Thursday, October 1

Another One Bites the Dust

I got a call recently to pick up a fare at the Kings pub at Hawcoat in Barrow In Furness. When I got there it turned out that one of the men I was picking up was Barrows Ex Mayor councillor Jack Richardson who was quite the worse for wear. As he tried to climb into the back seat he fell off the pavement and landed on his backside and had to be helped into the car by his friend.

Councillor Richardson was so drunk that it wasn't easy to understand his slur of words as he tried to explain where he wanted to go to. Eventually we made it to his house then carried on the journey with the other passenger in the car.

So why was our ex mayor so drunk that he couldnt stand up or speak? Was he preparing himself for a council meeting? No.. Nothing like that as his friend explains.


For a number of years now the councillors son has been running the village pub at Hawcoat which is actually a nice quiet pub with its regular local yokels from the village visiting their local hostelry most evenings. Now this pub is one of the oldest in the town and a little bit of history research tells me that it was built in 1860 by a Mr King who then applied for Cliff Lane (the street that the pub is on) to be renamed King Street. The application was refused so he named the pub the Kings Arms and it was granted a full license in 1874



So why is our councillor drunk?? Because it was to be the final night of the pub being open.
135 years that pub has been serving beer and its now the end of an era. Another pub bites the dust and possibly due to the credit crunch.

Unfortunately the pub will not be handed over to a new tenant as the brewery have stated that the pub isn't profitable and it will no longer be a pub.

I guess it will be converted into houses or flats like other pubs in the town have been.

Some of the regulars that live in the village never see many people and are quite elderly. Some of these people use the pub to meet up and socialise. What will they do now? The village pub is dying out. Not many left in this area.

So now you know, Councillor Richardson was supporting his son and enjoying a last drink with friends in a pub which has been home to many people in the village and very soon will just be a fond distant memory

2 comments:

al said...

the goverment have managed to wreck this country dam shame

Inactive said...

Haven't been in the pub in question, so I can only judge from the Hartley's name. But I don't think I've ever been in one of their pubs and had a beer that I would call above average (at best).

Sad for the owners and regulars obviously, but personally I see a lot of these "cookie cut" pubs (where they always seem to do the "bare minimum" of effort) just give up and say it's "not profitable" without increasing that effort in the slightest. At the same time other pubs are opening after being spruced up a bit, selling real ale and looking after their customers and seem to be riding the storm just fine.

That's not to say the government doesn't hold a fair chunk of the blame. What they fail to realise is that a culture can't be changed by taxing it to death. We're a country that loves drinking, acknowledges the risks but wants to enjoy it regardless. If they try to tax it out of us, the economy will simply adapt.