I don’t remember the goat outside the Trevor or for that matter the chap who lived on the meadows in a tent, but I do know that back in the 1970s we could still display an amazing degree of stupidity.
Our neighbour Keith and I were sitting on his front garden wall yesterday talking about what we remember of Chorlton back around 1976 when we both first moved to the area.
It turns out we inhabited the same pubs and equally avoided the same ones.
And as were talking about Stan and Mona who ran the Trevor he came up with the story of the man who brought his goat to the pub and for the price of a couple of pints hired it out to customers who used it instead of a lawn mower.
Now that one passed me by but I do remember the chap who lived on the meadows in a tent although I had forgotten that he wandered around Chorlton in all weathers without his shirt or that late at night he would sometimes stand outside one pub on the green and begin howling which set the dogs off.
But what I do remember vividly was the level of intolerance and misguided thinking which still stalked the 1970s.
It was there in the latent forms of racism along with what was peddled by the far right and was challenged in all sorts of ways from Rock Against Racism and the big demonstrations to everyday activities at street level.
And then there was that other powerful form of discrimination which took it for granted that women should be paid less for doing the same job as a man and regularly ignored them when opportunities arose for promotion.
I can still remember the derision and outright hostility to the Equal Pay Act of 1970 from some people and had to endure at least two colleagues who bored me stiff with their unease at working for a woman head teacher.
So I was not surprised at Keith’s memories of running dart teams in the Trevor and encountering consternation and opposition from some pubs to the fact that he fielded a mixed team.
In one case one pub grudgingly accepted the team but the landlord did so only on condition that the women did not drink.
Suffice to say Keith and the team didn’t accept any of that prejudice.
Now discrimination and hate crimes do not go away and every generation has to struggle a fresh against such intolerance, moreover we are seeing some very nasty outbreaks at present.
But some battles do seem to have receded and today would be met with sheer bewilderment.
And so it is with the idea that a dart’s team should be all male or that you could even think of refusing a drink to someone because they were a woman.
But perhaps not and it would be interesting to have more memories, and stories of mindless prejudice as well as accounts of how all of that was challenged.
Picture; the Trevor Arms in the 1970s courtesy of Lois Elsden and the political badges,1970s-80s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
 |
| The Trevor, circa 1975 |
It turns out we inhabited the same pubs and equally avoided the same ones.
And as were talking about Stan and Mona who ran the Trevor he came up with the story of the man who brought his goat to the pub and for the price of a couple of pints hired it out to customers who used it instead of a lawn mower.
Now that one passed me by but I do remember the chap who lived on the meadows in a tent although I had forgotten that he wandered around Chorlton in all weathers without his shirt or that late at night he would sometimes stand outside one pub on the green and begin howling which set the dogs off.
But what I do remember vividly was the level of intolerance and misguided thinking which still stalked the 1970s.
 |
| From the mid 1980s |
And then there was that other powerful form of discrimination which took it for granted that women should be paid less for doing the same job as a man and regularly ignored them when opportunities arose for promotion.
I can still remember the derision and outright hostility to the Equal Pay Act of 1970 from some people and had to endure at least two colleagues who bored me stiff with their unease at working for a woman head teacher.
So I was not surprised at Keith’s memories of running dart teams in the Trevor and encountering consternation and opposition from some pubs to the fact that he fielded a mixed team.
In one case one pub grudgingly accepted the team but the landlord did so only on condition that the women did not drink.
 |
| From the late 1970s |
Now discrimination and hate crimes do not go away and every generation has to struggle a fresh against such intolerance, moreover we are seeing some very nasty outbreaks at present.
But some battles do seem to have receded and today would be met with sheer bewilderment.
And so it is with the idea that a dart’s team should be all male or that you could even think of refusing a drink to someone because they were a woman.
But perhaps not and it would be interesting to have more memories, and stories of mindless prejudice as well as accounts of how all of that was challenged.
Picture; the Trevor Arms in the 1970s courtesy of Lois Elsden and the political badges,1970s-80s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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