door !
Does anybody remember the odd taps at The
Deanes that swept out each half pint
through a glass cylinder ? Bitter was
around 45p a pint I seem to remember,
with Mild at 38p.
Later on (sixth form) "The
Welly" was the venue of choice
becoming almost the sixth form common
room. We'd start at around 8.00pm
(Friday) and would finally be turfed out
just before midnight !
The landlord at the time had a rather
despotic son who used to imagine that he
ruled the place. He would ban us on a
fairly regular basis for the smallest of
sins. Anybody remember the infamous
"Pool Cue" incident ? |
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| Paul Gerrard |
My first pint in
a pub was at Maggie Sharkies in Rainhill,
a.k.a The Black Horse, now known as The
Rocket. It was a grubby little old pub in
those days, just after my 15th birthday,
so that's November 1969, and they weren't
too particular about your age. We marched
in, three or four of us I think,
including Chris Trimnell from PGS, all
stood at the bar and ordered, separately,
in squeaky voices, "Brown bitter
please!" Price 2s 6d. Bitter
was 2s, mild 1s 10d, Grunhalle (be still
my aching guts!) 2s 9d. One of our team
naively ordered a "Macardi and
coke". I used to go out with a quid,
get smashed in Maggies (about three
pints), chicken and chips from Livesey's
chippie on the way home, jump the bus,
and still have change! Happy days! |
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| Trevor Powell |
First pint[1968]
at the old, long gone Kings Arms.... 1/8
for bitter BUT 1/10 for Double Diamond.
[For you whippersnappers, the Kings Arms
stood where the Fusillier is now!] In
1998, I went into a pub in Brixham that
was in a time warp. It was selling draft
Double Diamond. I thought for old times
sake I would have a pint of this nectar.
Yukkk.. it was like drinking neat sugar! |
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| Paul Carey |
I distinctly
remember that at the start of my drinking
career, about 1969/70, you could buy
Burtonwood bitter for 2/6 (i.e. 12.5p) a
pint in the Childwall Abbey pub. We used
to drink there because they were not
fussy (= didn't give a monkey's) about
how old you were. When I was down because
my motorbike wouldn't work or or some
reason like that, my mum would give me a
£1 note, which was sufficient to become
absolutely rat-arsed in said
establishment.
A couple of years later hyper-inflation
was just starting up. When the price of a
pint of Tetleys in Leeds Uni Student
Union leapt from 12p to 16p a pint in one
go, there was panic, confusion, tears and
threats of a boycott. And you tell that
to young people nowadays ....
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| Mick Howarth |
Yeah - I remember
when I was a student (64-67) buying lager
for 1/10 a pint in central London. Wasn't
the same money though - I remember living
quite well on a full County Grant of
about £350 a year topped up with a PGS
scholarship of ?£25 a year and a Ford
scolarship of ?£40 a year. Ford actually
insisted on me taking the train out to
Dagenham once a year to account for how I
was spending their money!
Here in France I don't go to pubs
(sniff!)and bars aren't the same thing.
Last beer I bought was a six pack of 1664
lager - a litre and a half for 4€ 35
- the mathematically minded can convert
that to pounds per pint! |
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| Jeff Easthope |
Amazing how the
price of liquid refreshment can elicit
such an interest. Yes Mick when I was a
student I worked as a barman on the
weekends at the Queens in Huyton, next to
the train station. A pint of Walkers best
bitter was 1 shilling and twopence in the
Bar, and 1 shilling and fourpence in the
"posher" lounge. I just came
back from England and was in
"sticker shock" at most of the
prices... |
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| Tom Storrow |
A great thread -
bound to conjure up all manner of
nostalgia, though we should all beware of
it developing along the lines of the
Monty Python four Yorkshiremen!
My first time out for a drink (rather
than filched bottles on the quiet) was
with my dad and grandad - honest! I was
15, so it must have been 1971. They were
going for a pint to the working mens club
in Haydock where my grandad was chairman
and I was taken along - rites of passage
and all that. I was allowed halves to
their pints and I'm pretty sure that it
was 2/6 or 12.5 pence (can't remember
whether it was just before or after
decimalisation day!) |
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| Matt O'Hove |
First beer
drinking took place on trips to Dent or
walking the Pennine Way. Newcastle Brown
was the favoured beer. It seemed to have
iconic status in the early 70's.
Later on we would also drink in the
Queens and awful places in town, such as
the Star & Garter. I do remember
pints at around 12 "new" pence.
Interestingly, in the mid-70's the lads
(about 16-years-old)would drink brown
bitter. This was just before lager became
the beer of choice for children. By the
late-70's we hankered after Skol Special.
Now we are all grown up and drink real
ale or Guinness (virtually £3 in
Brighton). |
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| Alan Higham |
My first attempt
to be really really grown up, a venture
into the world of spirits. The Victoria
(aka The Long Pull, although I thought
that happened when you got into bed later
on...)and a drink I wouldnt be seen dead
with now. Can you still buy it?
This was summer of '77, just before my
16th birthday, when I graduated to my
Suzuki AP50 (WTU 456R, where are you
now?)and immediately found that the
freedom of the open road allowed me to
visit such far flung exotic outposts as
Rainhill, where the women were much
classier, as all of their tattoos were
spelt correctly. The Manor Farm, what
class... and my first taste of Burtonwood
Bitter. Good times.. surpassed only when
the car licence came, allowing
unaccompanied piloting of my dads 4
wheeled mobile shagging boudoir,(me, not
him..) an s plate pale blue mk 4 Cortina.
What style! £1.10 in the
Fusilier (The Kings Arms, in old
money...) all day until 5pm or 7pm
depending on the day of the week.And the
bonus of being back close to yer
roots...follow it up with a Rays pie or a
Greek bag of Chips!
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| David Bowen |
I recollect a PSG
school trip to a Liverpool
cinema/thaeatre to view a film version of
Macbeth (or was it Hamlet?) The highlight
of the trip was the bar! The teacher to
pupil ratio was low, the chance of a pint
without being caught was high so the
interval saw a manic rush to down a beer
before being spotted. This was my first
chance to grab a pint of beer and, in all
honesty, I couldn't understand what all
the fuss was about. It was only in later
life that I began to appreciate the
qualities of well brewed beer.
The unnervering part of the event was
after the evening finished. Someone who
obviously couldn't hold their beer
decided to regurgiate at the top of the
staircross as we were leaving. I have a
(thankfully) faint recollection of vomit
dribling down the bannister! |
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Alan Brooks
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I first remember
drinking at the tender age of about 15
(circa 1959) in a tiny little Greenall
Whitley pub, called the Stanley Arms, out
in the country about half way between
Eccleston, where I lived, and Prescot.
Beer was 1s.3d a pint in old money.
They had an outside chemical toilet and I
remember being sick there once and losing
my false teeth into the toilet.
Fortunately, when I looked into the
toilet, they were still sitting on top of
the decomposing pile of human waste and I
managed to rescue them, wash them, and
put them back in, to avoid having to
explain to my mother how I'd lost them.
This instilled in me a reflex action to
instinctively remove my false teeth first
whenever I am sick.
I later "graduated" to, I think
it was the Seven Stars, on the other side
of Eccleston village, where I first saw
the pumps mentioned by Sean Connor which
dispensed half a pint at a time through a
horizontal glass cylinder.
In my final couple of years I played
Hockey, as a schoolboy member
(subscription 5s a year and they called
you up whenever they were short) for
Liverpool Sefton H.C. which at the time
played in Huyton. Des Roberts was the
first team captain there, so on Saturdays
I was drinking in the bar with
"Des" and on Mondays it was
back to "Sir" (does anybody
remember the left-hand drive Mercedes he
brought over from Germany with him when
he first joined the school ?). |
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| James Hobson |
My first pint was
very late-I was almost not underage. It
was the summer of 1976 and the German
group were on an evening trip to
Manchester to see some Brecht play.
Afterwards we all went into a ghastly
Bass Charrington pub in a precinct
in Oxford Road, near the University. I
remember Dave Tilley being there-is he
still about?- I went to the bar and a
half of carling cost me 14p.It was
dreadful.
More or less 12 months later I was at
University swilling beer in bucketloads.
I blame this on my sheltered time at PGS. |
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