In the April of 1963 Dad was told he had got his first pub and we were all told that we would be moving to Liverpool. A great big van turned up one day and all the house was packed up into it. Mum and us three boys had to sit in the dark in the back all the way to the south end of Liverpool, only about an hour’s journey but it seemed forever. When we got there and they opened the back of the van, there was no green it was all brick and black roads and everyone’s voice was funny. The shops joined straight on to our new house, which was the Mersey Forge Hotel. A corner pub on Mill street and Harlow Street in Toxteth, right opposite was the Great Eastern, named after a famous Steam ship. This was a world I had never even dreamt of, very strange for a ten year old country boy. No grass, no trees, rows and rows of houses and great big blocks of tenement housing.
It was huge compared to our little two bedroom house in Burscough. The pub was three stories above ground with a cellar to store all the beer in. I was not allowed down in the cellar, that was totally off limits for us children. From the outside the pub had tiles to the ground floor windows in black and cream and them cream painted pebble dash to the roof. All the windows looked out on to the front on Mill street and to the side on Harlow Street. Our private entrance was on to Mill street alongside the “vaults” entrance and the main pub entrance in to the “lounge” was on Harlow street. When you went into the pub via our private entrance there were two flight of stairs going up what seemed to be to heaven but right at the top was the private toilet. When you sat on the loo with the door open you hoped no one came in the front door. On the first floor was our private quarters, the front room overlooked Mill street, as you went down the side over Harlow street was mum and dads room and the kitchen. My room was on the top floor and the twins room was in the side bit over the vaults bar.
We are all invited down the road to an old closed pub halfway down Harlow street and taken in by an old man who had cooked a pan of ham and lentil soup. It was served with great big cobs of bread made at the local bakery. I had never tasted anything like it and was told it was “scouse pea wack” and that’s what it has been to this day nearly 50 years later with me.
The vaults was the place where all the men could come and drink without any women or in their work clothes, beer was a penny a pint cheaper in the vaults too. The lounge was the place where the men in suits drank or where you took the missus on a Saturday night.
When Dad did a check around in the cellar he found lots and lots of crates of things like Cherry B and Babycham, these would not sell lots usually so he decided to try and promote them as a Sunday morning drink for the ladies. He told the men customers to bring their wives in for a Sunday lunch drink, He had just got in Draught Guiness so the special would be a Black velvet made with Draught Guiness and a Babycham. It went down really well, all the women really enjoyed the lunch time in the pub with their mates. When the men came back in for the evening they had smiles all over their faces. “ that was a cracking idea with the drinks for the missus, boss” “we got home and had dinner and she couldn’t wait to drag me upstairs” “Reckon we should christen them Bob’s leg openers in future” he made it a regular thing with a different baby bottle each week.
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