First visited : 1989
The Wheatsheaf is one of the three pubs right in the centre of Littleborough , commonly known as "The Square" though it's never really conformed to that description. The bus we needed to catch to get to the start of the walk set off from the far side of Halifax Road so we had to walk past it. Also part of the same building - the Roundhouse - was and is a small newsagents and we went in there to buy Tizer and Space Dust ( fortunately neither of us exploded ) .
The Roundhouse looks Georgian but was actually built in 1869 replacing an earlier version of the pub.
For a long time I consciously boycotted this pub because the landlord from 1976 was a guy called Moss who had two sons in special education and they were both deeply unpleasant towards me ( I dread to think what they're up to now ) . There was no way I was giving them any custom. I then had a dilemna in 1989 when the pool team I was playing in decided to decamp to The Wheatsheaf instead ( the full story to come in another post very shortly ). I therefore had to go in - in fact Moss had gone by that time - but my heart was never really in it there and I only stayed for one season.
Inside it was rather dingy. With its size and location it should have been really smart but perhaps the proximity of other pubs deterred investment.
I think the next time I went in was April 1995 for a blind date about which I wasn't at all enthusiastic. Not only was she a bit older than I wanted , she actually lived in Littleborough which didn't appeal either - I didn't want to bump into any of these girls again if it didn't work out. Nor did I particularly want to meet in The Wheatsheaf but she had made the effort to phone me so I agreed. It wasn't a success. Not only was she a single mother with kids and zero in common with me, she was the daughter of a farmer I'd crossed swords with over footpath matters although, thinking about it now, the fact she didn't live at his farm despite its size suggests she didn't like him much either. To make things worse a guy who I vaguely recognised from my usual pub spent all evening glaring at us - I guess it was "How dare that weedy guy have a woman and not me ?" I survived unscathed but we never hooked up again. I once passed her on the street and there was a quick exchange of recognition. I later heard that one of her kids had been run over ; I hope he/she recovered.
Shortly after that the pub quiz team I'd been in disbanded as my mum was the only member who wanted to continue. However, once the new season got started my friend Mark asked me to fill in for someone on The Wheatsheaf's team. As is the way with these things I ended up playing more often than not. My mum understandably wasn't too happy at this result so the following year when I had college on a Monday night I suggested she take my place. She played for them for a season so probably my last visit was in 1997 to take her home. On one occasion they'd been wound up by a young scrote in the pub and her team-mate Gordon, normally a genial guy of around 50, had completely lost it and run out after him and they were fighting in the street. My friend Sean ( mentioned in my other blogs ) and his mate who were just passing by broke it up ( I suspect his mate took the lead in that ) and he was very amused to find my mum sort-of involved.
At the time of writing it's just re-opened after a long time shut and has finally been spruced up a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment