First visited : circa 1989
This second clutch of pubs was recorded in the book the following week when Patrick and I , now accompanied by a third schoolmate, Steve Meehan, went to Bolton Museum. As this entailed catching two buses through three towns it is a much larger batch. It's also quite probable that, frantically recording them on a fast bus ( the 400 between Rochdale and Bolton was a limited stop ) we missed one or two out.
The first few were still in Littleborough and the first was The Queen's on the left hand side of the A58 just after leaving the square. The Queen's is a fairly small high street pub nestling up to the Yorkshire Bank. It has an 1861 datestone.
I first went in around 1989. As previously described the old pool room gang in the Red Lion began to dissolve that year. The sandwich dispute was one factor ; another was one of the girlfriends cheating and getting slung out by her guy. We also had to contend with an arrogant young wanker coming over from Ripponden on the bus and putting his initials on the board. None of us engaged with him but he didn't take the hint and eventually set up a new pool team for Dave.
Sean started drinking in the Queen's instead and invited me to join him for a one-off quiz with a young couple he knew from there. Inside it was quite friendly and welcoming which was a nice surprise. We did well in the quiz but what I remember most was his friend's wife writing down the answers and her spelling being absolutely atrocious. I was appalled when I realised she was a teacher !
Another regular at the Queen's at that time was the chairman of the Littleborough Historical Society, Alan Luke. As I'm referencing his book A History Of Littleborough Pubs ( albeit the substantially extended version published thirteen years after his death ) and he was probably a big influence on my starting the list in the first place he deserves a word or two. Alan was a teacher by profession ( not at my school though ) and very keen to encourage my interest in local history when I joined the society in 1977. Earlier in 1978 we'd written a history trail together which had the unfortunate by-product of ending my association with Brian Clarke's son ( see previous post ) as he lost interest in the project early on. After that, my interest in the Historical Society ebbed over the years according to what else was going on but after starting to attend their public meetings once again in 1988 I agreed to go on their committee and saw him more regularly .
I noted a bit of a change in Alan. He was a bachelor who still lived with his mother and in middle age he was starting to acquire an air of self-importance and crankiness, speculating on the existence of Bronze Age barrows in Littleborough on the scantiest of evidence. Sean himself described him as "a funny bloke". When he led the society into renting a town centre building for a museum on a very shaky financial prospectus I made good my escape and resigned, wishing them well in 1992. Besides the finances I was worried about his health. He was a bit overweight , smoked heavily and liked a drink or two although I never saw him blind drunk. My worst fears were realised just months later when he collapsed at a school assembly and died the same day. I went to his memorial service, a sad occasion marred by a rather self-serving address from his headmistress who seemed to be using the occasion to advertise the school's prowess in technology. Sadly the museum had to close not long afterwards and the society was taken over by his sister's family, none of whom I regard as highly as Alan himself but at least they keep his memory alive.
Sean's frequenting of The Queen's also led to an enjoyable annual challenge football match between a team picked by him and a Red Lion XI led by me ( or else I would never have been in the team ! ) and largely made up of Giddins lads . The series of games ran from 1989 to 1993 and I won it 4-1, Sean's lone triumph coming in 1992. We tried it in 1994 but could barely raise 10 players between us. Fortunately I had an inkling I might be short and asked my friend Mark from the Rochdale Supporter's team to come with a couple of players. Instead he brought 10 so I ended up playing on the same side as Sean against them, going down to a narrow defeat. Some months later we had a sort of return game in Rochdale but without the Giddins lads involved we went down 28-2 and I've never attempted to play football since.
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