Now, you have to be a certain age to remember when pubs looked like this.
Of course there are a few which have been given a make over to recreate that nostalgic, edgy feel, which I suspect have been dreamed up by “bright young things” whose early years were taken up with Teletubbies, and Ninja Turtles and in later years experimenting with dangerous cocktails during Happy Hour in the local café bar.
I remember the originals, which at best had worn and frayed carpets, but more usually just bare floorboards with outside lavatories for the gents and smelt of stale beer.
The walls and ceiling shouted nicotine, and the cutting age of sophistication was a bottle of babycham, which might come with a range of flavoured crisps, but if it did, they were limited to cheese and onion.
Not that such places were exclusive to the industrial north, in my youth I explored similar ones in Woolwich, and Peckham, with a variation found in Kent villages which offered rough cider at a shilling a pint.
But I am being unfair, because rooms like this in pubs were variously called the Public or the Vault. Step around the corner into the saloon and there was a degree of comfort and even style.
This one was the Queens Arms and was on Rochdale Road at the corner of Goodier Street.
It has gone now, although I think the building still exists, or at least did last year, and traded as the Sundown Hotel.
This building is a treasure in itself, and still bears the name Walker’s Warrington and Falstaff Ales, which offers ups a fascinating area of research.
For now, I will stick with what the pub looked like in 1967.
The side room is dominated by the darts board, the battered tables and worn lino, and in the absence of central heating, the grate has been laid for a fire.
Behind the bar are signed photographs of some of the Coronation cast, pendants for Man City, Oldham Athletic, and Stockport County and a supply of the original Smiths Crisps.
And because we are in a side room, some of the pictures are stuck on the wall with tape, as is the winning lottery number, and while the Red Island Calendar tells us we are in 1967, no one has bothered to take down the German calendar for 1961 with it exhortation to “Take a break” with Coca-Cola.
Now, that is the sort of detail that our 21st century pub designers would miss.
Nor would they think of making sure the floor was just that bit uneven which in turn would require a folded beer mat to balance the wobbly table.
And I am absolutely sure that they would never be able to perfectly replicate thirty years of accumulated nicotine on the walls and ceiling, or come up with a mismatch of potted plants to adorn a window sill.
All of which leaves me to reflect on whether I miss places like the Queens Arms.
A bit of me does, but I know even then I would have chosen the Saloon over the Vault.
And perhaps the Queens Arms would have been a pub too far, given that that I might well have fallen into the Forrester's Arms, which it turns out became the Sundown Hotel.
Which of course means that I got it wrong.
The Forrester's Arms stood on the corner of Rochdale Road and Kingsbridge Road, which I incorrectly assumed had been a new name for Goodier Street.
You can't get more wrong.
And for the correction I have Andy Robertson to thank who on request sent over a picture of the hotel which had once been the Forrester's Arms, and made doubly sure by digging out an old image of the Forrester's Arms.
A quick glance at the excellent site Pubs of Manchester has offered up a shedload of Queens Arms, so as they say the search goes on.
Location; Manchester
Picture; The Forrester's Arms, 2018, The Queens Arms, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection",
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY
I remember the originals, which at best had worn and frayed carpets, but more usually just bare floorboards with outside lavatories for the gents and smelt of stale beer.
The walls and ceiling shouted nicotine, and the cutting age of sophistication was a bottle of babycham, which might come with a range of flavoured crisps, but if it did, they were limited to cheese and onion.
But I am being unfair, because rooms like this in pubs were variously called the Public or the Vault. Step around the corner into the saloon and there was a degree of comfort and even style.
This one was the Queens Arms and was on Rochdale Road at the corner of Goodier Street.
It has gone now, although I think the building still exists, or at least did last year, and traded as the Sundown Hotel.
This building is a treasure in itself, and still bears the name Walker’s Warrington and Falstaff Ales, which offers ups a fascinating area of research.
The side room is dominated by the darts board, the battered tables and worn lino, and in the absence of central heating, the grate has been laid for a fire.
Behind the bar are signed photographs of some of the Coronation cast, pendants for Man City, Oldham Athletic, and Stockport County and a supply of the original Smiths Crisps.
And because we are in a side room, some of the pictures are stuck on the wall with tape, as is the winning lottery number, and while the Red Island Calendar tells us we are in 1967, no one has bothered to take down the German calendar for 1961 with it exhortation to “Take a break” with Coca-Cola.
Nor would they think of making sure the floor was just that bit uneven which in turn would require a folded beer mat to balance the wobbly table.
And I am absolutely sure that they would never be able to perfectly replicate thirty years of accumulated nicotine on the walls and ceiling, or come up with a mismatch of potted plants to adorn a window sill.
All of which leaves me to reflect on whether I miss places like the Queens Arms.
And perhaps the Queens Arms would have been a pub too far, given that that I might well have fallen into the Forrester's Arms, which it turns out became the Sundown Hotel.
Which of course means that I got it wrong.
The Forrester's Arms stood on the corner of Rochdale Road and Kingsbridge Road, which I incorrectly assumed had been a new name for Goodier Street.
And for the correction I have Andy Robertson to thank who on request sent over a picture of the hotel which had once been the Forrester's Arms, and made doubly sure by digging out an old image of the Forrester's Arms.
A quick glance at the excellent site Pubs of Manchester has offered up a shedload of Queens Arms, so as they say the search goes on.
Location; Manchester
Picture; The Forrester's Arms, 2018, The Queens Arms, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection",
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY
I recently entered a pub on the Holloway Road in London which hasn't changed since ca1970 though it was different from those you describe. No real ale or craft beer, heavy red velvet curtains and a number of morose, I think given the area, Irish men on their own drinking Guinness an be watching the arsenal game. A sort of Watneys time warp, not lamented.
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